Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[P.J.]

Ugh...right? At least if Chris Bernau had been able to continue in the role, it would've been intriguing to watch Alan manipulate Reva.

[DeeVee]

I don't remember that. What I recall is Alan living at Revabend, working as a farm hand and listening to Reva b!tch about money. Truly, I felt sorry for Pilon having to play that.

Please register in order to view this content

[P.J.]

Well, I can't help but think it would've been written different with CB still there

[DeeVee]

I keep forgetting a huge chunk of that year was written by scabs.

You're probably right, because by the time the strike was over, they were likely planning an exit for Alan's character as it must have been obvious by then that Bernau was not going to return. If he was still there, it's also doubtful they would have approached MZ and MG about coming back. Wild.

[P.J.]

In that way, at least we were fortunate.  The Daniel Pilon/Ron Raines decisions...not so much.

[DeeVee]

Again, Bernau's illness impacted that. It's pretty obvious Pilon was always meant to be temporary. I read an article from that period that said he was working on both Ryan's Hope and GL at the same time. So he wasn't on contract for either show. (Maybe that explains somewhat why his performance was so low energy, because he was overworked doing two soaps).

Later, they put him in the opening and in commercials for the show. That must have been because they were certain Bernau was not returning. Around that time, they approached Zaslow about being the permanent replacement for Bernau. He turned them down and suggested coming back as Roger.

Pilon stayed so they could re-introduce Roger and write an exit for Alan. I'm guessing if MZ had not wanted to come back, they would have had no choice but to keep Pilon (which I don't think they wanted, or maybe Pilon wasn't interested) or send out a casting call for a new Alan. I think they wanted to avoid that because they were really determined not to let the nature of Bernau's illness to become public knowledge. At this point, they were still keepin up the fiction that he was going to return even while this stuff was happening BTS.

 

Yeah, it seems crazy now, but people forget how stigmatized AIDS was back then. I'm convinced the idea to ask Zaslow to take the role came about so they could replace Bernau as quietly as possible. Everyone would have been so surprised it would have taken the focus off Bernau not returning. It makes a kind of twisted sense. Still, thank goodness Zazlow said no and they said yes to his suggestion to return as Roger.

The way everything worked out gave GL a few more strong years. I guess it's the nature of soaps, you never know what things in real life will end up strongly impacting the show, both negatively and positively.

(Something just occurred to me. If Zazlow HAD said yes to playing Alan...he would have had to play being in love with Reva.

Please register in order to view this content

)

Edited 9 hours ago by DeeVee

[SanCristobelsFinest]

I understand that no one could ever replace Bernau, but Ron Raines is somewhat of a different beast. Still great (to me) though. He spent his entire TV run in one role, that was impossible to do justice correctly. 

[j swift]

Brittany Snow is on Las Cultch.  

She talks briefly about working with Hayden Panettiere and mentions that Laura-Bell Bundy "saved her ass", but no details.  It sounds like being a kid on a New York soap was a wild time.

[Soaplovers]

In regards to Long's 2nd stint, it appears as though she officially came back as head-writer between the 4th of July/Bauer Barbeque episodes 1987 and mid August 1987.. and then between April and September 1988 were episodes written by the scabs.  I almost count her having 3 stints head-writing Guiding Light since the writer strike lasted five months.

In her 2nd stint, she seemed focused on the following:

- Sonni returning from the dead thus keeping Reva/Josh apart yet again so she naturally turns to Alan and causes the ending of the Vanessa/Alan relationship.   I wonder if Maeve's decision to leave affected some of this because she was gone by January 1988, a few months after Long's return so she had to come up with a way to get Vanessa to take off (and it was to be there for Billy during a low point if I recall).

- Phillip/Chelsea were pretty heavily focused on during this 2nd stint period and I liked their rapport.

- A lesser focused story in the background was the Lillian/Hawk/Sarah situation

- Formulating her next version of the 4 Muskateers with Cam/Dinah/Harley/Alan Michael... but in order to include a more rough around the edges Harley.. Dinah was softened quite a bit (though I did see a cat fight between Harley/Dinah where Dinah belted Harley so I think Turco could have played an edgier Dinah).

- There also seemed to be a Spaulding takeover going on with Phillip trying to oust Alan.. and it affected his relationship with Chelsea.

Post-writer strike, I noticed that the Phillip/Harley arc kicked into gear with him pretending to be 'my fair lady' with Harley.. but trying to set it up to look as though they were sleeping together.  That arc plus the aftermath of Maeve's death were what Long started when she came back after the strike.

I don't know how the Alan/Reva situation would have gone had CB remained in the role and if the writer strike hadn't happened.

[Mitch64]

Yea, at that time many people were complaining about replacing vet middle aged women with new character middle aged women...like Rauch and writers just ran out of ideas on how to write for anyone but that old bag Reva (sorry, loved Kimmer in her prime, but never understood why the ageist misogynist Rauch and Company made her goddess of love when her expiration date was long past...) We got Selena over Nola (but really so he could fire Fiona for their Zaz vendetta) and Carmen over Van.  But both Van and Nola got the last laugh, Van's wedding centering the last episodes and Nola returning for it and throwing a quick diss to the Coopers. 

 

 

[Mitch64]

Aubrey's Marina was great...but they wasted her...she could have been a new Nola (since she was living in the BH I would have had her find the N.R. + K.N. thing Nola carved in her bedroom...."I don't know who this girl was but she seems to be as unhappy as I am stuck here.") And have her set her cap for a good recast Shayne and take on the Old Bag Reva when she tries to interfere.."Oh please, I heard she was back in Oklahamo giving blow jobs behind the gas station, and she acts like she is Mother of the Year...God I hate her."  When they recast with that boring Kit girl and then...cutesy Mandy it was done.

I love the idea of Billy and Van bonding over hell on wheels Peter. and kicking **** to the curb.Billy went to prison to protect him from Roger but that was never mentioned when Billy returned. Peter and Aubrey's Marina would raise Hell together..do a Nolaredux  in that he bangs her, she gets preggers, passes that off as Shayne's with Ole Bag Reva suspicious...I could see Marina ringing a bell to get the Ole Bag to bring her some ice cream...."But Grandma...oh you hate that I am sorry, okay, Grammy, you know I can't be stressed and oh, Shayne would be mad if I lost the baby..."ah what could have been.

[DeeVee]

Great rundown of Long's second stint.

Now you got me wondering...and again, thinking how real life impacted the direction of the show. We were talking about how practically the minute Long landed back on GL, she wrecked Ross and Vanessa and threw Alan and Reva together. Soon after, Alan started pursuing Vanessa again (because he was SO afraid of the "real" feelings he was having for Reva for the first time in his life, LOL).

It's like she was determined to do an Alan/Vanessa/Somebody triangle at some point. She started one with Billy as the third side (well, actually, Alan was the third side) back in late 83/early 84 before Bernau exited GL the first time. So she had to drop it. But since Billy was gone this time, she seemed to decide, hey, I'll do it, only with Reva as the missing side of the triangle. Then Maeve left, messing that up!

So I wonder, would she have had Alan and Vanessa marry? Maybe not, but I doubt Vanessa would have taken kindly to being overthrown for Reva. Could have been done in a really humiliating way, like after the invitations went out or even at the wedding. Maybe she would have helped Phillip with his plot to dethrone Alan. Lots of interesting possiblities. 

I did like the way this story was handled. Chelsea was clearly more in love with Phillip than he was with her. Even "dead," no one could compete with Beth. So it was always doomed, but they showed how Phillip lost his way because he was obsessed with getting back at his dad.

I also thought the relationship between Alan and Chelsea was a little...strange. He was very much in favor of their relationship, even though she came from an even lower background than Beth's. She also always fiercely defended Alan. Which has made me wonder if--ick--one of the many writing teams was thinking about putting them together romantically.

(Of course, in my headcanon, where Alan has a youthful romance with the never seen Reardon sister, his fondness for Chelsea then makes perfect sense.)

I always wondered why they never thought of putting Chelsea with Rick, especially after they butted heads over the death of her fiance. Seemed like a no-brainer.

[j swift]

I asked my soap historian GPT to help pull together the best available sources on Daniel Pilon’s run, and here’s what the research confirms:

* Pilon played Max Dubujak on *Ryan’s Hope* from 1983–88.
* He began appearing as Alan Spaulding on *Guiding Light* in 1988.
* An academic source notes that he appeared as **Max and Alan simultaneously in November 1988
* His later-life interviews mention major upheavals, including losing his home in the Northridge earthquake and declaring bankruptcy in 1994. 

That’s the factual foundation.

Now for the human side of it. I’ll admit Pilon was never my favorite Alan. The Spauldings are supposed to have that patrician, Midwestern money vibe, and suddenly here comes this very European-sounding gentleman sweeping into Springfield like he wandered in from a different soap entirely. It created a strange tonal shift, at least in my memory.

Whether he was intended to be temporary is hard to pin down, but honestly, looking at what he was dealing with in his real life, I don’t know that the show ever had a truly stable window to figure it out. He was going through marital strife, while being talked about as the "next James Bond" back in Canada, and juggling work on two soaps at once is a lot. Under those circumstances, the question of whether he was the “right” type for Alan becomes almost secondary to the fact that he was working through multiple emergencies while stepping into one of GL’s biggest roles.

So for me, the story of his Alan isn’t just about casting fit. It’s about an actor navigating chaos and the show adapting on the fly.

Also, the proverbial soap hill that I would defend its honor, is that Ron Raines in the final week was so amazing, that for me, it erases all prior memories of his performance.

 

Edited 19 minutes ago by j swift