Why was P&G so enamored by Gail Kobe’s work on Texas (a failed soap, which did seem to get better by the end granted, but still a failed soap)? Look at the massacre she went on to inflict at GL.

 

It’s amazing that the show lived on for so long after this and even had brief renaissances. 

15 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Why was P&G so enamored by Gail Kobe’s work on Texas (a failed soap, which did seem to get better by the end granted, but still a failed soap)? Look at the massacre she went on to inflict at GL.

 

It’s amazing that the show lived on for so long after this and even had brief renaissances. 

 

That is something I never got with this genre. People who tanked shows were always rewarded with another show to kill. 

 

Kreizman finished off GL and them was rewarded ATWT and then AMC. 

 

Guza, Pratt, and JFP's resume are LONG in this category. 

 

Jean was horrid at AW and AMC. She was then rewarded ATWT, OLTL (again), GH (twice), and Y&R. 

 

Josh Griffith has flopped all over daytime.

 

We'd be here all day long going over the flops being rewarded show after show.

 

This really has to be because they either want to kill this genre off or are too scared to invest in new writers. 

6 minutes ago, NothinButAttitude said:

 

That is something I never got with this genre. People who tanked shows were always rewarded with another show to kill. 

 

Kreizman finished off GL and them was rewarded ATWT and then AMC. 

 

Guza, Pratt, and JFP's resume are LONG in this category. 

 

Jean was horrid at AW and AMC. She was then rewarded ATWT, OLTL (again), GH (twice), and Y&R. 

 

Josh Griffith has flopped all over daytime.

 

We'd be here all day long going over the flops being rewarded show after show.

 

This really has to be because they either want to kill this genre off or are too scared to invest in new writers. 

 

I think it's a fear of investing in new writers and wanting to kill the other genre slowly..so both.

 

And only reason Texas improved at the end was due to Pam Long.. not Kobe.   Long worked well with Calhoun as EP... and also when she had a good co handwrite (Cullitons in 83 to 84, and Curlee on 88 to 90).  

15 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

That's an odd mix for the cast shots. I think I see the last Tim recast. I thought he was also gone by this time. 

 

Nigel Reed (the final and by far the weakest TJ) aired into 1982, but I think he was gone by the end of the year.

 

15 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

Most of them didn't seem to want to go. Some of the firings, like Tom O'Rourke, will forever puzzle me. It's as if someone at P&G saw a greenlight to plow through the cast for shiny new objects...not having the common sense to see that most of these objects would not stay long-term and that many fans would not support or accept these choices. GL was very lucky to stay on the air. 

 

ITA. The show was totally hacked to pieces by incompetent and clueless PTB, and after 1984 did not even feel like TGL anymore. It was devastating to see the destruction, because for decades it had been a very consistent and consistently well-done soap. Suddenly we had irrelevant and often annoying newbies hogging all the airtime while our favorites were gone. And the painfully-stupid,low-brow camp storylines made it even worse.

 

Quote

 

I will never get past how eerie it is to see Jerry ver Dorn doing the goodbye for Charita Bauer. The man had been on the show for 5 years yet he was the senior cast member! Insane. And if viewers, and presumably cast and crew, had not taken Jerry into their hearts so quickly, he likely would have been gone too. 

 

I loved JvD and Ross, and was glad he did the tribute from the available cast members, but it should have been done by Don Stewart. Mike should have appeared on screen for the funeral service. What a slap in the face it was to Charita Bauer, Bert Bauer, and longtime fans that the show threw together such a pathetic funeral for the character. No Mike. No Hope. No Meta. No Steve Jackson. No Peggy Scott. No Sara. But Warren Andrews, whom Bert LOATHED, was there mourning for her in the Bauer living room, looking grief-stricken? WTF? Hell NO! It was a mess.

 

7 hours ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

Is it possible this is the wrong opening credits for this episode?  Maybe someone just edited it into the video?  Is there a GL expert here, who can verify all those characters were still on the show in 1982?

 

Yes, they were still on the show in 1982, but most would leave either in 1983 or 84.

 

7 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

And they're in them until at least March 1983. I guess these must have been stock credits they didn't want to bother changing...

 

 

 

Many actors were dropped before the credits finally changed.

 

2 hours ago, MichaelGL said:

I can only confirm with the last question that Sara indeed had been minimized on the show for her last year or so. Not sure how she was written out though.

 

Sara announced that she was going out of town to attend an extended medical conference/study and would be gone for three months. She never returned and was never mentioned again as far as I know.

54 minutes ago, Neil Johnson said:

 

I still find it hard to believe that both Mike and Hope Bauer were written off the show around 1984, and none of the subsequent writers thought it might be a good idea to bring either of them back to town.  The Bauers were such an interesting flawed core-family, surely they would have been wonderful to write for.  They weren't perfect like the Hughes or the Matthews.   

 

Gail Kobe acknowledged that writing out the Bauers had been so widely unpopular that viewers should expect to see Mike and Hope back on the show, but Kobe was replaced and the Bauers never came back.

Edited May 3, 20205 yr by vetsoapfan

1 hour ago, BetterForgotten said:

Why was P&G so enamored by Gail Kobe’s work on Texas (a failed soap, which did seem to get better by the end granted, but still a failed soap)? Look at the massacre she went on to inflict at GL.

 

It’s amazing that the show lived on for so long after this and even had brief renaissances. 

 

P&G constantly did that with producers.  In 1984, Edge of Night is cancelled, so P&G hires Erwin Nicholson as executive producer of Search for Tomorrow.  In 1999, Another World is cancelled, so P&G hires Christopher Goutman as executive producer of As the World Turns and leaves him in the job for 11 years.  He has the distinction of being the executive producer of two of daytime's longest running soaps at the time of their cancellation.

6 minutes ago, watson71 said:

P&G constantly did that with producers.  In 1984, Edge of Night is cancelled, so P&G hires Erwin Nicholson as executive producer of Search for Tomorrow.  In 1999, Another World is cancelled, so P&G hires Christopher Goutman as executive producer of As the World Turns and leaves him in the job for 11 years.  He has the distinction of being the executive producer of two of daytime's longest running soaps at the time of their cancellation.

 

They did want to get out of the business after all...

killing boring Maureen Bauer (and she WAS boring) is controversial. She was killed because of a focus group who thought she was boring and JFP agreed. 

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

Gail Kobe acknowledged that writing out the Bauers had been so widely unpopular that viewers should expect to see Mike and Hope back on the show, but Kobe was replaced and the Bauers never came back.

 

That's a shame. I do wonder if they would have recast them both...

 

Not to go off topic but if Maureen Garrett ever does another of those chats I hope someone will ask her about the "Children's Hour" type lesbian story that someone (was it Labine?) supposedly wanted her to do. 

 

22 hours ago, DRW50 said:

 

The most I remember is Chris Schemering's book saying the ratings rose by a million viewers during her tenure. I think she may have been the one who aged Philip and they recast him with Grant Aleksander, but I'm not sure. There are a few March 1983 episodes on Youtube but they seem to be after her departure.

L. Virginia Browne and Gene Palumbo were at Guiding Light from around December 1982 to March 1983. They aged Phillip and Rick, and wrote out Sara, Gracie, Jennifer, Tim, and Ivy. They introduced a number of new characters: Matt Davenport, a doctor who was involved with Maureen in New York; nurse Helen Tynan and her son Clay; and ballerina Susannah who was a romantic interest for Tony. I think Clay was friends with Rick and Phillip. At some point, Rick and Phillip became friends with Morgan.

 

According to an interview with Browne on the Another World Home Page, she said that Scherming said GL went into a slump when she took over as head writer but that she took the show from 8th to 3rd in the ratings while she was there. She claims she was fired after Gail Kobe replaced Allen Potter. She claims that GL continued to use her bible and kept her credited as head writer for another 9 months. Not true at all. As the credits from the March episodes on YouTube show, she was out of the credits by March 1983. She makes similar false claims about Another World crediting her as head writer after she had departed.

2 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

 

 

Best Emmy reel in the supporting category of the 90's, IMO. Even Kimberlin Brown and her overhyped story on Y&R couldn't compare to this in the end. 

Just now, BetterForgotten said:

 

Best Emmy reel in the supporting category of the 90's, IMO. Even Kimberlin Brown and her overhyped story on Y&R couldn't compare to this in the end. 

She’s wonderful. And the writing is sensational. I watched just to recall Ellen’s great Emmy speech (“I’m dead! I’m dead!”), but I wound up watching the reel to the end. There’s not a false moment. Even the scene with her dropping the cups, which could have looked silly, is perfect.

7 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

 

Best Emmy reel in the supporting category of the 90's, IMO. Even Kimberlin Brown and her overhyped story on Y&R couldn't compare to this in the end. 

 

4 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

She’s wonderful. And the writing is sensational. I watched just to recall Ellen’s great Emmy speech (“I’m dead! I’m dead!”), but I wound up watching the reel to the end. There’s not a false moment. Even the scene with her dropping the cups, which could have looked silly, is perfect.

Easily one of the greatest set of soap scenes of all time, so representative of everything that this genre can do correctly. My personal favorite part is the slamming of the phone with no regard as to who was on the other end. The hurt, frustration, betrayal, etc. EP played it all pitch perfect, and Tina and Peter were no slouches either.

I know it's well established that Maureen carried on a torch from Bert, but these scenes are such an evolution. This is the type of stuff Bert would have said to Bill had they gone through their marriage woes during a different time.

Edited May 4, 20205 yr by All My Shadows

6 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

 

Best Emmy reel in the supporting category of the 90's, IMO. Even Kimberlin Brown and her overhyped story on Y&R couldn't compare to this in the end. 

Talk about a deserved win, and bittersweet.

 

It is so clear to me watching the show after the fact what a huge mistake that was.  I started watching as it was airing during the Annie storyline, then dropped in and out over the years.  When you watch the stuff from before 1994, it has so many good elements.

 

I watch soaps for both the exciting characters and the ones that are more normal and relatable.  I love Maureen, and Parker is fantastic.

Fun fact - Peter's real wife, Courtney Simon, wrote the dialogue for Ellen Parker's Emmy reel and regularly cites it as the best work she ever wrote in daytime on her Twitter feed. And Nancy Curlee herself wrote many of the breakdowns for the episodes leading up to Maureen's demise. 

Edited May 4, 20205 yr by BetterForgotten