Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Mitch]

I actually like Buzz at first when he was a pain in the ass, stuck out like a sore thumb oddball conman...that was what he was and people called him out...(I remember him working at Lewis and acting like he was on a business call and Van calming walking in and plugged the phone into the phone jack..."This might make your call clearer!"  It was when Buzz was this great romantic lead , with poor Jenna being grabbed constantly (Fiona would call an ape romantic if it ensured her airtime..)that I did not get at all. I also thought Deas worked as a tired older guy who had was a bit jaded but wanted to help other people and Deas was good with the younger even terrible actors...(Jesse Blu,,thats who...) But when budget cuts came and they cut Ed and Ross to make Deas the patriarch...totally wrong choice..

 

Its too bad that they didnt bring RM back as a jaded Hope ready to battle Alan..though I think RM would walk all over RR.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Mitch

[InLoveWithSoaps]

Do you think Deas could have worked as an Ed recast given recent discussion about the Ed's and the fact Deas' arrival meant Maureen's death? Might have kept her alive and fire PS instead. It's one thing I've wondered watching the excellent early 1994 episodes.

[prefab1]

Maybe in 1984, when Simon first left the show, Deas could have worked as his replacement. But I can't imagine Deas playing any of the material that Simon got in the 1990s. He'd make no sense with Maureen, and I couldn't picture him in scenes with Holly and Roger. (Although of course Buzz did end up marrying Ed's affair partner Lillian in the final weeks of GL).

[DRW50]

 

Buzz also had his share of story with Roger (during the Jenna/Roger marriage from hell) and later Holly (that weird "let's put characters together if they're the same age and we don't want to write for them" triangle she had with Buzz and Billy).

 

I thought Peter Simon did a good job with Maureen's death and with the later Eve relationship, but I wouldn't have been outraged if he'd been recast. 

[Mitch]

Unfortunately, it was one of the writers at the time who LOVED Buzz and really (the writer admitted it) worked out some of his daddy issues with the character..so no way would they have cast him as Ed..which would have been weird, to say the least. (Funny they cast him as Papa Bauer in the anniversary show.)

 

I like that Marcy Walker kind of called him out as being self indulgent in his acting on GL, and that was a good word for it. I liked him better later as support in later years when he calmed the hell down...(I read that a director told him to do just that and he got pissed and started phoning it in.)

 

GL started out as a patriarch led show with Papa, and it would have been interesting if in later years they used that as the theme, with Ross (good patriarch) Ed (conflicted patriarch) Buzz (jaded patriarch) and Alan (bad patriarch) which what Mary Ann Caruthers...kinda sorta did but it was a mess.

 

 

 

 

[Soaplovers]

I always loved someone playing the matriarch game..but I love the designated patriarch roles you assigned to the men @Mitch

 

Do you guys think Eve/Ed was always planned..or do you think the actors having chemistry made the writers opt to pair them?

 

And Rachel Miner so could have played the wild uninhibited abandon of Michelle.  She lost the only mom she ever knew (Maureen) and then her future step mom that she grew to like (Eve) within a few years time.  Heck, I think 1995/6 would have been the time to bring Claire back.  Maybe playing a tug of war with Claire over Michelle might have enticed Peter Simon to remain instead of quit.  Who knows 

[Mitch]

 

Matriarch...I think we had our matriarchs...Aunt Meta...Grandmother town matriarch...Van...no nonsense firm matriarch..and Reva..well, she can't really be one, but she is more Crazy Aunt.

 

I think maybe JFP had to give Simon story, and she was on the hot seat for the death of Mo..so she thought she would throw everyone a bone...("See, I have a new younger Bauer matriarch.)

 

I love the idea of bringing Claire back..I thought they were going there when the brought Nola back (talk about Crazy Aunt)  that she would try (and fail as only Nola can do) to be Chelle's mother figure..but they never focused Nola's relationship to Chelle (even having Chelle call her aunt "Mrs. Chamberline" Having Chelle spend time with Nola and become a bit more offbeat.( I would have had her spend a few months of camera with Nola and then when she comes back it would give us a transition from mourning dour daddy's girl Chelle ) it.would give Ed even more reason to purse his lips but bringing Claire back and Ed dealing with her, and Nola and Claire going at it..would be fun. The end result would be the only person who understands Chelle is the one who doesn't talk down to her..Holly.

 

Speaking of Nola, I was always sorry they let Brown off contract. Being in the boardinghouse would give her the perfect opportunity to counsel the young people arriving in town (plus give Brown, who was their acting coach,  actual scenes to work with them) kind of like Marland had Lisa be the mother hen of all the young people and especially any bad girls who came to town.  The problem with the show postMADD is that all they were worried about was the A story (which always had to be Reva) and not the B and C stories and the supporting players.

 

 

 

 

[prefab1]

I think it's too bad that no one tried to get Melissa Hayden back as Bridget (at least, not until the final episodes, when they also brought Nola back). The Reardon boarding house actually would have been the ideal set for the later years of the show; it could have been a lower-rent counterpart to the hotel where half of the cast seemed to live. And it would have been great to have Bridget running it and mixing it up with characters like Vanessa and her brother Matt. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

 

Technically the boarding house was still part of the show, and Buzz ran it.  For the most part, Company was featured, but occasionally they would show characters living in the boarding house and show their room(s).  

[DRW50]

I may be wrong but I could swear Tina Sloan said at one point that GL planned to pair Lillian/Ed after Maureen's death, but the backlash was so vociferous that they realized it couldn't happen. So, combined with the "psycho Eve" story and the Mindy/Nick pairing tanking, I wonder if they put two and two together. 

[titan1978]

I didn’t start checking the show out until the Annie Dutton story, and then this year I watched as much of the Curlee/Demorest and company I could find. So Buzz was really annoying to me back then, but there are moments when he first arrived that I do enjoy. I think loosing Nadine really did the Coopers a lot of damage.  She is just a delightful character.  She’s a mess, and I really like her, and it was a shame that they killed her off and from what I read nobody in town even knew for months?  What a shame.

Edited September 12, 2020 by titan1978

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Sometimes Nadine could be incredibly selfish and self-absorbed beyond belief and you wanted to scream at her. Then there were other times when she could be the salt of the earth, showing such generosity, you just wanted to hug her. Jean Carol was so utterly convincing that it was easy to believe that the two people cout exist in the same person. That dynamic owes much to the skill, talent and commitment of Carol. Nadine could've easily been the model for a new type of matriarch but we all know what GL was doing to matriarchs at that time.

[Mitch]

I always thought maybe Ed and Nadine could have been fun..for a bit. She might have made old sour puss smile...(and I would love for Rick to come down to the kitchen in the morning and Nadine is there in a leopard skin nightgown trying to fix toast!)

[victoria foxton]

 Ed and Nadine would've been fun. Instead poor Nadine was stuck with Buzzard. 

[Paul Raven]

Nov 1982

Guiding Light' loses another head writer BY LYNDA HIRSCH

A LITTLE OVER a month ago, Pat Falken Smith was hired to replace Doug Marland as head writer of "The Guiding Light," after Marland quit the show due to less-than-cordial relations with the show's producer, Alan Potter. Last week, Falken Smith was removed from the post with the official word being "it just didn't work out." L. Virginia Browne, who spent nine months as one of Marland's writers on "Guiding Light," takes over head writing duties, with her first work showing up on the air Nov. 29. It is believed some characters will be written out in the next few months, but there's no word on who. Most likely, Browne will return to many of Mar-land's storylines as well as instituting a few of her. own. But first she must clear up the plots that Falken Smith started. Browne did an excellent job when she served as head writer for "Another World" a while back; she managed to bring many characters together in strong central units, and produced witty, down-to-earth dialogue