Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

I didn't know they'd done two stories about Sara having drugged tea/coffee. I guess it's a good thing she wasn't around in the roofie era.

I didn't think Joe died in the Kit story, I thought he died a few years later.

[Khan]

Ah, c'mon, Schemering, lay off the Mr. Big story. I thought it was great. (Even I don't think daytime should be "serious" all the time!)

[DRW50]

6/24/97 Digest

[Mitch]

I loved that story, I don't think it changed history that much, as by that time the Spauldings were supposed to have lived in SF forever etc. Plus it starred Mr. Tony Reardon! Still scratching my head why they let him go and stopped writing for the Reardons, and then tried to recreate that with the Coopers and Frankie D, a cheap Tony Reardon rip off. No way could he carry a "Hi YAAAH" with such power!!

[DRW50]

From what Harley Jane Kozak said in an interview a few years later, I think she and Beecroft chose to leave, although she wasn't thrilled about their exit (they just sort of went on vacation and never came back).

[DRW50]

Dates, courtesy Daytime TV.

Melinda Fee was "killed off" as Charlotte on 9/3/72. Lynne Adams returned as Leslie Bauer on 9/4, replacing Barbara Rodell.

[SFK]

Wait, wow, so that Lake Elizabeth story is what inspired the Maryanne Carruthers (<<Firefox wants me to change that word to "Catheters") story? The Simpsons did a similar episode, I'm forgetting what movie was the original source material.

[Khan]

Yes, along with "Miss Piper and the Cottage of Doom" (casting Carrie Nye, who'd played the shady real estate lady years before, as Carrie Caruthers) and the Roger/Rita "Hall of Mirrors" sequence (Marina, Marah and Michelle running around in a similar fun house at the story's climax).

Here's what I think: allegedly, Ellen Weston was HW in the sense that she'd pitch ideas for which the rest of her staff would do the actual "heavy lifting." I think Weston's idea for this story amounted to one sentence -- namely, "Marina, Marah and Michelle uncover a secret from Alan, Billy, Buzz, Ed, and Josh's pasts." That's all. And because the other writers were stumped as to how to make that idea work, they resorted to cherry-picking from their show's own history rather than scrapping the idea altogether.

Again, though, that's my theory.

[DRW50]

GL ad about 2:10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXW7M2ZqjPc

[rcsnj]

And with Harley Kozak in the Folgers ad!

[safe]

TV GUIDE/ February 25, 1989

Susan Pratt (Claire Ramsey) - Prattle Tale

Edited December 14, 2011 by safe

[DRW50]

I never knew Claire had a limp.

[Khan]

Neither did Susan Pratt, apparently.

As a character, Claire Ramsey was just all over the place. In a way, she was like Robin Strasser's, Dr. Christina Karras, on ALL MY CHILDREN. As valuable as she ended up being to the show's history, you just couldn't get a handle on what kind of person she was. I feel like if the show had made some definite choices before she hit town, instead of leaving her character somewhat ambiguous for the audience, Pratt's time there would have been more successful.

[DRW50]

I think GL was just a bad fit for Susan Pratt. She's not a very warm actress, and there were a slew of other women on GL at that time who could play cold/bitchy characters and give them some vulnerability. That wasn't as easy for her. And she was mainly in Bauer stories, at a time when the Bauers were at a very low ebb and most of the big stuff went to the Spauldings and the Lewises. One of the reasons someone like Michelle Forbes (also not the warmest actress) worked was because they threw her in with the "big" families of that era.

Edited December 14, 2011 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBoFPoGWatE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL