Wisner Washam interview

[quartermainefan]

wow, so it was ABC that forced the show to write off Tom? To was a good guy, I wish he would come back and take on a Joe Martin type role on the show.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

God, I love Wisner Washam.

He's not afraid to speak his mind, and he shouldn't be. It's about time someone in the business came out and publicly admitted what we've known for years about McTavish.

He speaks very highly of Lorraine though, calling her his "right hand man."

Too bad it seems like he's one of the many talents that network interference drove away. I wonder if they'll ask about his brief time at GL in the early 90's, which I'm sure he did as a favour to Broderick.

[DRW50]

I guess since Tom was older, ABC may have seen him as unworthy, especially since there were already several other men on the show in that age group with more storyline. This was also around the time that AMC started pushing more towards introducing another big teen set (which then did nothing to help the ratings, or actually made them lower). It sucks that they didn't keep Tom around in some capacity, as from what I've seen of him, the character worked as a moral compass/talk-to, whereas his absence helped pave the way for poor story choices like having young and selfish, unpleasant men in their 20s or 30s become these big moral voices, doing whatever they want yet having no time for others. That started when Jake fell out of that damn tree and it's been a burden ever since.

[DeeeDee]

RYAN!

[LoyaltoAMC]

When talking about Tom Cudahy, I think Washam meant the 80s. Washam was long gone when Richard Shoberg was let go in 1995, and Tom was still getting stories under McT in the 92-95 time frame. Tom didn't have much to do from 85 through 87. He was just sort of there. I guess they fought to keep him in any capacity during this era. He finally started getting story again in 1987 and was pretty active as a supporting actor through the end of his run.

[Paul Raven]

I think the doubling of the cast size,while understandable from Washam's pov ultimately did a lot of damage to AMC and other 60 min shows,as they lost sight of the core and characters who were totally removed from it got major stories- and things just drifted.

[ghfan89]

Isn't 1987 also when Broderick took over?

[EricMontreal22]

What a GREAT read. I love Agnes (obviously) but it's nice to finally hear someone actually bad mouth Megan and the way she was with people--not to mention much of her writing. When he left, the show still was in a good enough state to handle that (and maybe McTavish was running on the little inspiration she had).

What I think is most telling, is how different the writing scene for soaps was back then--the atmosphere, etc

[EricMontreal22]

Both Agnes and Bill Bell fought very very hard not to have their shows extended to an hour... I kinda think, in hindsight, they were right (as much as Harding Lemay's fact that he could write a one act play a day with an hour soap, holds true).

Re focus groups. I know the networks are engrained in that way of thinking, now, but I always wonder what would happen if a maverick head of network came in and just tried to buy pilots, keep shows, etc, based on what he or she thought was *good*--no focus groups, no nothing. I suspect it'd do at least as well.

[LoyaltoAMC]

Yeah. Washam and Broderick shared HW duties and got a co-HW credit from the fall of 1986 through later summer 1987, when Broderick went solo. What surprised me is that Washam was fired. For some reason, I always thought that he left of his own choice.

[EricMontreal22]

I didn't get the impression from that he was fired, per se... Demoted, I suppose?

[LoyaltoAMC]

He said that he was given the gate in favor of Lorraine. He and Lorraine shared HW duties during the summer of 87 when the show shot to number 2. You'd think he would've been rewarded for that, but instead he was given the axe. I guess his 84-87 history with the show saw significant viewer defection and he was axed for his overall pattern of declining ratings.

[EricMontreal22]

Oh sorry--I assumed he meant he stayed as consultant after that.

The ratings were falling by the second half of the 80s, as you say...

[ghfan89]

I definately noticed a drastic change circa 1992 when Washam left and Megan Mctavish took over. The whole atmosphere changed after the Will Cortlandt murder storyline.

[Jonathan]

Speaking your mind is not easy to do. Wisner can do it because he's no longer in the daytime fold but Agnes won't because she's still involved. You wouldn't want to badmouth someone and then 6 months later your working side by side. It would be awkward.