As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[j swift]

Was Kingsley-Malta a Marland creation?  I recall endless dialogue about the care and treatment of the Kingsley-Malta account.

[John]

Head writers[edit]

Duration	Name
1956–1965	Irna Phillips
1965–1966	Irna Phillips and William J. Bell
1966–1970	Katherine Babecki
1970	Joe Kane and Ralph Ellis
1970	Winifred Wolfe
1970	Katherine L. Phillips
1971	Winifred Wolfe and Warren Swanson
1971	Warren Swanson, Elizabeth Tillman, and John Boruff
1971–1973	David Lesan and Irna Phillips
July 1973 – 1978	Robert Soderberg and Edith Sommer
1979-November 6, 1979	Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt
Late 1979	Douglas Marland (13 weeks, before moving to Guiding Light)
January 7, 1980 – 1981	Bridget and Jerome Dobson
1981	Paul Roberts
1981	Tom King
1981	K.C. Collier
1981	Jean Rouverol, Chuck & Patti Dizenzo, David Cherill, and Tom King
1982–1983	Bridget and Jerome Dobson
1983	Caroline Franz and John Saffron
Mid-1983–1984	John Saffron
1984 – November 1984	Tom King and Millee Taggart
November 1984 – April 1985	Cynthia Benjamin and Susan Bedsow Horgan
April 1985 – November 1985	Susan Bedsow Horgan
November 1985 – April 1993	Douglas Marland (died) (Robert Calhoun during 1988 WGA strike)
April 1993 – January 1995	Juliet Law Packer and Richard Backus
January 1995	Juliet Law Packer, Garin Wolf, and Richard Culliton
January 1995 - January 31, 1996	Richard Culliton (Fired)
February 1996 – December 1996	Stephen Black and Henry Stern (Fired)
December 1996 – May 1997	Stephen Demorest, Mel Brez, and Addie Walsh
May 1997 – fall 1997	Jessica Klein
Fall 1997	Stephen Demorest, Mel Brez, and Addie Walsh
December 1997– February 1998	Addie Walsh
February 1998 – June 1999	Lorraine Broderick, Hal Corley, and Addie Walsh (co-headwriters)
June 1999 – June 12, 2000	Leah Laiman and Carolyn Culliton (co-headwriter)
June 13, 2000 – July 2001	Hogan Sheffer, Carolyn Culliton, Hal Corley, and Stephen Demorest (co-headwriters)
July 16, 2001 – September 2002	Hogan Sheffer, Jean Passanante, and Carolyn Culliton
September 2002 – May 24, 2005	Hogan Sheffer and Jean Passanante
May 25, 2005 – October 17, 2007	Jean Passanante, Leah Laiman, and Christopher Whitesell
October 2007 – January 24, 2008	Jean Passanante and Leah Laiman
January 25, 2008 – April 17, 2008	Christopher Goutman (2007 WGA strike)
April 18, 2008 - October 5, 2009	Jean Passanante and Leah Laiman
October 6, 2009 - June 4, 2010	Jean Passanante and David Kreizman
June 7 - September 17, 2010	Jean Passanante and Lloyd Gold

Executive producers[edit]

Duration	Name
1956–1965	Ted Corday
1965–1971	Mary Harris
1971–1973	Fred Bartholomew
1973–1978	Joe Willmore
1978–1980	Joe Rothenberger
1980 – fall 1981	Fred Bartholomew
Fall 1981 – October 1984	Mary-Ellis Bunim
October 1984 – October 1988	Robert Calhoun
October 1988 – May 1995	Laurence Caso
May 1995 – November 8, 1996	John Valente
November 11, 1996 – June 4, 1999	Felicia Minei Behr
June 7, 1999 – September 17, 2010	Christopher Goutman

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by John

[soapfan770]

 

It was, and we even were introduced to members of the Kingsley family to boot (I think if I recall right the daughter had a thing for Andy, who saved her from a car bomb)  right around the time Marland had passed away. 

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

Thanks John for that helpful writer/producer chart.

 

I watched from 1982 to 2008. I'd say the worst year in my opinion was 1996. The plane crash with Margo's PTSD; Barbara and John; Mike's siblings, with Lisa taking his sister Sarah under her wing; the whole Kasnof clan except for Mike were dreadful. The writing was terrible that year.

 

I loved Lorraine Broderick's stuff. Leah Laiman was terrible in my view. And they hired her back again later.

 

Passanante was headwriter for 9 years at the end. She was in charge too long. Kreizman and Gold had both been headwriters earlier in the decade on Guiding Light.

 

Interestingly Goutman had the longest run as executive producer.

[DRW50]

 

Didn't Rebecca Hollen play one of them?

[soapfan770]

 

Yep! Hollen appeared as Patricia Kingsley, and her husband had been murdered by Hans. Patricia if I recall right knew of Paul or something, and there was some throwaway lines of how Paul Ryan was the one to introduce Lily to Damien. Interestingly Paul never showed up in person although I wondered if they thought about bringing him back as a connection to the plot at some point. 

[Vee]

I still don't understand how or when John and Barbara happened or for how long. It just seems bizarre to me.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

They had already put Barbara with Hal twice and now she was in need of a new man again. John had recently gone through Lucinda and Iva plus there was his whole mess with Lisa. So the writers threw these two together I guess to give them something to do. It didn't make sense. I think Zenk and Bryggman liked acting together but Barbara and John did not really go together well as characters. There was a baby which died. She broke up with him and moved on.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

LOL. Yeah, the avatar is so 90s, that I loved it and couldn't resist.  I loved that Debbie Simon wore glasses, at least for awhile.

 

They had Sierra also return in '89 to reunite with Craig and then again in the mid 90s. Honestly, they should've kept this couple together and rather than messing with character trajectories, bring Rick Ryan to town in the early 2000s and have him create all the mischief that "Craig" ended up getting into in the show's last decade.

I would've been cool if they had brought back both Finn and Scott to reprise their roles, even briefly, in the show's last few years.  I would've loved to see the original actors interact.  One of the things I loved about ATWT as a kid was how they used to bring Penny on sometimes for special occasions. It's too bad that ATWT stopped doing that by the end of the 90s.

Had the show asked her to reprise her role, even for a brief story arc, if given the chance to work with Scott Bryce again, I doubt she'd turn them down but since they managed to fire Bryce, it doesn't seem that the show would've been interested in that approach.

 

@John Thanks for posting that.  I wish we could pin that somewhere so that it doesn't get lost in the run of the thread.

 

The size of the impact that Calhoun had as EP seems much larger than his four years. 

As for Goutman, I'm convinced that when an EP is bad yet is kept on for so long, it is merely because they're the ones that will ultimately put the show "to bed". 

[Paul Raven]

I

That writer list puzzles me in that Katherine Babecki is listed as headwriter from 1966 - 70.

Everything else I've read confirms that Irna was head writer through to early 1970, when she departed to work on A World Apart.

I wonder if Katherine Babecki is actually Irna's daughter Katherine Phillips and perhaps she was an assistant writer at that time.

Then Katherine Phillips is listed as a headwriter in 1970 when she and her mother were writing A World Apart,

I've only seen Joel (not Joe) Kane as headwriter in 1970, who was soon replaced by Winifred Wolfe who continued as hw until Irna returned late 71/early 72.

Never seen Rouverol &co listed as hw's in 81 unless they were short term until the Dobsons resumed.

[Soaplovers]

I think  Katherine Babecki  and Katherine Phillips were the same person.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I don't think it's fair to downplay Goutman's contributions. Procter & Gamble liked his work on 'Another World,' a soap he also quote put to bed. That's why he was brought over to ATWT. I actually think it was smart of him to bring Tom Eplin along from AW as Jake McKinnon. Though he shouldn't have let Hogan Sheffer kill Jake off in '02. The story threads and recurring characters that followed over from AW were ingenious-- they gave ATWT a richer tapestry and brought fans from NBC  to CBS, because I am sure Eplin's following was quite large or else they wouldn't have bothered crossing him over.

 

Compared to Ellen Wheeler (at GL) Goutman exercised great restraint in not altering the production model too much. He did some cheaper outdoor filming but mixed it in with the studio filming so it wasn't so noticeable.

 

I do think the reason we saw less of the over-50 vets was Goutman's doing, primarily because those people were not going to take pay cuts and so to make the budget stretch he had to decrease their appearances. Any executive producer would have been forced to do that to keep the show profitable for P&G.

[DramatistDreamer]

Oh, Goutman had a huge impact actually, so I wasn't downplaying it at all. It was a large and lasting impact.  He was there for at least a decade which was more than enough time to make a lasting impression and that, he did.

 

I was pointing out that Calhoun was there for only a few years and it is still surprising how much of an impact he had for a relatively brief tenure (in soap years anyway).

 

Part of what an EP does is not just cost cutting and budgets but in how the talent is managed.  I take the sum total in when I made the distinction.  I've worked with EPs who were strict but managed to treat everyone humanely.  You can't always say yes, but even if you part ways with talent, at least let it be done on relatively amicable terms.

Edited July 2, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[Paul Raven]

I read that ATWT had to take Eplin because his contract was with P&G not AW.

 

Otherwise he would have had to be paid after AW was cancelled until the contract expired.

 

So they had to integrate Jake to make their financial investment pay off.

 

The minute that contract expired Jake was out.

 

Am I correct about this??

[MichaelGL]

Calhoun had almost the same impact on GL. One can say he was the last great EP of the Proctor and Gamble soaps.