SOD's excerpt from Carolyn Hinsey's new book

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Turn The Page

Longtime Digest columnist Carolyn Hinsey has written a book called "Afternoon Delight: Why Soaps Still Matter", slated for release this month from 4th Street Media. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 12, titled "Naming Names." Uh oh....

Bye Bye Bauers

The final domino for GUIDING LIGHT came in the form of a sleepy little New Jersey town called Peapack that knocked our beloved Springfield down for good.

On February 29th, 2008, Executive Producer Ellen Wheeler launched the new "production model" that was supposed to save GL. Her plan was to use hand-held camers, permanent sets and location shooting to revitalize this 70 year-old jewel.

"We all knew about the house in Peapack way before they told us about it," says a GL source of the home in New Jersey that would soon be used for much of the show's action. "I remember a general meeting with everybody where Ellen allowed people to ask questions. Someone said 'We're hearing rumors about a house the show has bought in New Jersey where we're all going to have to go work.' You could hear a pin drop. She said, 'No, that's not true at all.' Turned out we were just LEASING the house."

For some reason, Wheeler shrouded her Peapack plans in secrecy, keeping them even from CBS. "Everyone was going to [CBS Daytime honcho] Barbara Bloom and begging her to do something, but she turned a blind eye. And Ellen flatly refused to release the scripts to anyone. Ricky Paul [Goldin, Gus Aituro] didn't want anything to do with Peapack, so he quit." (Goldin joined ALL MY CHILDREN later that year as Tad's brother, Jake Martin.)

Wheeler filmed the first "location" episode on the sly with only a handful of people. Numerous actors spoke off the record of the debacle that followed, but true to daytime's protective atmosphere did not want to be quoted-even though their show isn't even on the air anymore.

"I remember we had a special airing of the first episode in the studio," recalls an actor. "They called everybody in and brought in lunch. We all sat there and watched this horrible episode. There was no storyline, they just placed people in different sets, like Josh and Billy on a work site with Remy. Everyone politely clapped and then we all filed out going, 'Oh, my God, what garbage.' Ellen was furious; it was like hell had frozen over. We found out later she wrote the episode herself."

Things went downhill from there, if you can imagine. Sources say that CBS honchos finally got a look at what Wheeler was doing and did not like what they saw. The shaky cameras and rough production values were bad enough, but viewers often could not hear the dialogue.

"Our days were numbered after that," sighs one source. "But Ellen just stayed in her tunnel and plowed ahead. We turned executive offices into nail salons and her office into a church sanctuary and shot everything with those awful hand-held cameras. She loved all the technical stuff. She was more invested in that than the actual storyline and characters on the show, which of course was the problem. Her attitude was, 'How dare they not buy into my vision?"

The cast had it the worst, changing their clothes on location shoots in cars and behind garages, and not getting proper hair, makeup, and wardrobe. Contrary to what fans were seeing on air, it was still supposed to be a soap opera.

"I can't tell you how humiliating it was out there. I remember one chilly day we were shooting a scene of Dinah and Mallet playing golf. It was supposed to be May, so Gina [Tognoni, Dinah] wasn't wearing a coat. She was freezing and got cranky. Ellen took off her giant down coat with the big label on it and said, 'Just wear this, it's fine.' I thought the costume designer was going to die. We'd all be out there and the director would ask a question and she'd say, 'Oh, the audience won't notice. They won't care.' but yes they will! They're invested! They care!"

GL limped along for over a year with the new "production model" as the writing - and morale - deteriorated.

"Fans just want to see their favorite characters in a well-written storyline," laments the source, who has gone on to work on another show. "They don't care if they're sitting in a real diner. They just want to see what happens to them."

GL was cancelled in March 2009.

"No show in daytime or prime-time, or anytime has touched so many millions of viewers over so many years," said CBS Daytime exec Barbara Bloom in a statement. She was later ousted.

The last episode aired on September 18, 2009, a full 72 years after Irna Phillips dreamed up her enduring vision of a light in the window to guide Reverend Ruthledge's flock.

"I don't think P&G willingly got out of the soap biz," surmises the source. "The people in charge just didn't understand why people watch soaps, which kills me because that was their whole thing - marketing and their connection to their buyers for 80 years. They lost contact with that."

[quartermainefan]

what an interesting recount.

Shame on everyone involved or not bothering to get involved, it was atrocious.

[shadow]

Wheeler sucked as an EP, and CBS and P&G shouldve nip that Peapock bullshiot after viewing the first eppy The fact that that they let it continue for so long leads me to believe they wanted GL to be cancelled.

[DRW50]

Does she say anything about how much she loves Thorsten Kaye, Alexa Havens, and Justin Bruening, and how if they were at AMC it would still be around?

[Michael]

If the book contains a lot more of this kind of info, I'll definitely be checking it out...

[DRW50]

As bad as Peapack was, I don't think it caused the show to get canceled. If anything I think the show would have just been canceled in 2008.

[Jonathan]

I wonder if was able to make last minute revisions to the book in light of the recent cancellations.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Don't know. SOD only printed this brief excerpt. The whole book isn't out yet but I'm sure there's something like that in there somewhere.

[~bl~]

Some people (like Kim Zimmer) have admitted that they wish GL had ended before they went to the production model.

The ratings after Peapack started full time, well it went down 25% in ratings in the 18-49 women's demo compared to the year before. That had to be part of the reason for such a big drop.

[DRW50]

I was just joking because when I used to read SOD I felt like I saw that every week or every other week in her columns.

Thanks for sharing this with us. I can definitely see where the Peapack stuff was mishandled and was the final nail in the coffin, and Wheeler should have done a better job of such an opportunity. It's more the stuff about shocked actors and the rest that I am surprised they're even treating as a big surprise - and a few actors did comment on it when the show was ending (but they were people who were just returning briefly and didn't have to stay quiet). Generally it seems like there was much more shock and horror at Wheeler's mistakes than at the many mistakes other producers have made that Hinsey and the soap press rarely seem to want to talk about.

But it's very interesting to read about. I hope at some point more actors will go on the record.

[YRBB]

Sounds interesting--I think I'll be checking this out!

[Eric83]

Wow. Changes wardrobe in cars? LMAO.

GL should have been canceled in 2004.

[Eric83]

Yes it did. It was still able to compete with AMC/OLTL/DAYS for a period of time in late 2007/early 2008 after it went to Peapack that's when they started hitting the 1.6s and 1.5s.

[DRW50]

Then the last episode would have been Jonathan yelling at us for an entire hour

It doesn't really matter who they competed with - P&G was done, and the stories were weak. ATWT never went Peapack and CBS/P&G still canceled it.

[juniorz1]

Well I knew that one because it's been widely reported....

Could Hinsey make it any more obvious that her source is Kim Zimmer?

I mean, every other actor that could have been a possibility (Goldin & Tognoni) are name dropped in quotes by the "source". Since she makes it clear that the "source" is currently working on another soap, all signs point to Zimmer. I HIGHLY doubt it's show killer Daniel Cosgrove.....