GH: Classic Thread

[j swift]

I don't know those numbers but by comparison, 83 million watched to see Who shot JR?, 14.2 million watched Lady Di's wedding to Prince Charles that year, and 20 million watched Betsy marry Steve on ATWT.  However, even those numbers may have been underestimated because Nielsen ratings were only counted by households at the time, they did not have the technology to measure individual viewers.  So, 30 million households watched, but there may have been 2-4 people in the house at the time.

 

A Trip Down Soap Lane Podcast did an episode this week about the start of Luke and Laura, and I had similar questions.  Was there more promotional support once Gloria Monty took over?  It went from #8 to #1, but I wonder if anyone took notice before they hit number one?  I also wonder how much press the original rape episode got? Because the iconic fact that Herb Alpert's Rise played in the background during the scene seems to be etched in my memory by soap press rather than actually watching the show at the time. 

Edited May 20, 2019 by j swift

[titan1978]

The song had a huge jump on the billboard chart due to useage on the show.

 

From wiki-

 

Jill Farren Phelps, musical director of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, decided to use "Rise" as the musical backdrop for the rape of Laura Webber by Luke Spencer. For several weeks afterward, the recording was played on the show to evoke the memory of Luke's act. The added exposure in an extremely popular program boosted sales to the point of selling more than one million copies.

 

The week the show hit number one was credited to the Alan/Monica/Rick/Lesley storyline hitting a peak.  Luke and Laura are credited with cementing that status and holding it until Genie left.  Other shows would get the top spot from time to time but GH stayed that way on the yearly charts until soon after Monty left in 1987, or near then.

 

The show took off relatively quickly, because they were going to give Monty 6 or 10 (I can’t remember exactly) weeks to save the show or let it go out with dignity.  Marland created great new characters, gave the existing ones Monty wanted to keep good stories and then she and Falken-Smith made it into a cultural phenomenon.

 

My what if has always been if Marland had stayed?  No left handed boy (which is where Luke and Laura really took off), no Diana murder, no Cassadines.

 

I think Falken-Smith really knocked what started before her out of the park!

 

Edited May 21, 2019 by titan1978

[j swift]

Thanks for finding that and answering my questions

 

It is an odd choice to use a modern jazz song for a scene about sexual assault at a disco, one would assume that JFP would have gone for something with more synth to it as was popular at the time in movies like Waiting for Mr. Goodbar and Midnight Express.

 

Meanwhile, I contend that the snippets of Christopher Cross's "Think of Laura" that was used as the buildup for Laura's return are better than the whole song.  It's a banger that needs to be re-mixed.  Those haunting whisper tones were iconic.  I recall that Mr. Cross was somehow opposed to the use of his song,  or just needed the clarification that it wasn't written expressly for GH, but it is an excellent use of music to set a theme (also it was totally convenient that the local stores on Cassadine Island had so many coats with hoods for Laura to skulk around in).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym64hGGWuRA

 

And General Hospi-tale, the comic rap based on Luke and Laura's Left Handed Statute storyline is my favorite soap-related media of the period (along with Young Doctors in Love which I think is underrated, especially compared to Soap Dish).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8EVkVp86-k

  

Edited May 21, 2019 by j swift

[Khan]

Too bad Doug Marland and Pat Falken Smith never collaborated on anything.  I think they might have made a terrific duo.

[BetterForgotten]

Pat Falken Smith intrigues me - she first gained success at DAYS, but she was largely following Bill Bell's outlines during her first stint there and her writing style was very much in Bell's vein. Flash forward to GH, where she and Monty took a vastly different approach (albeit, with some of the classic/traditional soap troupes) and she would later bring much of that same style back to DAYS with her at a later stint. We just won't talk about her stint at RH, a soap that was seemingly all wrong for her...

 

If one were to describe PFS's writing style, how would it it be described based on where she first gained notoriety (DAYS) to the peak of her career (GH) and everything else in between?

 

I do know before he died, Gordon Russell was supposed to transfer over to GH from OLTL. I wonder how he and Monty would have faired working together...

Edited May 21, 2019 by BetterForgotten

[j swift]

According to the podcast, Marland and Monty disagreed about the direction of Luke and Laura.  Falkin-Smith was responsible for so many of the romantic scenes between them, (dancing in the department store, etc..), that I wonder if they would have stayed together under Marland, or if any of the 90's "second-take" on the impact of Laura's rape would have been necessary.  Because, in hindsight, she inherited that part of the story and then needed to change course in order to move on so that they could work together to solve mysteries.

 

Certainly, when reviewing the history of the period, one can see that Marland was more concerned with explaining character motivation.  Which is why Luke and Laura spend so much time talking about their relationship before the Left-Handed boy adventure than they do for twenty years afterward.  Laura goes from a spunky/conflicted/impulsive girl to a damsel-in-distress that Luke puts on a pedestal.  Luke gets all of these monologues about how she's too good for him meanwhile, she almost went to reform school two years prior. Even the Alan/Rick/Leslie/Monica story takes a turn under PF-S.  It goes from two couples struggling with intimacy and commitment to Alan becoming super-villainous and trying to drop a nursery roof on Rick.  By the time Alexandra shows up, it is all plot with no time for explaining motivation or even how she is related to the rest of the family.  I am a fan of all of those stories.  I think her strength was the ability to use action/adventure as a backdrop for the evolution of a couple's romance, rather than letting a mystery take over the show.  If Marland was criticized for carrying on stories too long, then I think her pacing was great.  She was able to balance multiple stories and I think she introduced the seasonal summer storyline that was resolved by the time school started in the fall.  But it interesting to consider how a synthesis of the two styles could have benefitted the show.

 

I think it is odd that Monty hired her after fighting with Marland, considered that she had a reputation based on suing her bosses at Days.  

 

 

Edited May 21, 2019 by j swift

[titan1978]

I think Monty’s GH was at its best both times Falken-Smith was the head writer while she was EP.  First after Marland, then again when she introduced Anna and Robin in the mid 1980’s.  She really set the tone for what GH became when it blew up as far as story and style.  I think everyone that worked with Monty after that first stint was just trying to emulate what PFS did.  Marland was a much more traditional.

 

How do we pin her style down?  That earlier DAYS stint is just so different than her other work.  GH really was trying to be modern for the times.

 

She is a fantastic character creator.  The Cassadines, Roman Brady, Stefano, Anna Devane, Robin Scorpio etc.  She also wrote some of the most iconic umbrella storylines in GH and DAYS history- Salem Strangler, Left Handed boy, etc.

 

Sheri Anderson was on her writing team at both shows.  These people created the super couple formula (which could be bad when it was applied to every story, like on DAYS).

[j swift]

In my prior response, I totally forgot that was the Elizabeth Taylor week of shows ("I put a curse on you Luke and Laura..."), so that whole week was probably abnormally inflated.

 

Also, aren't those photos a funny reminder of how the female characters established iconic hair-dos?  Monica had her bun-with-tendrils look from 1977 until she met Ned at that spa, once Anna took off her scar she wore that half-up/poof for years and Gail always wore a short perm.

Edited May 21, 2019 by j swift

[carolineg]

So I was watching some old nurses balls and saw the face of the heart themes a lot.  Does anyone else find it strange it ended on Mac for a number of years?  Luke, Laura, The Q's were all spread out but there is Mac last.  It generally ended on a configuration of Brenda, Jax, Robin, Felicia, then Mac.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Pat Falken Smith has always been one of my favorite soap writers.

 

Where The Heart Is was a short-lived soap on CBS which ran from 1969 to 1973. When it premiered, it was written by Lou Scofield and Margaret DePriest, and to put it bluntly, it was quite tedious. DePriest has never struck me as anything other than colorless and bland. Her work on WTHI did not attract a significant audience, and I think viewers, after sampling the new-but-mediocre soap, never gave it another chance. This is a major shame because once Scofield and DePriest were axed, Pat Falken Smith took over the reigns, and the quality of the writing soared. The show became must-see daytime TV. (After PFL departed, we were treated to another great: Claire Labine, who was also at the height of her game.) Viewers may not have wanted to sample WTHI a second time after witnessing S&D's yawn-inducing material, but Falken Smith and Labine were both memorable on WTHI. Labine would later move on to Love of Life where she turned THAT series around completely.  With Pat Falken Smith and Claire Labine providing us with first-rate entertainment, WTHI deserved a better fate and a much-longer life. I wish more fans had been able to see it.

When Bill Bell negotiated out of his contract with Days of our Lives (to work on Y&R), he was contractually obliged to work on the yearly storyline bible for DAYS, but in an interview conducted in 1976 (when she was the writer responsible for the daily running of the show), PFS acknowledged that she did have the power to make changes and tweak anything (with network approval, of course). She spoke about being paid a huge amount of money  every year, just for "thinking creatively." (I want to say it was $375,000, but I'll have to check.)

 

To me, 1976 was the very best-written year in the history of DAYS. The show disintegrated into a painful mess the moment she was fired. (Ann Marcus, so good on Search for Tomorrow and even Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, was not the right fit for Salem.) I knew that PFS would be a writer I'd follow around the network dial from soap to soap. She never disappointed me. She was excellent on WTHI, DAYS, GH and even TGL (for she short time she was there.) The only time I felt that her material did not really gel was when she took over Ryan's Hope, but then again, that entire show just felt "off" during those years. I think network interference tied her hands.

 

I'd describe her forte as sophisticated, adult and poignant psycho-sexual drama.

 

For the record, she loathed the Cassadines-Freeze-the-World/Ice Princess crap on General Hospital as much as I did. It was inflicted on the audience by scab writers. When she returned to GH, she bluntly announced in the press, "That crappy writing all summer wasn't mine!"

 

The world of soaps would greatly benefit from talents like Smith's today.

 

[vetsoapfan]

 

ABC did seem to be pushing both GH and OLTL more in the late 1970s, with advertisements in mainstream magazines like TV Guide, as well as on-air promos. Once Monty and Douglas Marland joined forces, the show almost instantly SOARED in the ratings. The daytime press took notice immediately and talked about GH's miraculous turnaround, particularly because as GH climbed so high in the ratings, its once-formidable competition Another World was drifting downwards.

 

 

Marland's endgame was Luke and Scotty, he was not responsible for the Luke and Laura phenomenon, although he did create the character of Luke. In multiple interviews at the time of his firing, Marland said he and Monty argued about the future of Laura and Scotty, not Laura and Luke. After they married, the writer wanted to give Laura and Scotty a rest and let them be happy for awhile, but Monty insisted that the couple instantly be thrown into more conflict. (Monty would usually get her way. Pat Falken Smith described her as a "genius who ran a gestapo operation.") PFS developed the Luke and Laura relationship on air and wrote the rape storyline. When Monty/the network backtracked and claimed that the horrific assault we HAD SEEN ON AIR was supposedly a "seduction," there was considerable backlash. Genie Francis openly said that she had played a victim of rape, and the re-imagining of the attack as a seduction "made my blood run cold." On the Phil Donahue show, Leslie Charleson vehemently denounced the story twist and announced that she was aghast at how irresponsible it was. (I was sure she'd get fired after that, LOL!) Afternoon TV magazine wrote a review of the show with the title, "General Hospital is Degenerate!" Horny and delusional fangurls would mob Tony Geary at public appearances and scream, "RAPE ME LUKE!!!" but more rational minds saw the turning of a rapist into a desirable romantic figure as morally offensive. ("Hey girls, if a man attacks you, rapes you, and sends you to the hospital, it means that he LOVES you! Go out and try to get raped TODAY!" Um...no.)

 

 

PFS's forte was character motivation and it was always at the forefront in her writing, except perhaps when Monty and the network(s) exerted their authority. She once acknowledged that she did not like outlandish stories that went beyond the realm of possibility.

 

 

Under PFS's pen, the daily scripts always added nuance and depth to Alan. He was portrayed as a deeply passionate but insecure man, driven around the bend by his manipulative, cheating wife's lies and infidelity. I was kind of rooting for that roof to crash down on Monica's and Rick's heads, although at the last minute, Alan jumped in and saved them. He would have saved Lesley years of unnecessary grief if he had just let the roof do its job and flatten Rick and Monica, LOL.

 

 

Well, Pat Falken Smith sued Days because after they had fired her, the show went ahead and used the storyline bible SHE had created and written. That would piss me off too. I understand that as an employee, what she created while on the job belonged to NBC/DAYS, however.

[Sapounopera]

 

Thank you so much for your amazing posts. I can't get enough of them. We are very lucky that you post on this board. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

You are too kind. Thank you, my dear!

[titan1978]

Marland and Monty set the foundation for the show at that time.  It is not the GH that was created in the 1960’s.  But PFS and Monty created the tone that made me love the show.  And then she came back and created Anna Devane, my favorite character in the history of the show.  

 

As a viewer I owe them so much for the fun I had watching the show.  Labine took those bones and gave them a deeper soul than they had ever had before, but the bones were still the ones created by Monty and PFS.

 

As Monty described it- Capra and Hitchcock blended together.  That is the tone and style of the show when she was there.

 

I know lots of people deride what they did, and how daytime changed.  But I loved it.  However- I still think to this day that Monty was best with a strong HW.

[BetterForgotten]

Well, thought GH was very popular during that time it was never really praised for great writing. I guess a lot of it doesn’t really hold up in 2019 either if we look past nostalgia. It was generally very plot heavy.

 

Monty seemed to love employing her sister Norma to write the show - maybe because she knew how much control she would have in that dynamic.