GH: Classic Thread

[slick jones]

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Gorgeous wedding shot with Gavin Houston (Ezekiel "Zeke" Robinson)  Brooke Kerr (Portia Robinson Taggert Ashford) and film favorite Ricco Ross  (Dr. Sterling Robinson).

 

and for @Taoboi and @carolineg

Some "Magic Wands".

[Vizion]

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[BrendaB]

Thanks for posting!  Cool to see how close the Quartermaine den and the Kelly's diner set are.

I'm current watching September 1993 of GH and it's crazy how disgusting and vile Sonny was-- it's crazy how popular the character became the center of this show.  Getting Karen addicted to alcohol, drugs and turning her into a stripper at his club.  He's a groomer, Andrew Tate-type that should have been killed off if there was any (fictional) justice.

The other difference between shows back in the 1990s and now is how humor-filled the dialog used to be with Scotty, Lucy, Brenda, Julia, Felicia, Mac, etc.  I wonder why the writing for the daily scripts became so devoid of humor this century...it's so uninteresting how 2 characters just sit together in scene after scene now summarizing what happened, worrying about the same uneventful thing and saying insipid platitudes to each other.

[BrendaB]

Speak of the devil!  I love Gloria Monty and her 40 year old quote saying the same thing I just did:

"I can't stand to see a scene take place with two characters sitting at a table for longer than a minute or two...I abhor...repeated extreme closeups, monotonous flashback scenes and lethargic duo-logues."

AMEN, sister!  Terrible how her show has regressed back to the same mess she (and I) abhor.

So cool that she worked with Bea Arthur and other legends in the theater world before jumping to directing/producing TV.  I wonder how/why Joan Crawford ending up on the Secret Storm...I don't remember that from the movie.

[carolineg]

It is weird to watch early Sonny because it's clear he's not long for the show.  He has like no redeeming qualities.  I always wonder when the show decides to 'keep' MB/Sonny.  I assume around the time he starts interacting with Brenda, but he and Luke were forming a friendship as well.  All of a sudden Karen is off drugs and that strip club is shut down quick and made into a legit club with Luke.  A lot of Sonny's predatory behavior is shrugged off to make his romance with Brenda viable although I remember him saying that he did regret messing around with younger woman when Brenda came back, but that was quickly brushed aside because he was talking to Brenda and she absolved him.

[Vee]

I'd like to go back and look myself. I knew Labine talked about tweaking things early in September or October in her WLS interview.

[carolineg]

I think the logical assumption is when he and Brenda start dating, but I think it's before that.  The show was definitely building something with him and Luke and making Sonny's relationship with Stone more defined and more protective.   I think the Brenda stuff was more of a happy accident than a plan and the show was trying to give Sonny non-romantic ties to build his character which is actually refreshing.  I would have to rewatch because 99% of my Sonny viewing starts with the Brenda relationship.  When Labine talks about tweaking things I always thought it was in reference to Karen being under Sonny's thumb and giving her a voice back, but perhaps she saw something with Sonny as well.  It is a very quick turnaround for Sonny because that strip club was shut down off screen and they don't really go into detail as to why.  I think Sean says it was because of underage dancers, but it wasn't brought up very often afterwards.  I think it also helped that Karen/Jagger left very shortly after this went down and "made up", if you will, around Stone's illness.  We didn't have Karen around to remind us Sonny was a creeper and they did mention Brenda's age, but she also moved into adult stories and had adult friends so it didn't feel as creepy.  If she was hanging out with Robin/Stone at the mall it would have been more jarring, but she was starting businesses with Lois instead. 

[Vee]

I was under the impression the famous Sonny/Brenda car scene was always a random chemistry test that took off. I do recall her talking about tweaking the Karen scenes out of the gate, but I can't remember if she said that she and Riche had already seen potential in Maurice and acted accordingly.

[carolineg]

Yes, at the time they were chemistry testing Vanessa with half the male cast lol.  I don't remember MB being tested with any other woman.   I mostly remember him interacting with other men.  I can't recall a Riche/Labine quote specifically about MB around that subject, but they must have seen something as they moved him into different parts of the canvas, but I think the idea was to keep him in the Luke/Damian/Frank Smith story.   IIRC MB didn't have that much screen time post-Karen.  It didn't rev up until the prison break and Brenda stuff, but it's hard for me to remember how long that was in real time because I mostly watch edits and it moves quick.

[dc11786]

I'm still in 1990 (I've made it into July, but May was such a drag with the Casey stuff). In regards to the Monty article and her return, I'm in the period about six months before her return. The biggest issues I am seeing with the show is narrative structure and characterization, which are often interlinked and result in less than engaging scripts, at times. The overall show has a decent pace and enough veterans to add energy to the staler elements of the show, but the deeper I get into Gene Palumbo's run, I can see why changes were made, but I don't think they needed to be as radical as Monty went. 

In terms of scripts, Monty claims she was tossing the entire script writing team out and bringing in nighttime writers. I haven't checked the credits to see how accurate that is, but in what I've seen of early 1991, the scripts become very stilted by March, 1991. Lots of current event references without grounding them into the current story. Riche is able to turn the ship around even with Norma Monty still in the position in those early months in terms of script quality. 

For example, I find this episode incredibly strong March 31, 1992 . It comes several weeks after Norma Monty has left and there are interim headwriters before Maralyn Thoma arrives. There are just a lot of really wonderful character beats between Nikki Langton's arrival at the Quartermaine mansion, Ned recounting his marriage to Dawn to his new bride Jenny, the tension in Paul and Tracey's marriage with the beautifully awkward attempt at reconciliation, and just some general good tender moments. 

I know the press stated that Claire Labine also tossed the writing staff in 1993, but I know some were retained. Michele Val Jean, for example, and I believe someone else. I want to say Elizabeth Snyder, but I feel that wrong. From what people here have said, the writing staff was pretty much maintained or evolved in a healthy way until Frank and/or Ron arrived and started dismantling it, but I could be wrong on that. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by dc11786

[Vee]

I don't know about healthy - I believe a number of the old guard split across the 2000s (to say nothing of Patrick Mulcahey, whenever he left?) for various reasons. I know Karen Harris, IIRC, left before Frank and Ron. But the issue was that it seemed like a considerable amount of stalwarts of the long-time team were flushed in 2012, the last remains. The show sounded different overnight and got much more superficial in terms of dialoguing. Which is not to say it was exactly Shakespeare over the prior decade, there had been a lot of quality decay. But when they'd wanted to deliver they still had people who could.

(On a side note, correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC Elizabeth Snyder was one of the HWs at AMC 2.0.)

Edited April 22, 2023 by Vee

[Taoboi]

Oooo thank you.  

 

 

[dc11786]

Here are the writers list for a handful of episodes from March 31, 1993 - March, 1994:

March 31, 1993
Bill Levinson

Tom Citrano
Ralph Ellis

Jeanne Davis Glynn
Linda Hamner
Cynthia M. Jervey & Elizabeth F. Snyder

Meg Bennett
Linda Campanelli
Gail Larence & Peter Rich
Carol Saraceno
Doris Silverton
Michele Val Jean

May 13, 1993
Bill Levinson

Tom Citrano
Ralph Ellis

Linda Hamner
Cynthia M. Jervey & Elizabeth F. Snyder
Carol Saraceno

Michele Val Jean

Meg Bennett
Linda Campanelli
Martin M. Goldstein 
 
July 13, 1993
Bill Levinson 

Tom Citrano
Ralph Ellis
Meg Bennett

Linda Hamner
Cynthia M. Jervey & Elizabeth F. Snyder
Carol Saraceno

Michele Val Jean 

Linda Campanelli
Kimmer Ringwald
Gillian Spencer
 
August 13, 1993
Bill Levinson 

Ralph Ellis
Tom Citrano
Meg Bennett

Cynthia M. Jervey & Elizabeth F. Snyder
Carol Saraceno

Michele Val Jean

Linda Campanelli
Karen Harris
Kimmer Ringwald
Gillian Spencer

September 24, 1993
Bill Levinson

Ralph Ellis
Tom Citrano
Meg Bennett

Cynthia M. Jervey & Elizabeth F. Snyder
Carol Saraceno

Linda Campanelli
Karen Harris
Gillian Spencer

October 7, 1993
Bill Levinson

Ralph Ellis
Tom Citrano
Meg Bennett

Michele Val Jean

Linda Campanelli
Dana Coen
Karen Harris
Gillian Spencer

October 25, 1993
Claire Labine

Matthew Labine
Eleanor Mancusi
Ralph Ellis
Meg Bennett

Michele Val Jean

Linda Campanelli
Karen Harris
Gillian Spencer
Irene Suver

December 8, 1993
Claire Labine

Matthew Labine
Eleanor Mancusi
Ralph Ellis
Meg Bennett

Michele Val Jean

Lewis Arlt
Linda Campanelli
Karen Harris
Louise Shaffer

February 3, 1994
Claire Labine

Matthew Labine
Eleanor Mancusi
Ralph Ellis
Meg Bennett

Michele Val Jean
Lewis Arlt

 

So look those over, it would appear that only Ralph Ellis, Meg Bennett, and Michele Val Jean were retained and most everyone else was dumped. 

@Vee I'll defer to you about the 2000s. I also may have been thinking of "Days of our Lives" that somehow managed to build a strong writing team under Higley and Tomlin's multiple runs for most of those writers to disappear in the past few years. 

Back to 1990, the Casey stuff was terrible. Anna and Casey on the run was pretty bland. I did appreciate the climax of the plot with the homage to "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" with a bunch of dayplayers running around the blacked out Port Charles thinking there is an alien invasion going on. Paired with Desiree cornering Frisco and Sean at Sean's penthouse and attempting to kidnap Robin was amazing. I will say, even when I don't always like the action stories, "General Hospital" could do the end of a story justice. 

Another compliment for the show that isn't always amazing... the writers always try to make things seem linear even when they have no right to. Tom Hardy lets someone (Anna?) and the audience know that Casey Rogers must have morphed himself to look like Shep Casey. So Shep Casey is actually Roger "Shep" Casey. Casey got his name off a case file when he was being questioned quite later, but there is an attempt to make things fit. 

So Shep Casey seems to be the Jeffrey O'Neill of his day or any of the "One Life" actors playing doppleganger roles. Shep isn't a bad character per se. A reporter who wants to handle the sleazier element of Port Charles isn't a bad idea, but the writing leans into Shep as such an antagonist, which is limiting. A lot of Palumbo's new characters are stock types.

The Latinx characters recently introduced also fall into the category. Carla is the noble, hard working poor immigrant not wanting anything from anyone. Frankie is a hot headed with his eyes on the ladies. Rico is a controlling boyfriend. I appreciate that there is an attempt to make them an existing part of Port Charles. Carla is a maid at the Quartermaine mansion and one of Monica's favorites. Rico went to the police academy with Sam and Frisco. 

To allow access to this part of the canvas, other stories have been reduced or backburnered. The Casey / Wellington story has been replaced by Faison's attempt to romance Anna after Sean reveals that he (Sean) was behind Robert learning years ago that Anna was a double agent and that the Swede was alive. This means very little to me, but I guess it was a significant piece of Anna and Robert's history. It seems clear to me that the show is leaning into Anna and Robert. Katherine is off running Delafield's and not having much else to do. The chem tests with Colton are done now that Carla is around, but they seemed to have tried Katherine and Shep and even Katherine and Larry (how did he manage to stay on so long?). 

The strongest stuff is in the Ned / Dawn / Decker / Monica / Wendy story. Wendy has gone complete psycho, maybe she always was and I just wasn't paying attention. Janice Lynde shows up as the new Gloria during the Police Officer's Carnival fundraiser. She must have recently wrapped her stint on "Tribes." Jennifer Guthrie is growing on me. Monica remains in a supporting role, but at least its a prominent role. I know that won't last forever. They briefly paired Monica with Kyle Morgan, the obstetrician treating Felicia. 

One of the stronger scenes was in the underplayed Tony and Bobbie adoption story. Tony has a rather dramatic monologue where he gently goes in on Bobbie for leaning into her prostitute past and claiming that Lucas' situation was her own fault. It was incredibly strong. I am not surprised they gave him those longer speeches during the B.J. storyline during the Labine years. 

Tom and Simone's story has no traction. There is a nice scene with Audrey warning Monica about the dangers of meddling in Dawn and Ned's happiness after everything she herself experienced with Tom, Simone, and the baby. Tom and Simone seemed to be quietly reconciled, but they are dragging the paternity test out. Maybe it took weeks to do, but there is little play in this story. They could have at least built up the Meg / Harrison element of the story so that it didn't see so disjointed. 

Tracey and Scotty are a fun couple. Lee and Gail, in town for the wedding of Ned and Dawn, just showed up walked in on Scotty and Tracey together. Lee going in on Scotty, and Scotty responding in kind was a good scene. Lucy setting up Scotty in regards to the sale of Wyndemere was a nice way to keep the story going and intersecting with other parts of the canvas. 

I think Sam Hall has been added as a co head-writer but I'm not sure. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by dc11786

[Paul Raven]

Joan's daughter Christina played a character named Joan(!) on SS. She suddenly fell in and Joan contacted the show saying she would fill in for her daughter until Christina could return.

Despite the absurdity of Joan playing a woman in her 20's they went ahead for the publicity and Joan appeared in a few episodes until the character was written out.

What Joan's real motivations were was anybody's guess...

[slick jones]

The attention. And a dressing room closet with no wire hangers !!!!!!!! (Per her rider)

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Edited April 22, 2023 by slick jones