GH: Classic Thread

[dc11786]

It is a particularly bizarre story in a period of time that is fairly decent in terms of plot, characterization, and dialogue. I've only seen late February - early April 1992 so I've seen mostly the second stage of the story. The first though appears to be typical Monty sisters. The prior year Simone is written out of the show after being compelled to help Romanian war orphans after staying up all night watching them on the news leaving Tom and her son behind. 

I went back and looked at the synopses again. The first month is Bobbie reading the book, talking to Tom Hardy about whether or not it is appropriate to write Adkins, and then Tony being against it. In February, Adkins starts writing her back and Robert wants to know why Bobbie is talking to a cop killer. In March, as the show transitions writing teams, Bobbie and Tony fight about Bobbie going to visit Adkins, which doesn't end up happening until late in March. It was during that meeting that Adkins reveals he is from Port Charles, which was unknown to Bobbie up until that point. 

I think the story turns in about May as Bobbie decides to no longer speak to Adkins just as Adkins parole hearing comes up. Then, when Adkins doesn't receive parole, he starts to lash out at Bobbie. The escape is in June. 

Credits for the 1992 episodes online seem sparse so it's hard to see who to attribute what to after about April. I do know there were articles from late summer 1992 claiming that ABC wasn't happy with Wendy Riche and were supposedly seeking her replacement because she was too involved in the story. 

[Khan]

I agree.  I wonder, too, what their original intentions for the story were (that is, if they had any intentions at the outset).  Did they intend for Joseph Adkins to kidnap Bobbie and take her on the run or something?

[j swift]

When was Bobbie held hostage in the hospital and by whom?

I vaguely recall the island stuff in reverse.  Please feel free to correct any errors in my memory.

Karen, Jagger, and Jason go to the island for an adventure/vacation/date.  They get trapped and then are terrorized by Adkins' brother.  It all ends in a fight on a cliff and the bad guy falls off the cliff.  Thinking that it is all over, the teen return to Port Charles and vow not to tell anyone what happened.  Of course, the bad guy didn't die.  He threatens Karen, which is why she starts stealing cars.  But, it all ends, they catch the bad guy and everyone goes back to normal.

The intro of Karen's generation of teens was a huge reset at the time and signaled a new period of story telling.

[Khan]

The main thing that I remember about the period immediately before Claire Labine's start was the many "resets" to Bill Eckert's character.  Whenever one characterization wouldn't work, the show would come up with another in the hopes that Bill would somehow take off.

[j swift]

Yes, Bill's family, motivations, and his hair color were always in flux.

[dc11786]

@j swift I made a slight mistake in my retelling. There is a storm in mid-July. Robin and Jody are at the Brownstone by themselves with BJ and Tony and Bobbie are concerned that the recently escaped Joseph Adkins will go to the Brownstone. An episode ends with a window being broken, but it isn't Adkins, it's a tree branch. It looks like during the storm or shortly after that is when the Adkins is on the island (late July-early August). By late August, Joseph is blackmailing the teens for money so they start stealing cars. In mid September, Adkins breaks into the Brownstone and holds Bobbie hostage. The Adkins story wraps up on Monday, September 21. Brenda arrives on Friday, September 18. So there was little downtime in the younger set. 

With Monty's substantial reset in 1991, where she basically nixed every single character who had been introduced since she had left, there was no substantial attempts at a younger group. There was Joey Moscini, Angela Eckert's nephew who was ditched in June, 1991, during the first Bill Eckert reset when Bill went from working class guy to insta millionaire due to money he inherited from Fred Eckert. Joey was replaced by Gerald Hopkins' AJ Quartermaine who's graduation from prep school was being discussed in the same episodes where the Eckerts were grieving the loss of Fred. While AJ is definitely a teen, I think Joey was a little older, but not older than 21. Either way, no one was introduced with them to flesh out that group. 

At the tailend of Monty, Steve Burton is added as Jason Quartermaine. By this point, AJ is already being played as older as he is in stories with intern Eric Simpson and nurse Sheila Cantillion. In early 1992, Robin and Jason are the foundation Riche and the writers use to build the younger set. Riche seems to have a big hand in shaping both Karen and Jagger. I wonder if the plan wasn't originally for Robin / Jagger for a spell as criminal Jagger would cause some grief for Anna/Robert, but both Hughes and Rogers couldn't be convinced to return. 

That group, with some additions (Brenda/Stone/Keesha) and deletions (Jagger/Karen), remains the core younger group until Lucky comes of age, correct?

 What were all the different versions of Bill?

[j swift]

Bill starts as a working class guy living with his family.  Then he instantly gains wealth and his family leaves or dies; except for Jenny, who also becomes instantly rich through marriage.  Then he gets a sudden evil ex-wife and kid.  Then, he becomes a single dad living in a lighthouse.  Then he is a light romantic hero with Julia and their fight against the cartel who wants to take over ELQ.  And then he takes a turn as a more malevolent character with his rivalry with Damien Smith toward the end of his life.  Visually, he goes from strawberry blond to platinum blond as he becomes a darker character.

Briefly, in the 1991 reset there was also a coffee shop, and bakery run by the Eckarts, which was poised to be an alternate meeting place for those who congregated at Ruby's Diner, but it was gone as quickly as cousin Joey and his dog.

But, most amusingly to me in the Monty re-set was that Bobbie had quit the hospital during her time seeking to adopt a baby, then she returned the day that Bill was injured, without explanation.  And Anna dated the awful Edge Jerome (with the ponytail) before suddenly remembering that she liked Robert and wanted to tie him to columns in order to seduce him.  

Edited June 4, 2023 by j swift

[Vee]

There's an L&L fansite out there that I think is still archived which has a number of interviews with Geary in which he enumerates Bill's many changes over the course of just 2-3 years and how he justifies them. He was deeply involved, deeply invested in the character which never really worked, and IMO he never forgave the show for it.

[dc11786]

Thanks. I found the article. In case anyone else is interested: its here

Bill Eckert as the "Father Knows Best"-type must have been incredibly short. I just watched a late September 1992 episode where Sly gets into a fight in school and runs off because he doesn't like Bill dating Holly instead of Julia. This relationship pattern continues quite a bit as I've later seen the same situation when Bill has chosen Victoria over Holly. It was also very neat seeing the origin (or so I imagine) of the Scott/Sly relationship. 

Bill does "evolve" a lot under Monty. I believe the ratings dipped significantly in the first part of 1991 once the revamp started. Monty had to change so Fred was killed off, Angela went back to Portland, and Joey went somewhere. Nancy is introduced just as Fred is dying to quick off the Bill Eckert, wealthy man stage. With Angela and Fred gone, Bill now has to take on Sly and has Finnian be his caretaker. I wonder why Sly was created. In many ways, he is baggage to Bill. I wonder if Sly was present because the plan was for Bill/Bobbie and Bobbie's desire to be a parent was going to be part of her attraction to Bill. 

The light romantic hero image seems to be his longest characterization alternating between businessman and adventurer. After the Cartel, he was involved with Holly and the story with Holly's half-sister Paloma, while also plotting business ventures with Paul Hornsby. 

In the Logan article, he refers to Bill as, at one point, "a Noel Coward-ish bon vivant." I'm assuming this was referencing the art caper / Victoria the ghost stage of the story. 

By the time the Victoria story starts, the route to a much darker Bill seems to have been set in motion. Bill's obsession with Victoria is all consuming at times. People try to talk to Bill about his parenting (Jenny and Scott at different points), but Bill doesn't care. 

Which version of Bill do people felt worked best?

[Vee]

That's the site, yes. There's a couple of different interviews on there where he goes on and on about the dark secrets of the Eckert family, Bill's tortured past overseas, etc. All very impassioned stuff but nonetheless the audience never got behind any version of Bill, which led IMO to Tony trying to retrofit Luke into Bill in the late 2000s-2010s.

[Franko]

I don't know if it worked all that well, but I suspect that the powers that be would have prefered this incarnation, the "almost Luke," to have gone on forever.

[Vee]

I highly doubt that. I don't think any regime after Monty was remotely invested in Bill, despite Geary's desperate attempts to put him over. They jumped at the chance to bring back Luke and Laura. The only reason Bill was created was to appease TG, who did not want to play Luke again in '91.

[Franko]

"Forever" was a bad choice of words on my part. The endgame for everyone but Tony (and Genie) was pretty clearly to have Luke and Laura back. I should have written it as "If Bill Eckert had to exist, then presumably they'd have liked him as almost Luke until they could have the real deal again."

[DeliaIrisFan]

Interesting.  I've always wondered how Riche managed to last as long as she did while the show was in such turmoil. 

In fact, hadn't the ratings sort of improved by the time Monty had left, although still behind AMC (and Y&R, of course)?  I believe it wasn't just that Riche hadn't repaired the damage, but in fact viewers tuned out again shortly after Riche arrived.  I'd be curious if DC or anyone has a theory on why some viewers returned (and quickly tuned out).  Was the Nancy Eckert murder such a good whodunit that it got the show some attention again?  I will say the idea of Bobbie becoming a prison penpal to a convicted killer is a more interesting basis for a story than much of what I've read about GH in the year before or after, but it sounds like it was better on paper.

Anyway, back to Riche, I know the ratings had improved by the end of 1992, or at least the rankings.  Did they just not find a replacement in time, and Riche was well-regarded enough by the cast that the network was willing to do an about face?  I gather part of the reason the ratings turnaround didn't save Monty's job the year before was the backstage tension (and high-profile departures).

[DeliaIrisFan]

 

 

I'm so confused...the Eckert patriarch had millions of dollars to leave in his will?  How were these people supposed to be working class?  I always thought he had gotten rich somehow from his dealings with Julia's (and Brenda's) father.

Anyway, I remember this article - probably from that very same site.  It's weird to hear Geary being so enthusiastic about Claire Labine.  What's funny is if GH had been seriously committed to becoming a more reality-based, working-class show with the Eckerts, Labine would have been a logical choice (not that I can imagine her and Monty working together).  And Geary might have liked Labine's version of Bill or a single Luke.

I also remember reading Geary talking up Irene Suver's role in the Frank Smith story in this interview, and I recognized the name in some of the 1993-94 credits that have turned up on YouTube in recent years.  She was credited (sporadically) alongside the dialogue writers.  I assume that was for union reasons, when stories she contributed to were featured heavily, and not because she actually wrote entire scripts for other characters. 

Suver's name turned up later into 1994 than I would have thought, at least as late as the first half of May sweeps.  The A story in that episode was Luke and Laura and Sean and Tiffany being tied up by Frank's thugs and left to be eaten by an alligator, but by that point Maxie was also very sick and BJ's death was a week or so away.  I recall Suver was gone from the credits by the time of the heart transplant episodes.