GH: Classic Thread

[carolineg]

I think the jump from Robin to Carly was a bit of a stretch for Jason.  Even though he was obsessed with Michael she never felt exactly right for him.  And he would constantly judge her.

I can see an argument for Sonny/Lily as a logical pairing.  He would have probably fallen in love with her eventually.  If LM/MB had a lick of chemistry it could have been a truly viable foursome with Brenda/Jax for years.

I always liked Brenda and Jax.  Just because he was so different from Sonny.  He was charming, rich, easy to deal with, and respected her.  They had great chemistry and felt like a welcomed change from all the drama of Sonny and Brenda.   I don't know if it was an endgame pairing, but I wouldn't be upset if Jax and Brenda ended up together.*

*Obviously I would now because the Ingo of it all, but before that I would have been okay with it.

But everyone can have a different take and Ingo makes everything a bit icky, but I was always a true blue Brenda fan and liked Jax/Brenda almost as much as Sonny/Brenda at times.  Which is pretty rare because most Brenda fans have a very clear preference between Jax/Sonny. 

[dc11786]

So this is slightly off. This is still incomplete, but more reflective.

1989-1991

Gene Palumbo

1991

Gene Palumbo, Norma Monty & John Whepley

1991

Norma Monty & John Whepley

1991- January 1992

Norma Monty

January - February 1992

Norma Monty & Linda Grover

February-March 1992

Norma Monty

March 1992-1992

No Headwriter

I guess what I am really wondering if could the show have brought back just Laura and Lucky and still been effective. A domestic Luke would eventually have to be lured into a dangerous situation. 

I think Labine was hired because her style (heavy emotional stories) fit with the vision that Wendy Riche was trying to build on the show to the point that storylines that were not hers were contributed to Labine in 1993. I would also say the mob presence on "Ryan's Hope" with Joe Novak seems to be something that was valued or at least alligned with what the network wanted overall at GH and later at GL. 

I definitely think that Brenda and the Quartermaine brothers was probably the plan in early 1993 during Bill Levinson's work. I think the minute AJ returns there are hints that the show might go that direction or at least make AJ Jason's protector and drag him into the story with Jason, Brenda, Jagger, and Karen though I also wonder at times if AJ's obsession with Jagger wasn't hints of Riche's proposed AJ is sexually ambiguous and contracts HIV. 

@carolineg mentions that Brenda was underdeveloped early on. I would agree, but I also think that may have been by design. Brenda is an obstacle to Jagger and Karen and very little more. She is a constant device for plot to move forward. In the list of teenage Brenda's "sins," she was also the one who leaked the cassette tape of Jenny Eckert Quartermaine talking with Senator Jack Kensington to Jenny's husband Ned. This was so her sister could get Ned for herself. Brenda also flirted with Ned. Also, there is no real drive on Brenda's part other than wanting Jagger. Karen had the medical school dream. Jagger wanted to reunite with his siblings. Brenda is just very thin on paper.

Brenda should have wanted Jason Q and went after Jagger with the intention of inciting jealousy in Karen in order to cause Karen and Jason to split. In turn, Brenda could then have played the victim and fallen onto Jason's shoulders. By the time this all played out, AJ would return and see Brenda for what she was another scheming vixen like Nikki. In attempting to save Jason from Brenda, Brenda and AJ would each be drawn to each other. I get the sense that Brenda's home life backstory, even then, was dysfunctional. I could see Brenda craving that return to a domestic bliss/chaos as it existed in the household. 

 

[carolineg]

So, I am probably creating a little more to early Brenda than what was on paper, but I think the Q bros might have been too easy of a get for her.  She knew she was pretty and I think she wanted a project in Jagger.  And sex was her best weapon on Karen. Get the guy from the wrong side of the streets just to stress Julia out more.  She didn't think she needed money at the time, so I think Jason was too dull for her.

AJ and Brenda do make the most sense to me and they obviously tested them pretty hard to the point AJ was jealous of Sonny.  I just think it's a rare case where a show just followed the chemistry and MB/VM won out.  

Brenda did explicitly state early on her childhood was bad.  She delved into a lot more with Jax when they first started dating .  She wasn't that open about it with Sonny, but that could have been discretion on her part for once because his childhood was worse.

[Toups]

Thanks!  So Grover was like co-HW for about a month?  Do you remember why?   And I'm assuming the months you put are for on air dates?  Which means GH went with no official HW from March to June 1992?  Looking at all the regime changes, early 90's GH was a mess.  LOL

 

[Khan]

And it all showed on screen, too. 

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[dc11786]

Yes, I am referring to on-air dates. Grover is credited no later than January 7, 1992. She is gone by mid-February with Norma Monty gone a few weeks later in early March. 

I think ABC became desperate when "Young and the Restless" became number 1 and desperately wanted to make changes to get the show back into the top spot. The problem was they should have just worried about creating a solid show. 

Gene Palumbo writes the show from May 1989-March/April 1991. So there was some stability there with the show going from Wes Kenney to Joseph Hardy to Gloria Monty. Monty's run is the true mess that resulted in the collapse of the show's ratings. Monty's husband died at some point during her second run (I believe late June 1991) so that probably impacted some of the things happening on-screen. 

On-screen, 1991 is a hard year. There is just so much cast turnover between the big purge at the start of the year and the inability to figure out how to handle any of the newly established canvas before getting rid of the characters left, right, and sideways. By the tail end of the year, the show seems to be shaping up. By December, 1991, the show becomes watchable with the right characters onscreen, but it still needs work. Reestablishing the Quartermaines by bringing Edward back fromt he dead and aging Jason and AJ worked. Revisiting Dawn with David and Nikki Langton was also a smart move in my opinion, but that was early 1992. 

I like what I've seen in 1992. Riche stablizes the cast (for the most part) after the show bleeds cast members under Monty into the very early days of Riche. There are things I suspect don't work (Holly/Paloma, elements of the Cal/Joseph Adkins island adventure), but I find the show very watchable, but I know the ratings weren't great.

I am not clear why Grover was hired for only a month and a half. She is there for the transition from Gloria Monty to Wendy Riche. Riche I believe takes over the first week of February, 1992. Riche has never mentioned working with Grover so I wonder if she was fired by Monty. I liked a lot of what I saw in January, 1992. The problem was it wasn't building into anything, which Riche has complained about in more recent interviews about the show she inherited. There were lots of character work, but the big stories weren't being setup though a lot of the foundational work in this period was very good, in my opinion. 

I don't think the no headwriter period was as long as June, 1992, but I could be wrong. I thought there were late April, 1992 episodes online in recent years in which Maralyn Thoma (possibly solo) was already being credited as headwriter. Either way, I know one of the soap columnists at the time reported that ABC wasn't happy with Riche especially as she had been steering a good portion of the writing in 1992. 

I'm currently watching November 1990 so I should be into early 1991 soon and will check the credits to narrow things down, but often credits are missing. 

[DeliaIrisFan]

Would ABC have had any interest in Laura and Lucky without Luke, though?  GH spent so many years trying to make Bill Eckert work.  Even if the network had equal respect for Geary and Francis, which is questionable, wouldn't they have assumed that trading one for the other would have been a wash?  Or would Bill have stayed in a separate story?

As for the writing change, I get the rationale for pairing Labine and Riche, but my question is why wait until Luke and Laura were coming back?  Riche was at GH for almost two years without Labine, who had not worked in daytime since RH went off the air, during which time GH went through a revolving door of writing teams (as you've been discussing).  I could have seen ABC hiring Labine and Riche at the same time.  And I think I've posted before that what Gloria Monty had tried to do with the Eckerts earlier in the decade was on paper something Labine would have excelled at - I just can't imagine they would have gotten along at all.  At both those points, GH was making a public show of turning the page from the '80s action adventure era, and hiring the co-creator of RH would have been consistent with that. 

Whereas L&L's return signaled an attempt to return to that formula, at least in part.  If anything, I'm surprised ABC wasn't trying to get one of the '80s writers back (one who wasn't Monty's sister, after how that turned out).  And if ABC/Riche had been pursuing Labine previously and it took a while to come to terms, I would think Luke and Laura's return might have scared her off for good, based on how her previous working relationship with ABC went south after L&L took off.

Believe me, I'm not complaining about what we got at all.  I just wonder if there's more to the story of how it happened.

Edited March 17 by DeliaIrisFan

[Toups]

@dc11786  I have the June 5, 1992 credits and O'Neill and Tobin are still listed and then I have June 30, 1992 with Thoma/Levinson credited, so that's why I have 1992-June 1992 for No Head Writers. 

[dc11786]

I don't think ABC would have wanted Laura and Lucky without Luke, but I think I might have lol. I think without Luke there would be no Sonny longterm, which would completely change the show's trajectory long-term. Do I think that would have been a good thing? Who knows?

I know @Vee has gone through what a hot mess Bill Eckert is in all his different incarnations, but I think there is something intriguing about late stage Bill Eckert, ambitious businessman, worthless father, and a perennial womanizer. I think there is potential to see a widowed Laura Spencer have to deal with a doppleganger of her late husband who is nothing like him and yet everything like him at the same time. I feel like with Luke around the ensemble feeling is diminished. Not eradicated as he works within the canvas, but his large presence (and screentime) diminished other parts of the canvas. Others might feel differently though. 

I wonder what role ABC politics plays in the Labine & Luke+Laura decision. In 1993, Jo Ann Emmerich steps down in the summer or early fall to take over "Loving" and Pat Filli Kushel becomes the new head. In the early 1990s, I believe Labine was shopping a new daytime show so she may not have been interested or available. I also don't think ABC really committed to Riche right away. The soap columnists talk about Riche potentially being out as early as summer 1992. 

I hear what you are saying about the throwback nature, but I would counter that character returns, at least at that time, could bring a ratings bump. Returning behind the scene personnel didn't have the same effect. I think after Monty, the return to old GH writers was out of the question. Levinson and Thoma both had prior GH experience, I think. Levinson had worked under Agnes Nixon on "Loving" and Thoma had recently been nominated, or won, a writing award with the "Santa Barbara" team just prior to arrived at GH. 

I think Labine said that Luke and Laura were announced after she was hired in one of the interviews, but she may have been wrong. 

Well, I stand corrected. I know the episodes on YouTube:

February 14, 1992: Norma Monty & Linda Grover 

March 4, 1992: Norma Monty.

March 20, 1992 There is no headwriter.

Then it would be March-June 1992: no headwriter

Thoma and Levinson are credited in September 1992 so Thoma makes it at least that far.

 

[Vee]

I think late-stage Bill is very intriguing, as are his many metamorphoses and all the various backstories and subtext Tony has spun up in his many period interviews about him, etc. I just don't think it makes for a good long-term character to continue with indefinitely, especially at that point two years in. I watched the November sweeps eps of '92 where Bill and Holly first proudly declare in bed that they will each get tested for HIV before doing the deed (in a series of cringeworthy educational scenes) and then their big consummation scenes featuring test result presentations(!!), rooftop rendezvouses, purple florid speeches by Geary at his most camp and a long, long section of slo-mo dancing and some sort of sub-Bryan Adams song, and wow it's all howlers. You can buy two teens like Jason and Robin doing that ritual with the tests onscreen to educate kids watching, but not these grown-ass adults. Anyway, by fall '93 no, I don't think there is a way to make Bill work on contract.

[dc11786]

I'll agree that Bill's viability as a romantic lead was limited to non-existent. Bill wasn't the kind of man that I think the audience was swooning over, nor would I want them to. To me, I think Bill could have remained a cog in the canvas as Ned's business rival, Jenny's brother, Paul's business partner, Sly's dead beat dad, and Julia's ex. If Scotty had stayed, I could see a situation with Scotty turning to Laura for help with the impending birth of his child, with Scotty also continuing to bond with Sly. The Sly-Scotty bond would put Laura and Bill in the same orbit. And then Laura and Scotty's friendship would have upset the Scotty-Lucy dynamic which would have led Lucy to play double agent in business for Bill if he would agree to help her keep Laura and Scott apart, with Bill agreeing mostly as a f*ck you to Scott for his bond with Sly. And a Scott-Bill business rivalry would play out with Julia stuck in the middle. But at the end of the day, Kin Shriner was probably gonna leave no matter what and so much of that section of the canvas ended up cleared away to make room for characters who ended up making more of an impact in the long run. 

I don't have much use for Holly and Bill. They feel very functional, but not necessarily generating excitement. They feel like a C-couple in an A-story. I feel for Emma Samms. She was clearly a pawn in Gloria Monty's late stage power plays and with Tristan Rogers gone there was little for her to play. Bill and Holly feel like a couple out of necessity. I don't like the Richard Halifax stuff. I've seen little of Simon Romero but he just feels like a pre-cursor to Halifax. I like Samms with Mac and Robin at the start of her run, but otherwise it seems to be mostly filler. 

Those safe sex scenes sound absurd. "Loving" did something similar with Angie and Charles about a year or so later without the over the top quality. Those "Loving" scenes felt, like what you described, as an attempt to give something to a couple who had little to do. 

[titan1978]

We know from Genie and Tony (back then at least), that ABC was considering Luke without Laura, as opposed to Laura without Luke. He was the one that insisted he wouldn’t play Luke again without her, and they tried to force it by letting her go at AMC. It’s another in a long line of ABC thinking Luke is the draw.

As far as Labine, I have read stuff from back then in old soap mags and more recent interviews that ABC knew GH was in pieces after Monty was removed, and it was going to take time to rebuild the show. Nobody left was a lead in the same sense as Tristan or Finola (Bill wasn’t working), so they had to reshape the show. It had been star driven for over a decade at that point. And what Richie wanted to do needed the right person writing.

Even with Labine that was an experiment, she had never done an hour show before. That’s why GH scenes ran so long in her first year, she was filling them with dialogue and had decided on longer format scenes and a hybrid structure between what she was used to at 1/2 hour and the traditional structure of an hour soap.
 

And I think of all the star characters to lure back to GH at that time Luke and Laura were the right ones. They had that Marland/PFS foundation grounded in reality that later characters did not have. It fit the tone better.

[Vee]

You would never have put GH back on the map in such a big way in the '90s without Luke and Laura. It just would not have happened. It was exquisitely written, performed and brilliantly promoted. It was everywhere that fall and it's what brought me to the show as a kid.

[Franko]

It really was an event. No other return would have worked. I will say that it might have been great to have Denise Alexander (and eventually Chris Robinson) back under Labine's pen.

[j swift]

I was interested in the number of murders committed by Jason Morgan,  On the current show, there's been a lot of talk about Jason killing people, but I didn't recall anyone who actually died because Jason shot them.  I think of Jason as hitting people, threatening people, and occasionally kidnapping people, but I couldn't name any of his victims until I looked them up on the GH fan site wiki and SoapCentral.

So here's a list of deaths:

1. Murdered Rosco [offscreen; Jun 10, 2002]
2. Shot and killed one of Lorenzo’s men to save Ric [Aug 11, 2003]
3. Shot and killed Andy Capelli in self-defense during a struggle for a gun [Feb 19, 2004]
4. Shot and killed Niko Dane in defense of Sam [Jul 1, 2004]
5. Shot Faith Rosco and killed two of her men during a shootout [Feb 2005]
6. Murdered the entire Sandoval family in retaliation for their attack on Mike Corbin and Sam [Mar 2005]
7. Shot and killed Asher Thomas in defense of Alan and Monica Quartermaine [Aug 2005]
8. Shot and killed Andrew Olsen in defense of Sam [Aug 2005]
9. Shot and killed Javier Ruiz in defense of Sonny Corinthos [Oct 2005]
10. Shot and killed Miguel Escobar [Mar 31, 2006]
11. Shot and killed Juan Escobar after he threatened Sam [May 2006]
12. Murdered Lorenzo Alcazar under the orders of Skye Quartermaine [May 2007]
13. Shot and killed Ian Devlin in defense of Maxie Jones [May 6, 2008]
14. Shot and killed three of Karpov's associates [Nov 2008]
15. Killed Carter - the man who attacked Michael - in self-defense [Jun 11, 2010]
16. Shot and killed Ewen Keenan in defense of Elizabeth [Sep 2012]
17. Shot and killed Joe Scully, Jr. in self-defense [Oct 19-22, 2012]
18. Shot and killed Cesar Faison in defense of Carly [Jan 26, 2018]
19. Shot and killed one of Cyrus Renault's men in defense of himself and Maggie McMorris [Jan 30, 2020]
20. Shot and killed one of Cyrus' men in defense of Cameron Webber [Feb 28, 2020]
21. Shot and killed one of Cyrus' men who shot Marcus Taggert [Feb 28, 2020]t and killed another one of Cyrus' men in self-defense after a shootout [Feb 4, 2020]
22. Shot and killed one of Cyrus' gunmen, who interrupted the confrontation between Sonny and Julian, in self-defense after a shootout [Dec 14, 2020]
23. Shot and killed another one of Cyrus' gunmen, who was sent to kill Julian, in self-defense after another shootout [Dec 17, 2020]
24. Shot and killed Walker in self-defense [Dec 29, 2020; revealed on Dec 30, 2020]
25. Shot Brock, one of Cyrus' men who helped hold Spinelli hostage, in defense of Carly [May 28, 2021]
26. Shot and killed one of Cyrus' men in defense of Spinelli [May 28, 2021]

It is a lot to kill 30 people over the course of twenty years, although to be fair most were in self-defense (or in the defense of a loved one), except Rosco, Manny, and Alcazar.  It is remarkable that he's still a romantic hero, when a guy like Ryan hasn't murdered half as many people and was dubbed a serial killer.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21 by j swift