we all give producers and writers we love alot of praise but what about those who have done tremendous work but are not always appreciated? let's give an opinion of some!

allen potter(aw, gl)

robert calhoun(atwt, gl) probably one of the best imo

laurence caso(atwt)

francesca james(amc)

jeanie dadario burke(lov, the city, amc) one of my personal favorites

teri gurrianari?(aw)

paul rauch(aw, oltl, sb, gl, y&r) another of my favorite's although he was all wrong for SB

john conboy(y&r, cap, sb, gl)

haidee granger(loving)

jaquelinne babbin(amc, loving)

gail kobe(texas, gl)

H Wesley Kenny did wonders for Y&R.

Michael Laibson

Jerome & Bridget Dobson

Jill Farren Phelps

Francesca James

Was James fired or did she decide to leave? I know there were conflicting reports about it at the time, but I remember watching her accept AMC's Series Emmy in '98 and she seemed to be very gracious to Burke and to ABC.

Burke's first year at AMC was rough. REALLY REALLY REALLY ROUGH. I credit a lot of that to McTavish (ditto Francesca James's rough patch at the end of her stint). But she did a lot of things that first year to try and help the show like firing Megan McTavish and bringing back Cady McClain (though the talks with McClain began with James IIRC). Once summer of '99 came along, everything started to fire up, the height being 2000. It started with the fantastically produced Crystal Ball/30th Anniversary and ended with Bianca's coming out with a lot of gems in between. The rest of her stint was very solid and well-done, which is why her firing came to a surprise to me. To me, she was AMC's last strong producer.

I believe James was fired--she pretty much went right from The City when it was canceled to AMC from my memory. At the time people wondered if that meant she'd bring any of The City's style over, but she didn't. I think James lacked some vision or control--though her quote about what Pine valley was and wasn't was spot on--I believe AMC EPs were starting to lose control around that time, so it's hard to fairly judge her run for me. Same with Burke, though I don't think JHC was an improvement at all (and the fact JHC was kept throughout Frons' run, despite writers coming and going, etc, seems to prove that Frons did much of that role himself.)

sorry eric james didnt come from THE CITY. that was burke, who i thought did a wonderful job at amc! imo! james was brought on after behr and she kept the show going (softly) maybe thats what AMC wasn't looking for but as a vewier i loved it! it seemed thats what her and broderick were going for(riche&labine gh) and i LOVED it!

Sorry I meant that Burke came in pretty soon after The City ended to replace her--I left Burke's name out, so I see how I sounded off. ANd yeah I think James and Broderick were going for a bit lower key, which I liked. It is ironic that Behr reportedly got McTavish fired when ratings started to slip and McTavish's stories started going a bit wacko, and reportedly hired Broderick--and then soon after as ratings still were falling ABC fired Behr...

I remember reading that P&G gave Behr the choice of EPing either ATWT or GL, which is really surprising to me. I really think she would have been a great fit at GL; much better than she ended up being at ATWT.

Behr at GL makes so much more sense than at ATWT, which she wrecked in no short order.

Luna Moody as Connor Walsh?

Allison Rice Taylor should have been brought back the second she left. I LOVED her Connor.

also, an honorable mention needs to made to H. Wesley Kenney. he carried the tourch and kept up after conboy left y&r and was surprised to see him go but we then got scott so it all worked out! he briefly produced GH but im not sure how he was there? does anyone know for sure why he was replaced with tomlin at SB before the show started production? all i hear is he left due to creative diff. not sure if with spelling or nbc. does anyone know facts? i wonder how different the show would have been with kenney. also was nbc or spelling responsable for hiring the exec. producer?

I don't know but add Gary Tomlin to my list. Underappreciated and always lightens and brightens up a soap. VERY underrated IMO.

I'm gonna get eggs thrown at me, but I don't feel Chris Goutman gets his due. He brought AW back like no other and bought ATWT about 9 years.

Some More:

Al Rabin

John Conboy

Mary Ellis Bunim

Wendy Riche (sorta kinda. Everyone laudes the Labines so much I feel she is oft forgotten as the other real part of that team)

Linda Gottlieb

Charlotte Savitz. I think. Yah, marginable, but I think she's better than she gets credit for.

Can't believe I'm throwing this out there but Brad Bell.

It sounds like Behr (and her bringing on Broderick) were just simply bad fits at ATWT. Maybe Behr turned down GL because McTavish was locked into a contract there and the year before she had just let her go of AMC? (or was McTavish there later/earlier? I never get the timeline right)

Mctavish was gone.

didn't gottlieb get alot of credit? i seem to remember after her leaving, people complaining that OLTL just fell apart! i wonder what it would have been like had she left and went to another show if she would have done her magic twice?

If I correct I read in a story somewhere that H. Wesley Kenny left Sunset Beach before it aired due to conflicts over the stories the show would air. There seemed to be creative differences happening and he just decided to leave and retire from producing.

I remember that too. I remember an interview he did sometime in spring or summer 1996 and he talked about the show that SuBe would become, and he described it as kids living together on a beach, basically. That isn't quite what it turned out to be.

I remember that too. I remember an interview he did sometime in spring or summer 1996 and he talked about the show that SuBe would become, and he described it as kids living together on a beach, basically. That isn't quite what it turned out to be.

I think that originally it was going to be completely Melrose Place-ish with the majority of the characters living together. They re-focused a little and added in the Richards family which ended up being the best part of the show

If I correct I read in a story somewhere that H. Wesley Kenny left Sunset Beach before it aired due to conflicts over the stories the show would air. There seemed to be creative differences happening and he just decided to leave and retire from producing.

I always wondered about SB. I mean Josh Griffith is listed as a creator, but he never was on the writing team, was he? Teh show definitely set out to be more primetime and a lot less campy/self aware its first few weeks (months?)

I think that originally it was going to be completely Melrose Place-ish with the majority of the characters living together. They re-focused a little and added in the Richards family which ended up being the best part of the show

Right and it did have all those young people in the beach house or whatever, or hanging in the cyber cafe--some (liek the asian doctor) who were written out. And of course he "film" look and tons of location shots which were dispensed with too.

If I remember correctly, the house that they lived in was called "Surf Central". It was always a part of the show, but the longer that it went on, the more families were built. (The Cummings & Torres familys most notably).

The asian doctor was Rae Chang, played by Kelly Hu. They got rid of the "film" look after the revamp that happened 6 months into the run. They ran a week of repeats (each one dealing with one major character and telling us their entire story for the first 6 months of the show), and when they came back it turned into the hilariously campy funfest that it was known for. I believe that Josh Griffith was one of the headwriters for that first 6 months, but I am not sure.

Damn, I forgot how much I loved that show, I am going to have to watch some episodes soon.

so i dont know if kenney's vision would have been better than what we got? im not sure of what he had planned.....although i guess it didnt matter who, him or tomlin since i believe they were there in name only. it was defiantly spelling's show with one of them there to help him get the daytime grind imo.

another thing i find wierd is guza's involvement! so he helped create the show, wasn't sure if the show would be picked up, went to GH, when the show was picked up and he was already in a contract had to go back to SB, then left to go back to GH some months later! what the hell was up with that? seems he would have wanted to stay with a show he helped create and, one wonders why griffith or pratt jr. or both didn't take on the HW duties once guza left? that whole situation was always confusing to me! smh