I thought Culliton was pretty excellent at AMC with Agnes just before the advent of Frons. They were both booted from the show after he came in and it fell apart from there.

They did apparently work fairly close together--and Agnes was ousted until she returned (at least at first) during McTavish's run. I thought he showed a ton of potential, and he was left with lots of crap from Passanante, but there was a problem with characters disappearing and dropped stories. Still, he deserved a much longer chance than he got, and it was inane to replace him how they did.

I remember in an old Soap Opera Magazine article, when Richard was talking about his wife, he said that he created the two characters with her nickname, Carly. In 1996, he was Associate Head Writer of GH under Guza then promoted to Head Writer when Guza left. Perhaps he created Carly as Associate Head Writer and Guza approved.

Patrick Mulcahey talks about Carly's creation on GH here: http://www.sarahbrown.net/sid99.html

He inferred that Culliton, who took over soon after Guza created Carly, didn't have the same idea of who the character should be as Guza. It seems Carly's development was more of a group effort, with Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte doing most of the grunt work for her development.

Also, Marland didn't create the Kasnoffs or Carly. He died in 1993. The Kasnoffs arrived in 1994, and Carly arrived in 1995. The only Marland bible that was continued after his death was the Lily, Holden, and Damian triangle. However, his bible was altered. Originally, Damian was supposed to be a villain. Due to positive fan reaction to Paolo Seganti, Damian was written to be more of a hero.

The legend has always been that Marland outlined things very far in advance, with Carly being part of his plans. Though, true, it would have to have been Culliton that was part of her initial development when she debuted.

I wonder what Guza's idea of the character was, given how poorly he wrote her once he returned.

Carly seemed to be an experimental character, at least in the beginning. Guza might have had the initial idea for her, but her development was more of a team effort.

I've heard some even speculate that the character was being tossed around when the Labine's were at GH. So, it might not have been Guza who initially thought up the character at all.

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/11/soaps-hope-claire-labine-interview-part_4945.html

We Love Soaps: Carly Roberts came on right before you left the show. Was she your creation or a different writer’s?

Claire Labine: She was ours. We left them really well set up. We really tried to leave the show with takeoff points. The next writer could choose the direction, but they had good springboards. And Carly was part of that, and so was Jax. I thought he was going to be a lot of fun. We left after his first few episodes. There was a lot set up for Mary Mae Ward’s family as well, but they chose not to take that path. That story with Mary Mae was one of my favorites. Rosalind Cash was one of my favorite performers. We had so much fun with that.

Why am I not surprised that out of everything he dropped, the black family was his primary target?

Why am I not surprised that out of everything he dropped, the black family was his primary target?

And then destroyed everything else!

Why am I not surprised that out of everything he dropped, the black family was his primary target?

I'm actually surprised he didn't write them out immediately - I wonder if RIche intervened.

It's funny to realize that the things which got him so much praise at the time, like Jax, were not even his ideas. I guess he changed some of it (Jax was initially supposed to be with Lois), but give how poorly characterized, boring, and stilted his writing was on Sunset Beach and when he returned to GH in late 1997, I just can't believe he had any strong ideas for GH. Yet he was supposed to be some savior compared to Richard Culliton. That annoyed me then and it really annoys me now.

Edited January 6, 201213 yr by CarlD2

The Sonny/Brenda/Jax triangle that lasted a million years (or it appeared that way) seemed to be Guza's authentic idea.

Guza didn't seem to know what to do with Lois, but really, she seemed like a totally Labine character anyway.I know Rena Sofer complained about the writing for the character after Labine left. Of course, Rena went on to become poison in primetime....

I'm not a big Rena Sofer fan anyway, but I do see where she must have felt burned after the writing switch. The main problem was he didn't get the Quartermaines and Lois' main role was in contrast to them. He was lucky because the show was seen as too depressing during the last months of the Labines, and he had more action, so that meant he was seen as being an improvement. He left at just the right time. I wonder what it was that made him decide to limp back after a short time with SuBe.

I think he said they didn't know if Sunset Beach was going to be picked up, and if it was, he was contractually obligated to be its HW.

As soon as he could leave, he did just that.

Even though he co-created the show, it didn't seem like he had much faith in it.

i would have loved to have seen culliton stay on longer as HW of GH! he was more fitting than Guza imo anyway. if it came down to Culliton or Geary who did not get along, i would have chosen culliton a million times!!!

i would have loved to have seen culliton stay on longer as HW of GH! he was more fitting than Guza imo anyway. if it came down to Culliton or Geary who did not get along, i would have chosen culliton a million times!!!

Oh that's right, I forgot about that. I wonder if Culliton didn't write enough stories about Luke having drunk sex with hookers.

Culliton's GH was all over the place. Though, comparing it to what the show is now, it doesn't look so bad.

Mind you, I thought Port Charles (the soap, not in reference to mother-soap GH) was always a piece of sh!t, no matter who was writing it.

Edited January 6, 201213 yr by Y&RWorldTurner