All My Children AMC: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[allmc2008]

Can you tell us what board?

[acbuddy3]

While I would love for AMC and OLTL to come back, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about ABC getting their hands back on them. They ran these shows into the ground (especially AMC) and then cancelled them.

Plus, if ABC wants to do this, they would have to cancel either The View or The Chew (GH is not an option -- could you believe what would happen if ABC cancelled GH for AMC/OLTL?). The Chew is doing well, so I don't see that going away, but The View is going downhill and with Queen Barbara leaving this year........

[allmc2008]

I understand were you are coming from. If ABC produces them there will be no way in heck that people like Brooke/Dimitri/Billy Clyde will be on the show let alone the actors being asked back. I would fear that Ginger Smith/Jennifer Peppermen wouldn't be asked back either let alone Agnes working on the show again and I would expect Ronald and Franklin being in charge of production. I just hope if ABC gets the shows back they will prove me wrong otherwise I may have to watch with caution.

As I have said many times I started when Jesse/Angie reunited then I devoted all my free time from the point I watched that episode to the Tornadoes on learning about the show. I also assumed that the show was plot driven/doom and gloom because of the aftermath NOT because of the the writer. I had no idea how unbalanced the show until the aftermath was over. By then I was hooked though mainly because of Erica/Tad/Adam/Opal/Jesse/Angie. I loved the actors and I hoped that someday I would watch the AMC that mother and father watched and when it finally happened this past year I felt spoiled!! So I would be more than disappointed if the shows went back to how they were when they left.

[marceline]

Well yes, it's about wanting the show the way I like it. Am I supposed to watch a show I don't like out of some demented form of loyalty? A loyalty that ABC never appreciated and actively punished me for, BTW. Well then I guess I should just start watching GH since apparently it's wrong of me to want to enjoy the show I watch. Even before cancellation I'd given up AMC. I only came back for the birth of the Hubbard baby and I would've checked out again if the hammer hadn't come down.

I'm going to go back to a line I haven't had to use in a while. It not my job to support the shows, it's their job to make me want to. I'm not a partner, I'm the customer and if you don't give me a product I want, I'm not going to buy it. I didn't watch AMC 2.0 out of loyalty or obligation, I watched it because I loved the product. ABC already proved that they cannot or will not provide me with soap that I want to see.

I wouldn't watch ABC again for the same reason I don't watch Tyler Perry movies: because I know what to expect and I'm not interested. My desire to support black actors and filmmakers doesn't mean that I will subject myself to his IMO inferior product. As for the soaps, that doesn't mean that I would actively root for them to fail but I won't waste my time watching. Just like I don't watch any of the network soaps now.

[JONNYSBRO]

I would love for it to be on abc for two reasons frons is no longer there. Vicki Drummer is much smarter and is letting Ron and frank do what they want with GH. It will never happen. PP will never revive these they have no cash they are the biggest joke I have seen in history.

[Max]

I am the last person here who would ever want to give people here false hope. But unlike the near zero chance that a PP online venture had at succeeding, there may be a slim (roughly 15%) chance that AMC/OLTL could succeed if they came back to ABC (each as 30 minute soaps filmed at Stamford). A huge reason why the internet venture was doomed from the start was because the older audience was not accustomed to watching shows that way, and because of inadequate promotion. These problems would be eliminated via an ABC Daytime airing, but one huge problem still remains, and that's the fact that it is just so difficult to get casual soap fans (who are viewers of habit) to tune back into shows that have been off of television for several years.

If ABC really wanted to bring these soaps back, they would face two logistical problems: getting the hour back from affiliates (which they gave up for Katie) and getting creative control back from PP. (If I recall correctly, I think the original contract gave PP 10 years of creative control, but there may be certain conditions/stipulations involved. Perhaps ABC can sue PP for breach of contract in order to regain creative control.) I know that a lot of folks here are opposed to ABC regaining control, but I view them as the lesser of two evils as compared to the chronically incompetent and dishonest PP.

I am opposed to trying a Season 2 for the PP online versions of AMC/OLTL, because I have such a strong feeling that it will again end in financial failure, and that PP will play its usual games (e.g., reducing the number of episodes, issuing strange press releases, filing bogus lawsuits). If AMC/OLTL (and their fans) cannot be treated with dignity, then it is better for them to remain dead. However, I am not opposed to trying an attempted ABC-controlled revival of AMC/OLTL that would air on ABC Daytime, even though I think that failure is highly likely. If such a revival succeeds, there will be two more soaps from which to choose (obviously a big plus for the genre). And if it fails, I trust that ABC will give both soaps proper finales, so that fans won't be in this endless state of uncertainty.

[DRW50]

ABC doesn't care about using those soaps again. They are only keeping GH for now because nothing else succeeded. At "best," they will allow Ron to spitefully tell stories about Colby being raped and/or murdered.

[dragonflies]

I could see ABC keeping them online if anything

[Chris B]

Max, I disagree. I think Prospect Park's only problem clearly has been funding. They are a small company with less than 5 primetime shows on air. They simply don't have the money to produce these soaps. Their biggest screwups could be overcome if ABC let them produce these shows, since the most important aspect (money) wouldn't be an issue. Creatively they handled it right. They put together talented teams that included some new talent and people who knew the shows. Had these shows continued I know we were in for even better stuff. With ABC their track record speaks for itself.

[cassadine1991]

Says the person who really believes GH is safe

[Steve]

I feel the same way. I'd really want to give AMC a chance in any form, but I've been burned too many times by ABC hiring back McTavish.

I doubt ABC would put either show back on their network in the daytime. My suspicion is they would go to ABC Family or another cable channel (I'm not sure what ones Disney owns).

I was so excited to have Pine Valley feel like home again on the online version. It would be a shame to see what a train wreck Cartini would make of it.

As someone who grew up watching GH during its 1980s glory days, I was extremely disappointed with how Cartini handled bringing back so many characters for the 50th anniversary. They had no clue how to use the history of the show without resorting to bringing back just about anyone who'd ever died just for shock value.

Speaking of Tyler Perry, I finally saw an ad from a Madea movie that made me laugh; the one where Larry the Redneck Moron (whatever he actually calls himself) asks if she heard a racist joke and she asks if he's heard of the redneck who got shot telling that joke. So Tyler Perry can come up with one good quip in 15 years!

[Vee]

ABC wanted them back before PP returned - after GH began improving in the numbers they wanted to be able to at least have the option of doing short-run series with them during the summer months, or something, and this was a plan Frank Valentini supposedly pushed for. This, again allegedly, contributed to their extreme reluctance to cooperate with PP at all. To which I say, nice thought but you shouldn't have cancelled the shows and sold the rights. It galls me when people cite this story as evidence that ABC is totally for the soaps now and that PP "ruined everything." If not for their cancelling the shows and treating them like [!@#$%^&*] for a good 15+ years they wouldn't be in that position. They made their own bed and they have no long-term interest in the soaps. While some executives might or might not, I will never believe the corporate apparatus at large there or in Disney wants that. It's simply not cost-effective for the kind of margins they want.

The only way I'd want them back on ABC is if ABC was utterly hands off creatively and was only distributing them. This was something floated around a while back, but it has yet to happen. As much as I'd like a clean break, the fact is that a network like ABC has the kind of money necessary to make this work where many independent outfits do not. That is a business reality. And when these shows were being, as Chris says, produced out in Stamford at a fraction of the cost of other soaps but still looked and were overall produced as well as B&B if not better, being made for less money than GH and looking a lot more expensive - I think that's a steal. I think it still would be.

PP producing the shows independently and having them run on ABC was a good idea, in my book. At this point, however, I have severe doubts that PP's upper management can ever get its [!@#$%^&*] together for something like that. But if they could, and if ABC could front the money and then get out of the way of the creative process, then I can't see opposing it.

[marceline]

My stomach actually lurched reading that. Ron getting his hands anywhere near AMC has always been my doomsday scenario. RC writing for Colby, Cass, or Miranda…ugh. The rape and pregnancy would never stop and the same people complaining about the trafficking story would chug it down and declare it brilliant.

[DRW50]

Miranda being raped would be "soapy goodness" and a brilliant use of history. Miranda revealing that she wanted it would be ironic amazing perfection, compared to Bianca's rape. And when Miranda gets a kooky split personality, Melinda, everyone goes wild at the genius of it all.

Ron taking a big dump on PC characters - casually murdering a popular heroine so that he could tell a month or two of story for her vacuous, frozen-faced twink of a son - is a guide to what he would do if he got his hands on AMC. He secretly hates these shows and resents them for not being his. Or even worse, he "loves" them for reasons that involve very sick, disturbing fetishes, none of which have anything to do with the intent or the heart of said shows.

The only thing worse than Ron hating your show is Ron liking your show.

I wouldn't trust ABC even if Ron and Frank aren't involved. They can't produce anything. They can't schedule anything. They barely manage this with a few primetime shows, let alone daytime.

This would likely be the daytime equivalent of strip mining.

[Vee]

My biggest concern over ABC getting the whole thing back lock, stock and barrel - rights and all - is the idea, however foolish (but I don't think it's that far off from what would be the reality) that if they did mount a short-run revival of the two shows on their own they'd just disseminate the existing GH corps and staff across AMC and OLTL to limit costs. Most likely with Frank running all three. He did come up with this strategy to bring the shows back in future and I'm sure it came from a good place, with true love for the shows in his heart, but I suspect it would've meant he would be the man in charge over all those new mini-shows. And I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a good idea on any level.

I'm sure there are some that would cream their jeans at the thought of Frank and Ron holding sway over every single soap on ABC Daytime at once, but at this point they're barely holding GH together. I have less of a problem with Frank than I do Ron's writing, but he's still got his share of problems in terms of what they prioritize. As I've said a dozen times, the biggest problem is the idea of these shows looking, feeling, being written and produced the same, under the same ethos and mentality. But I think there's come to be outright aggression to the idea that on their own these shows could ever be better than what those guys are doing at 2 PM.