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

[EnglishTea]

There was a famous novelist supposedly approached and created a bible for All My Children in the early 2000s - Erica and Brooke, Enchantment and Tempo, front and center, anyone remember the name of the writer?

[John]

Darin Little. He is an english writer. He did SW at AMC for a while

[cassadine1991]

Really what kinds of novels has he done?

[Chris B]

Darin Little can't be the person they're referring to, he is a UK soap writer not a novelist. I did think it was interesting to hire him, but it didn't seem to amount to much since he wasn't HW and surely didn't have much power the way US soaps are micro-managed. On the Kay Alden front, I was super sad they didn't hire her back in the day. I remember it being a really exciting time when she was at AMC. She seemed passionate about the show and her background was so strong that I felt she would've done what it takes to make the show good. It's unfortunate they didn't even give her a chance. It's crazy to think she was on the #1 show for so many years, at that point almost 10 years without Bill Bell running things and nobody wanted to give her a chance. In the end it really benefited B&B having her with them. Her HW stint during the writers strike was great and post-strike I'd say she was clearly what helped them get out of the rut they had been in.

[Khan]

There were so many writers who could have done fantastic things for AMC: Kay Alden, Nancy Curlee, Claire Labine -- even those nutty Dobsons, had someone been willing to make the call. It's just a tragedy that the best they could do under Frons was [!@#$%^&*] Esensten & Brown and Kreizman & Swajeski.

[John]

Was it Burton Armus?

[Khan]

Yes. Allegedly.

[John]

Didnt his bible include Bianca seducing Krystle into an affair. I remember hearing that

[Khan]

Oh, the Armus bible is legendary for a ton of things. Erica vs. Brooke, Brooke becoming a late-in-life lesbian...that's off the top of my head. I'm sure others can pitch in with stuff, lol.

[allmc2008]

Something about that makes me feel as if he would have been AMC's answer to James E. Riley....

[allmc2008]

Depending on the execution and build up I can kinda see how Brooke being bisexual could work. There are a lot of people in her age group that still haven't came out and even though she is pretty liberal maybe she was afraid on how Phoebe and others would have reacted.

It would have interesting if Bianca had helped Brooke come out then form a mother/daughter relationship.

[Chris B]

I know she's controversial, but I would love to have seen K.O.L.A. B.O.O.F.'s bible for AMC. I think her take on any of the soaps would've been interesting, but I always wanted to see her at AMC or GL. She said that they loved her bible at AMC, but when the story of her being Osama's mistress leaked, ABC kicked her to the curb. Her GL I think would've been unforgettable because at that point nobody was really controlling what was going on there so she would've had freedom to really take the show wherever she wanted it to go. With the Peapack model it needed a strong vision at top.

[cassadine1991]

Wonder what were the stories in that Bible

Seriously?? Around what year would've this taken place? 2003?

[Vee]

I am not convinced there is a Burton Armus bible. It took us forever to confirm that this person actually exists. There have been a lot of magical fairy tales about wonderful soap bibles from amazing writers no one heard of over the last 10+ years - some of them are real, many of them are glorified fanfic. (That includes the obvious in the latter category.)

[allmc2008]

Oh, the Kennicotes were supposed to return and I think Paul was slated to return as well.