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Worst Executive Producer...


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Not only did he viable vets, the show still had life. All he needed to do was get rid of the writers and get young, new visionaries behind the wheel of the show. Instead, he rested on his laurels and drove the show right off a cliff. 

 

I wanna add Goutman's protege, Ellen Wheeler to the list too. Yes, she had an uphill battle with Guiding Light, but she didn't even try. Peapack was her second life line, and she just threw it all away. Much like Goutman, she stayed disrespecting the show's history to push her own agenda. Then when the show is officially cancelled, she then wanted to produce good content. That p*ssed me off with her and P&G. 

 

It still unnerves me that GL and ATWT were killed off when they were American treasures that still had tons of life to them had they been ran by people who truly loved both shows.

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It has to be Chris Goutman. He did have a vision when he started at ATWT. The episode where Katie was forced to tape a video confessing to her crimes by her stalker is a late soap classic. He directed that and the production values are extremely impressive. That episode is Marland ATWT quality, even though Lethal Leah Laiman wrote it. Perfect soap. The fact that the tape of Katie didn't come out until months and months later is also Marland quality.

 

But he both gave up and became contemptuous of the fan base. He shouldn't have been in that role as long as he was.

 

OMG and how good was David Andrew Macdonald once that ridiculous storyline ended and he was just David? AW's last five years are such a shame.

Edited by juppiter
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Yeah, I was going to include that as an 'exception' but I still think she was damaging in different ways. And she could have been even more damaging on Y&R than she ultimately was ...

 

She's a show killer, IMHO. That's what she's hired for. I also think she's always been a little bitter she's not producing primetime ...

 

Goutman initially showed tiny promise. It all went to hell. He was better of sticking to directing. What qualified him to be a producer? Just wondering ... lol

 

I liked David Andrew Macdonald. I was tired of Edmund on GL but I was happy he showed up there after AW ended. I thought AW started coming together somewhat towards the end. 

 

All these cancelled soaps still had such life in them, but due to mis-management, poor writing, bad casting ... they limped to their conclusion. 

 

I can't believe it's been 10 years since GL ended

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 It truly seems like yesterday the guillotine dropped. 

 

The Talk and Lets Make a Deal are totally useless shows. And let's not forget how much ABC has struggled to fill the 1pm slot ...

 

Even though CBS probably was more than happy to dump "those aging fossils", I don't think it helped any that P&G/telenext checked out long before the axe fell ... A real company would have tried to save them all.

Edited by KMan101
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I didn't hate Chris Goutman during the first half of his tenure at ATWT.  To me he was like any other EP.  He brought on new characters, had his pets, and recast and redefine older characters.   However, I also like Sheffer's ATWT, or at least I liked a lot of the stories he created.  Although I could have done without the endless Cabot crap.  I think the last 4-5 years weren't that good, and I think the description of them being aimless and kind of soulless is pretty accurate.  However, I give him a lot of credit for not taking ATWT down the same road as GL with horrendous production values.  

 

I didn't realize that Ellen Wheeler had been Chris Goutman's protege.  That explains a lot about her love affair with recasting, deSORASing, and completely gutting characters.  

 

I can see the comparison to Valenti to Goutman.  The production values on GH have remained okay, but the show, with a few exceptions, seems pretty bland and soulless.   

 

One of the problems I think that every soap has/had is that It's the same 10-15 EP's and HW's who have been writing and running these shows for the last 40 years, and I don't know that they grasped how the audience was changing.  I realize that Mal Young was a disaster on Y&R, but I at least give Y&R some credit for trying something new and not just hiring an EP from another show.   

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I can agree with all of this.

 

It's hilarious to see the constant recycled producers and writers. Usually they left their other soap because it was a disaster, yet, here they are, getting the same jobs over and over and over again. But also, to be fair, many writers and former producers refuse to return or accept the job ... the lack of new talent behind the scenes has really hurt these shows.

 

It's why I really enjoyed the OLTL and AMC reboots on Hulu. It felt familiar but also more modern and fresh. It was a good start. Just the wrong people leading the charge and lots of BTS politics (ABC wanted to see them fail and Prospect Park bit off far more than they could chew)

 

Personally I'd love all the soaps to be half hours again ... but with just four, an hour for three of them is good. If we had all the other soaps still, I'd certainly advocate going to a half hour and doing a hard reboot on them.

 

Peapack on GL was a disaster. I wanted to appreciate it because I like the looks of the UK soaps that use outdoor settings regularly. It just looks more 'real' ... but it was a bootleg version, lol. I can't even really give Wheeler credit for 'trying' this ... and I think it would have gone over better had GL moved online and they had a real producer, not a former actress who supposedly can now produce. Direct? Sure, she can direct all she wants ...

Edited by KMan101
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It's a shame the Hulu reboots didn't work.   I agree that PP bit off more than they could chew.  I think if PP had picked one show, had a smaller cast, and had started more conservatively (say 2-3, 30 minute episodes a week) it might have worked.  Unfortunately, I don't know that any other production company will ever take a similar risk because of that experiment.   I actually wonder if the way to go isn't to try the audio format again.  Podcasts are so popular, that perhaps moving back to the "radio" format using that method might work.  The Archers is still crazy popular, and they've always been radio only.

 

The Peapack stuff on GL was horrific.  I don't give Wheeler any credit at all.  It wasn't just that the show suddenly looked like it was being recorded on her iphone, it was also that so many other corners were being cut (the lack of rehearsal for the actors being the most blatant).  And I tried to watch the last week of that show, and I couldn't.  To me it wasn't even recognizable as GL.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What PP should have done is staggered the debuts. OLTL had more people involved with even the first try. They should have started OLTL right after ABC ended and brought AMC back that summer simce that show had more damage at the end of its ABC Run

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I found that (after All My Children and One Life to Live were reduced to thirty-minute episodes) that there was too much storyline going onscreen for a thirty-minute program.

 

I remember that Irna Phillips said that there should be three storylines shown on a show at one time:  one on the front-burner, one simmering (developing), and one just starting to get heated.

 

On All My Children, it seemed as though each character had his/her own storyline going.  One LIfe to Live was not that busy, but there were more than three storylines being shown.  Also on One Life to Live, there were some storylines introduced but initially dropped (I guess when the producers decided that there was too much.)

 

This reminds me when ABC made Ryan's Hope reduce its number of storylines  (resulting in a number of its cast members were dropped.)

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He was also showrunner during knots landing season 13, which fans universally consider to be a disaster (the production company did as well, since they stopped production mid-way through the season to hire different writers to wrap the season up.)

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Joseph Hardy was Supervising Producer during S13.  The real show runner -- and the person who truly drove KNOTS into the ground before being shown the door -- was John Romano.

 

Given his successes on the stage, I feel like Hardy would have been better off working as a director in soaps, rather than as an EP or producer.

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I chose Joseph Hardy because it is difficult to criticize a producer for a bad story, but multiple recasts, a mass actor exodus, or an unwelcome change in tone seem more directly related to the job of an executive producer.  And taking a show that had become a habit for its fans and then to lose a vast proportion of that audience has to blamed on production.  

 

For example, one could argue about the taste level of stories like Eterna at OLTL during Paul Rauch's time as executive producer.  There were probably a number of people who could be blamed for the execution from the writers, to the actors, to network exec who wanted more action and adventure.  However, the production values were part of the selling points of that story.  One may not value lipstick on a pig, but you have to admire the attempt.   

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John Valente  As The World Turns

 

He had a difficult task following Caso and Marland and his stance that the show couldn't just keep trying to replicate that era was sound enough but the changes made during his time did nothing to turn things around. Some poor casting choices and questionable story focus under his tenure.

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We need to include Charlotte Savitz on this list.  In two years as executive producer of Another World there were 8 different headwriters or headwriting teams.  They include: Margaret DePriest; Elizabeth Page, Tom King, and Craig Carlson; Tom King and Craig Carlson; Michael Malone; Richard Culliton; Richard Culliton and Jean Passanante; Jean Passanante; and Leah Laiman and Jean Passanante.

 

Savitz was the producer who truly destroyed AW and  ensured its future cancellation .  Here is a list of her incompetent decisions:

-Brought John Aprea back to the show as Lucas lookalike Alexander Nikos and quickly turned him into a cartoonish villain.

-Turned race car driver Bobby Reno into Dr. Shane Roberts with a secret wife, Lila

-Unsuccessfully recasted Amanda and Matthew Cory until Sandra Ferguson and Matt Crane returned to the show.

-Let the following characters leave Bay City never to be heard from again- Lorna Devon, Sharlene Hudson, John Hudson, Tomas Rivera, Sofia Carlino, 

-Killed Gabe McNamara

-Had the ghosts of Ryan Harrison and Bridget Connell visit Vicky since JFP had killed off both of these characters

-Recasted popular characters Gary and Josie in mid-story, then introduced a brother for Gary named Cameron who did nothing to help the mid-story recasts

-Introduced time traveler Jordan Stark and his Lumina Foundation

-Had the character of Marley Hudson return to Bay City, disfigured her face in a fire so that Marley and Vicky were no longer identical twins, and had Ellen Wheeler return to the role of Marley.  Let's not forget that Wheeler was about a foot taller than Jensen Buchanan's Vicky. Not only did Marley get disfigured, she grew about a foot.

-Killed both Michael Hudson and Shane Roberts in a car crash in a snowstorm

-Fired Emmy winner Charles Keating and had Carl disappear with a brain tumor.  Carl would turn up alive in the last few episodes of AW.

 

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