Worst Executive Producer...

[Mitch]

I really do suspect that PG was giving their producers a mandate to just make the shows so shitty that no one will care when they are killed off. I think Gautman wasn't bad at the beggining and I do think he had an offhand respect for the vets..Wheeler actually produced some okay stuff the first year, the arrival of Jonathon, Dinah, the "death" of Phillip (Phillip going bonkers was before her and this was just a continuation...) Sebastian's arrival..and then it just turned to crap as she pushed JVD out, and ramped up every bad thing the show had going, including turning it into the Super Duper Copper Hour.

 

However, I think the worst for GL and the real death blow to the show was Conboy. The show was starting to get back with Rauch and Taggert, and despite what I think of Rauch, he saw that the show's sets needed make overs, including iconic ones like the Bauer living room and kitchen, Company, etc. So then comes Conboy who brings his crony on who couldn't write her way out of a paper bag, recasts from his couch..if you know what I mean...screws the budget so bad with the Gay Rave/ the Day Glo fashion show and of all things, bring back Brad Cole...proceeds to make Phillip nuts, Alex a crazed woman hiring a stalker for Reva, drugging Alan, and then becoming a drug lord...Wheeler inherited a busted budget from Conboy and crippled characters.

[Khan]

 

Agree.  The brief Rauch/Taggart/Culliton era at GL was nowhere near as good as its glory days, but it still felt like GL.  Conboy and his budget-busting ways simply killed the momentum and left the show vulnerable to the axe.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Khan

[Emma1420]

 

I was not a fan of Rauch as EP of GL at all.   Primarily because of the whole clone and Holly kidnapping kids mess.  Well that and my two least favorite characters were Phillip and Harley and I felt like that area was completely dominated by the two of them.

 

However, I do think that those were probably personal preference things for me, versus show killing moves.   The same way I thought Claire Labine's version of GH was horrible.

 

Joseph Hardy is someone I had never heard of, but after looking him up, he makes complete sense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jagger1966]

My vote goes to Jill Farren Phelps.  As far as I'm concerned that woman destroyed nearly every show she's been involved in.  Killing Maureen Bauer off GL, the horrific murder of Frankie on AW.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this but I believe she also fired Laura Koffman from OLTL when Koffman was going on maternity leave.  Then of course there's the disrespectful way she treated Genie Francis not only on GH but also Y&R.  And if memory serves me correctly she was the producer that famously told Jackie Zeman that "nobody wants to watch old people having sex."  I think she was also the producer that got rid of Shell Kepler's Amy Vining after 23 years without even an on-air mention of where the character went.  In my opinion she shouldn't be allowed to produce a commercial let alone a television show ever again.

[RavenWhitney]

John Conboy on GL. So many of his style/set changes were great. But casting the porn pool boys from Palm Springs and hiring Ellen Weston. FAIL

 

Whichever producer hired Stephen Black and Henry Stern as HW of ATWT. Wow....bad!

 

Charlotte Savitz on AW / Stephen Schenkel on AMC and AW

 

 

[You're Soaking in it]

 

That would be the aforementioned John Valente.

[watson71]

I wonder if P&G ever considered hiring Paul Rauch to be the executive producer of AW when he was hired in 1996 to be the executive  producer of Guiding Light?

[MichaelGL]

This is exactly how I remember the last decade of GL playing out. While Wheeler was bad, I think Conboy was the worst. And that gawd awful opening he put in place....

[j swift]

I would theorize that there are categories of worstness:

 

Producers like Jill Ferren Phelps, Chuck Pratt, and Gary Tomlin have often been a poor fit for the shows that they produced because they want to change the tones of their shows.  General Hospital became a story about the impact of organized crime in a small northeastern port town, and One Life to Live became an annual singing/dancing extravaganza.  However, I would still be willing to watch an original story from any of those producers because they are obviously full of ideas that they want to tell in soap form.

 

There are producers like Paul Ruach and John Conboy who have a distinct style of production regardless of story.  I don't think their lavish style fits with modern storytelling in HD.  I have not enjoyed the pace or plot of B&B since its premiere.  I would put Brad Bell and Ken Corday into this category because they seem benign, their signature on their shows is just that they keep trying to keep it going for their families.  

 

However, then there are those that are just incompetent. Allan Potter and Joseph Stuart openly argued with actors, both had affairs with actresses, and both engaged in unfair hiring/firing practices that reduced diversity in their cast.  When Maureen Garrett complained about Holly forgiving Roger for raping her, GL producer Robert Calhoun was quoted as saying that the rape wasn't "entirely unprovoked."  I recognize the idolization of Irna Phillips as a founder of the genre, but killing a character because you don't like the play in which the actor is performing off-screen is not great producing.  In 1991 Bridget Dobson and Gloria Monty returned to GH and SB respectively after admitting that they never watched the show during their time off and completely scrapped the award-winning stories of prior regimes upon their arrival (both lost their leading actress without a plan b and were fired by the end of 92).  Al Rabin's inability to work with writers on DAYS in the post-supercouple-early-90s led to a mass cast exodus of over 15 characters between 1990-1991 and a drop in ratings.  Those guys have left receipts of how they were the worst.

Edited April 14, 2019 by j swift

[amybrickwallace]

 

I've heard the stories about Joe Stuart on OLTL; I haven't heard any negative things about him or Allen Potter on TD - not that negative things couldn't have happened there under their respective watches. I thought AP's run at TD was pretty good (the majority of TD under his watch has aired on Retro TV), and TD won the first daytime drama Emmy while he was its producer. What's the tea on him?

 

The only negative thing I have heard about Allen Potter was that he and Doug Marland had a feud when they were EP and HW at GL in the early 80s. They disagreed bitterly over the direction of a certain story involving Jane Elliot. Potter won that argument, and Marland opted to leave GL once his contract expired.

[juppiter]

 

Not to mention the stupid vanity credit he put in — executive producer John Conboy in big bold letters. As if we could forget. 

[redontop4]

 

Of course, it was Paul Rauch who moved the exec producer credit to the top. Before him, the GL EP was listed after the writers and directors, then came the EP, then other producers. When Rauch arrived, he moved his name up to the top of the credits, followed by the writers, then director, then other producers. Because he was just that important, you know.

Edited April 14, 2019 by redontop4

[You're Soaking in it]

 

Though it changed the placement from GL's norm, the EP credit coming first isn't unusual. It sometimes depended on the practice of the studio / network. ABC shows were typically "Created by" first, then EP on the crawl (before the early-mid 2000's). Other shows were giving their EPs final billing - sometimes with the crawl freezing on their credit, such as with Santa Barbara. It's probably where Conboy got his "inspiration" for moving it on GL.

Edited April 14, 2019 by YurSoakinginit

[vetsoapfan]

I loathed Paul Rauch as a producer. He decimated the core of several shows which had been my favorites before he butchered them. 

[juppiter]

 

This was on all of the P&G soaps. What im referring to is that Conboy gave himself a big credit at the end of the episode after the fade to black like on a primetime show. 

Edited April 15, 2019 by juppiter