Hogan Sheffer dies at 61

[Contessa Donatella]

I stayed in love with Rose. Loved Scott Holroyd. Hated that they had that great umbrella story planned & scrapped it. Byrne hated it, too.

Gosh darn it, I hate to disagree with you but I loved Mitzi. That actress did a fine turn & her colleagues really enjoyed her.

Yeah, we lived through it but already looking back on it, what do we see?

[BetterForgotten]

Frankly, looking back on it, it seems like much of Sheffer's success earlier on ATWT was due to wrapping up and building on Leah Laiman's BORING, yet STUPID AS HELL storylines. He was new to daytime (so he had a relatively fresh pair of eyes) and the easiest job a new HW has is to wrap up the previous writer's mess. 

 

When he started developing his own stories from scratch that's when things took a tumble, and that was even BEFORE Carolyn Culliton left. 

[Contessa Donatella]

LOL, to have a reprieve from the brown outfits she always wore as Lily! Byrne's talked about playing Rose. She talked about losing the back half of the story, too!

[vetsoapfan]

 

Agreed. 

 

He was often very candid with his comments, however, and I just wish he had given a no-holes-barred interview about his time on the soaps, particularly ATWT, and explained why he seemed to have it in for Eileen Fulton. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Bryant with a t on the end, but, yes, that's how it went. Bryant was such an interesting character and it was hard to accept his death. I just wanted to shake his parents till their teeth rattled. Bryant was also one of those times when the next generation is robbed right out from under the flow of story. (Don't mean to be snippy about that ending t.)

[BetterForgotten]

I wonder what he was actually up to since the, what, nearly 8 years since he last wrote for daytime on Y&R? I do know there's been constant speculation about his health dating back to ATWT - especially when he went on that 17 week sabbatical in 2005 and P&G later announced he wouldn't be returning as HW. 

 

If I remember correctly, his contact at Y&R expired a few months after Maria Bell and Scot Hamner. I think he was still being credited until early 2012, but the speculation was that it was only contractual and he wasn't actually contributing anything, and JFP and Sony wanted fire him immediately but had to wait his contract out. He must have had an interesting contract...

[Contessa Donatella]

Indeed. If anyone knows what his health situation was, I wish they would speak up. I feel for his brother Craig and any other family he still has. Mostly it just stinks for someone to die when they're 61. Now, we've had Reilly die too young and Sheffer die too young. Just stinks. That 17 week sabbatical followed by his not returning was suspicious to say the least. Now, we basically have a mystery with his death.

Also agreeing here.

[BetterForgotten]

Sheffer did return after the sabbatical, but not as HW but as a breakdown writer. Eventually, he left and then went to DAYS after a few months. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Oh, yes, you're right. I forgot about his time as a breakdown writer.

[Brolden]

RIP Hogan. It's so hard for me to comment on his ATWT tenure objectively, but here it goes:

 

First of all, I get why people may have disliked Hogan's writing. Since the show's end, I've been watching more and more classic clips and I agree that Sheffer's ATWT is nothing like Marland's ATWT. That Hunt Block is not the same Craig Montgomery that Scott Bryce was. That the show's identity was not what it used to be. 

However... 

 

I started watching ATWT in 2000, just a few months before Hogan came in. His version of the show is essentially the version of the show that drew me in. I loved the Holden/Lily/Simon/Rose storyline. True, the reveal that Iva had given birth to another child is a bit of a retcon, but as someone else said, one that worked for me. I loved that the show brought back Iva, and later Caleb, Julie and Cal for short stints. Something that wouldn't really happen much beyond that point. I loved Scott Holroyd as Paul and Paul and Rose were my favorite couple at the time. I loved Mitzi too. I loved the boathouse explosion and Barbara spiralling into darkness. I thought the spa storyline was a fantastic way to handle three pregnant lead actresses at the same time, but I also loved the friendship between Carly, Emily and Rose that followed from it (although that was mostly undone after Rose's death). I loved Jake and Molly. I loved Simon and Katie, and then I loved Mike and Katie. I loved Bryant, Abigail and Adam (although not KO's Jennifer). I loved Hal and Emily. And most unpopularly of all... I loved Hunt Block as Craig (Again, in hindsight, I realize that he was NOT the same Craig that Bryce had always portrayed in such a nuanced way... but at the time I didn't know any better).

 

That's not to say his writing wasn't without flaws. In addition to the writing of Craig, I think the vets were given much too little airtime (although more than they would have under JP). I remember seeing Susan in a late 2001 episode and having no idea who she was. I think an attempt was made to feature the vets a bit more with the Rick Decker storyline in 2003, but that was only temporary. And 2004 was one of the worst years for the show IMO (I actually liked 2005 and 2006 better than 2004). But overall, and I could imagine that not everyone (especially those who grew up with Marland's ATWT) would feel this way, Oakdale still felt like a community for much of Hogan's stint, whereas under JP it never felt like that at all.

Obviously, we are not all going to agree on these things. And that's good, we shouldn't. We are passionate about our shows. But having come in to the show post-Marland, I think Sheffer's version of the show was one of the better alternatives. Compared to some of the mid-90s episodes I've seen online, Hogan's ATWT really wasn't all that bad.   

[BetterForgotten]

@Brolden - I think that's a beautifully objective post. At the end of the day, we're all partial to the eras of the show that first grabbed our attention, and no one's opinion is more valuable than anyone else's. 

[Contessa Donatella]

@Brolden, hey, I feel like we were definitely watching the same show!

[EllenP]

I appreciate reading all of these perspectives on Hogan’s ATWT. Replacing Carolyn Culliton with Jean Passanante did him no favors. The tone of the show changed noticeably when she came in around Bryant’s death and it took a while for the show get its act back together. Other than the spa storyline, the beginning and middle of 2002 were not great. It wouldn’t be until the Sage paternity story and centering Marshall Travers the show would be must-see for me, so around the end of 2002 and early 2003.

 

I also think that we can’t discount network interference. Barbara Bloom’s arrival at CBS in mid-2003 was terrible for ATWT (and Y&R to a lesser extent, at least immediately).

 

It is hard to know how much influence or power Hogan had at Y&R, even though elements of his style were evident. Maria Bell, and Paul Rauch to a lesser extent, took ownership of what we saw on screen, and Scott Hamner frequently acted as the spokesperson on a week to week basis in the soap mags.

 

I, too, wish that Hogan had given a long interview reflecting on his soap career. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm not sure how many soaps I've seen Jean Passanante write on. All I can remember for sure is that I did not like her work at AW. And, it was like it was a cheat because we were promised certain things from her writing and they did not materialize. That was a time of extreme network interference, even though it was NBC. Maybe some of Hoagie's people will speak up.

[ChitHappens]

OMG!  

 

He did do some great work at ATWT.  I was a huge fan while he was there.