I don't think that DP being brought in to write out the character was the original plan. He was definitely a temporary hire. They went to Zaslow and offered him the role of Alan. He refused (because it was a STUPID idea) and instead he offered to come back as Roger.
If you work out the timing of Roger's return, it had to be that they asked Zaslow sometime early to mid autumn. That was only a few of months after Bernau left, even though the story in the soap mags was that Bernau was going to eventually return.
So from that we can assume they started looking to permanently replace him fairly soon after he left. When Zaslow offered to come back as Roger, it was then that they made the decision to write Alan out.
DP stayed way longer than they originally intended once the decision was made to bring back Roger. Otherwise, I would imagine a new, permanent Alan would have taken over early in 1990 if Zaslow had not wanted to return to the show.
(YES, I agree, Alan would never have done that. But I give Long a little bit of a break because she must have had to do some really fast retooling of planned storylines to accomodate Zaslow's return).
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DeeVee ·
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