Happy Birthday to Me
There are some periods in GL's history that are named over and over as "the golden years" by various people. Agnes Nixon's term as headwriter in the mid-60's (from what little I've seen, this was a magnificent era), Doug Marland's run from '79 to '82 (my personal choice), and the Pam Long regime of the mid-80's (I couldn't disagree more!) are among the the most frequently offered choices. One period that just about everyone agrees belongs near (or at) the top of the pile is the early 90's, specifically '92-'93.As I've written before, I started watching GL in part because of the casting of Marj Dusay and Marcy Walker in 1993. One other reason I started watching was because of the prolonged, steady stream of wildly enthusiastic press that the show was getting during 1992 and 1993. GL was recognized on a regular basis in the most complimentary terms available for the intelligence and intricacy of its writing and the abundant and well positioned talent of its cast. Every word of the praise was well deserved, as can be seen here in Happy Birthday to Me. 
Taken from the very end of 1992, this clipset deals with the fallout from the reveal of Ross and Blake's affair and its effects on Holly. It opens with the run-up to a searing blowout between Holly and Blake that is executed with glorious precision and passion by Maureen Garrett and Elizabeth Keifer. Garrett especially at the very top of her game as Holly becomes drunker and drunker as her birthday "celebration" flies progressively further off the rails.
The astoundingly high quality of virtually every aspect of these scenes is a true pleasure to behold. In addition to the aforementioned Garrett and Keifer, Happy Birthday to Me offers generous portions of the amazing and legendary work of Michael Zaslow, Jerry verDorn, Peter Simon, and Ellen Parker, adding more proof to the pile to that this time in GL's history remains among its very highest points.
And so, enjoy Happy Birthday to Me--
clip 1 , clip 2 , clip 3 , clip 4 , clip 5 , clip 6
clip 7 , clip 8 , clip 9 , clip 10 , clip 11 , clip 12
clip 13 , clip 14 , clip 15 , clip 16 , clip 17 , clip 18
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Join us here in two weeks for the Best of the 4th Quarter of 2007 wrap-up, as well as a look back at all of 2007. Two big blog entries comin' atcha in just two short weeks!
Meanwhile, Happy Holidays from GLMP! Stay warm and keep watching the show!
---ivnkplng
posted by ivnkplng at
12/16/2007 11:49:00 AM
1 Comments:
This is another post where you need to have a correction about Doug Marland's headwriting years at "Guiding Light" (mainly when it started). Again, Doug Marland did not take over as headwriter from soap opera headwriting couple, Jerome & Bridget Dobson until January 1980 (Marland did not write for the show in any of the 1970's). That was when CBS & P&G switched the Dobson's over to writing for "As The World Turns" (the show the Dobsons would head write for until sometime in the summer of 1981, I'm forgetting exact dates for their writing regime at that show). CBS & P&G decided to hire Marland as headwriter, in January 1980, at "Guiding Light" due to some of his writing at "General Hospital", and his promise to both the network & P&G to spruce up the number of younger characters and storylines with the start of a new decade of the 1980's (which he did do with the creation of such characters in 1980 as Nola, Kelly, Morgan and the revitalization of the importance of the character of Tim Werner with the up and coming young actor named, Kevin Bacon). One of the things a matter of fact bemoaned, about "Guiding Light", shortly before Marland started in January 1980 and the last few months of the tenure in 1979 of the Dobsons was how there were no major characters on the canvas of "Guiding Light" under the age of 30 years (except for Christina "Blake" Bauer Thorpe as played at the time by Cheryl Lynn and Phillip Spaulding as played at the time by Jarrod Ross who were both child actors who because of child labor laws couldn't play the characters full-time). And the Dobsons were switched over to "As The World Turns" in January 1980 because it was thought at the time ATWT had lost it's way after several storylines, in the late-1970's, that were not seen as really holding up to the longtime usual writing of ATWT about character driven instead of plot driven (and the Dobsons did apparently bring back to ATWT a lot more character driven storylines, but in the summer of 1981 P&G and CBS dropped them from that show due to the fact that they couldn't stand the fact the Dobsons did not repeat with John & Dee what they did at GL with Roger & Holly of an actual marital rape -- Dee had actually made up her being maritally raped by John due to the influence of her father, David and his longstanding hatred of John -- unlike what really happened on GL, in 1979, with Holly & Roger; that and the fact the Dobsons refused to get rid of several long time denisons of Oakdale such as Chris & Nancy Hughes and Carol Stallings Andropolous to make way for much younger characters which the next set of writers would end up doing -- which ironically would be corrected by Doug Marland when he started to headwrite for ATWT in summer of 1985).
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