Could you be Wendy Riche?

From: mncawnbe@aol.com (MncaWnbe)
Subject: GH: TAN: Could you be Wendy?  Take my quiz and see!
Date: 28 Mar 1997 05:30:37 GMT

        Are you the next Wendy Riche?  Take this simple quiz and see!

Alright, you've been a devoted GH fan and RATSAfarian for years.  You've
bitched and moaned, laughed and cried, channel-surfed and fast-forwarded. 
But could you do it?  Are you as creative as the reigning Queen of
Daytime?  Match your wits to Wendy's, and see what happens!

1.  You've hired an actor and actress who played a super-couple on another
soap in the 1980s.  For months, you've engineered near-misses between the
two to build anticipation for their first meeting.  Finally the big day
arrives.  Your scenerio:

A: Out of nowhere, he whisks her out of the path of a speeding car, saving
her life and instantly winning her eternal gratitude.

B: A natural disaster hits the soap town .....  the two are trapped
together and share their deepest secrets as they try to escape.

C: He shoots her.

2.  After a 13 year absence, a former star is coming back from the dead
and returning to the show.  What do you do with her now that she's back?

A: Rehire the actor who played her husband and try to resurrect one of the
shows' most popular love rectangles of all time.

B: Pair her with the charming, dashing older man who is currently limited
to offering unsolicited advice to his love-sick mobster son.

C: Give her one obligatory flashback, a snarky conversation with her
onetime rival, and pack her off to Switzerland with her daughter.

3.  After a nearly two-year separation, your reigning star-crossed lovers
will finally make love.  The setting?

A: A romantic beach, reminiscent of a previous adventure.

B: Trapped in a cabin on a snowy mountain, thinking they'll freeze to
death.

C: Trapped in the catacombs with a dead body, thinking they'll suffocate.

4.  Ratings are down.  Your reaction?

A: Fire some unpopular actors and end negative storylines

B: Hire a new writer ... or two

C: Clamp down on all scoops ... obviously people aren't watching because
they know what's coming ahead of time.

5.  You've written out the second female of a very popular SIDAR.  To keep
the geometric thing going, you need another one.  This time, she'll be a
rival for the husband instead of the ex-lover. How do you introduce her?

A: The husband talks a beautiful stranger out of jumping off a bridge, and
is immediately drawn to her.

B: Years ago, the husband seduced the woman with the sole purpose of
acquiring her company.  He succeeded, leaving her bereft and bankrupt. 
Now she's back, wanting personal and professional revenge.

C: The husband's presumed dead, never-before-mentioned wife crashes his
wedding.

6.   You've just taken over production of a soap that was once so popular,
it was on the cover of Newsweek magazine.  Its formula: combining
action/adventure with romance and intrigue.  Your philosophy?

A: This is working ... how can we make it even better?

B: The action was good but the sci-fi stuff was ridiculous.  Let's see how
we can make the romance more exciting.

C: Since the show is named General Hospital, every storyline should
certain around a major character contracting a deadly disease.

7.  Most soap viewers are women.  How do women like to see themselves
portrayed?

A: As attractive, captivating, intelligent heroines desired by many men.

B: As strong, bold, daring leaders juggling careers, husbands and children
with finesse.

C: As victims of psychotic stalkers, revenge-seeking kidnappers, and
sexually deviant drug dealer/neurosurgeons.

8.  You're lucky enough to be working with the greatest soap opera
supercouple of alltime.  But ever since having her first baby, the
couple's female half has put her real family above everything else.  She
worked an abbreviated schedule for a long time, and then took a leave of
absence.  What do you do when she returns?

A: Offer her the sun, moon and stars if she'll commit to a five year
contract with built-in leaves and all sorts of other goodies, providing
she'll give you two front-burner storylines a year.

B: Give her character a wasting-away disease like Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome, forcing her to spend lots of time sleeping while her husband
takes care of the house, kids, and desperately searches the globe for a
cure for his wife.  

C.  Hit her with four back-to-back front burner storylines to remind her
how much she loves working 14 hours a day, five days a week. 

9.  Your show's obligatory wealthy family centers around a couple that's
been fighting and making up for nearly 20 years.  Last year, their
relationship changed dramatically following her bout with breast cancer. 
What do you do with them now?

A: Bring back something from their history.  Let's see, wasn't their
oldest son's paternity once in question?  Wouldn't it be interesting if
.....

B: Explore the long-term ramifications of breast cancer on a woman's body
image and sexuality.  Perhaps she could undergo reconstructive surgery
and, mistaking gratitude for sexual attraction, have an affair with her
surgeon .... that would fit into the couple's paradigm without negating
their emotional growth as a couple after dealing with the cancer.

C: Toy with the idea of him having an affair with her best friend.  Forget
about it and then ignore them for awhile.  Then have her have a sudden,
unmotivating affair with an attractive but shallow colleague.  Turn the
lover into a nutcase and have the couple reconcile again.

10.  What phrase best captures your philosophy as an executive producer?

A: Ratings are the bottom line.  If the storylines are good, the ratings
will be good as well.  Bad ratings are an indicator of bad storylines. 
When the ratings fall, I change what we're doing.  Higher ratings mean to
continue in that direction.

B: If we put together well-crafted, entertaining stories, the audience
will follow.  Sometimes storylines are a little ahead of the audience;
sometimes it takes time to gather momentum.  But consistent,
character-driven plots will always resonate sooner or later.

C: Emmys are the most important recognition for a show.  Ratings are
meaningless; most fans are ignorant and wouldn't recognize art if they
stepped in it.  I'd rather have a nod from the Blue Ribbon Panel than a
few more share points.  The best way to get Emmys is to do the educational
stuff -- the disease of the week, current issues.  I'm not happy if I
can't run atleast one Public Service Announcement a week.  I need to teach
viewers about what's going on in the world, because they probably don't
know.

Scoring ....

If you chose mostly As, you're Agnes Nixon.  You have a traditional
mindset for soaps -- melodrama.  And melodrama is really out right now. 
Soaps have moved beyond it ..... losing over a million collective viewers
in the process, but so what?  Maybe your outlook will be popular again
after ratings for ABC's Daytime to Remember go through the roof.  

If you chose mostly Bs, call yourself Gloria Monty.  You're attempting to
meld tried-and-true ideas with modern twist.  Sometimes this gives you
Luke and Laura; other times you end up with Jenny Eckert and the Green
Belts.  Your best bet -- spend a lot of time listening to Kenny Rogers'
famous advice: you've got to know when to hold ëem ... know when to fold
ëem ... etc. etc.

If you chose mostly Cs, give us a hug Wendy Riche!  You've boldly chosen
to go where no soap producer has ever gone before.  Unfortunately, there's
a reason for those choices.  Robert Frost may prefer the road less
traveled; soap fans like to visit places we've been to several times
before.  We'll be saving a seat for you with us ... but in the meantime,
there's a Michael Logan here who'd like a word with you ......

Jami
FGC Monica
FGCO Rick and Monica

certain that Doug Marland is looking down at GH and he's not smiling ....