Today, April 1st, is General Hospital's anniversary -- 45 years on the air. The ABC soap has been very successful through most of that time, although it hasn't really followed the path that many daytime dramas take. In the late 1980's, GH changed from a romance-based, hospital drama to more of a crime/spy/action-oriented soap. It's continued that style, and I can tell you six things that keep me tuning in daily to General Hospital (or checking it out on SoapNet). 
1) The Mob - Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) is like Michael Corleone; in fact, his real name is Michael! Sonny rules Port Charles (which may or may not be Buffalo, New York) and his number one enforcer is Jason Morgan (Steve Burton). They're always fighting to protect their territory (currently going up against the Zacchara family) and they've both survived all kinds of assassination attempts. If you're the type of person who watches The Godfather (and The Godfather, Part 2) every time you see it on TV -- like me -- you'll like GH's whole Godfather vibe.
2) Big Events - When other shows do big events, it'll usually be a party or a ball, and GH has had its share of those. However, at least once a year headwriter Bob Guza writes a story in which things blow up (or like they used to say on SCTV, "Blow up real good!") There was a train derailment, a blown-up building, and a pseudo-24 hostage crisis done in real time (16 hours in 16 episodes). This year they used CGI to send a car over a cliff. For daytime action, GH is the show to watch.
3) Interesting Men - On soaps, you sort of expect certain types of heroes and villains. There are at least a few guys on General Hospital that don't fit the mold; they're more interesting. Kin Shriner's Scott Baldwin has always been a complicated mess of a man: funny, troubled, evil and watchable. Jerry Jacks, as played by Sebastian Roche, is a villain that Hitchcock could love -- smart, twisted, erudite. You haven't seen anyone quite like him on daytime. On the other side of the coin, there's the Jackal, a.k.a. Damian Spinelli (Bradford Anderson). He's a cyber-geek with a vocabulary all his own, but if you blink you might think he's an elf or a leprechaun. Like I said, interesting men are found on GH.
4) Remembering the Past - All soaps say they honor their past. Some are better than others when it comes to keeping track of who's on the show now and who's gone and completely forgotten. GH has sinned in some ways, but they're pretty good at remembering that Robin (Kimberly McCullough) is HIV-positive and got it from Stone Cates. Her mother and father -- super spies Robert and Anna Scorpio -- actually come back now and then to visit. The Quartermaine family never forgets matriarch Lila, even though she's been dead for years. And to this day, Laura Spencer (Genie Francis) is an important character. Luke, Lucky and Lulu never let the audience forget that Laura is institutionalized with a mental illness that's incurable.
5) Feisty Women - There are many great female characters around the dial, and General Hospital seems to specialize in the feisty, fiery hellion. Carly Corinthos Jax (Laura Wright) epitomizes the up-from-the-gutter variation of this type; she's been a bitch-on-wheels and a beloved heroine, often both at the same time. At the other end of the spectrum is Tracey Quartermaine (Jane Eliot). She's a blue-blood who has had every advantage, and she's a real piece of work -- a hard-to-handle woman who is the ultimate ballbuster. A recent addition has also added spice to the females on the canvas: big mama, tough-as-nails nurse Epiphany Johnson (Sonya Eddy), who everyone knows not to mess with.
6) Luke Spencer - Anthony Geary is a great actor...on General Hospital. He may never do another thing in his career to match this iconic character, and even after all these years, he's still damn brilliant at Lucas Lorenzo Spencer. There's a good reason he's won five Emmys as Luke. No matter how inane the plots have been at times, he's always pulled off his part of the story and made viewers care about this man. Any day Geary is on is a day worth watching.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-01-2008 @ 11:54AM
Kelli said...
I agree this show is a definate must-see for me. I've been watching since the 80s on and off - but I have been recording daily since I got my DVR over 6 years ago. Love Sonny & Jason!!
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4-01-2008 @ 11:40AM
jaerisk said...
Very nice, GH is an awesome show even though I have to sneak and watch it because my wife thinks I'm gay for watching it. But the women are hot and Jason Morgan is badass. I love this show.
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4-01-2008 @ 12:07PM
deebopalula said...
I'm dating myself here, but I've been watching GH off and on since the mid 70's. More recently, I was watching AMC, OLTL and GH, but it was becoming too time consuming so I decided to focus just on my favorite of the three and at the time, it was GH. No regrets on that decision.
As noted, I too love how they maintain historic continuity with the characters and the tangled webs they weave and that they regularly drop in reference to characters from the past rather than act like they never existed. I love Sonny and Jason, the dynamics between Luke and Scotty, Lulu and Johnny Zacchara, the whole Zacchara plotline - esp. the crazy father (who I remember from Hill Street Blues). I think Laura Wright is the best Carly ever. And I like the old Carly in her new role as Cladia Zacchara.
I would love for GH to give Epiphany and Diane Miller meatier storylines. Maybe develop a mentoring relationship between Epiphany and the young intern (?) she is always giving a hard time - and maybe give him a good back story as well. And as much as I loved Emily when she was "alive", I wish they would please just let her go now in peace. That storyline is dead (no pun intended)! GH always seems to give recognition to actors who would be nameless and faceless on a lot of other shows.
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4-01-2008 @ 12:11PM
Beth said...
I have watched GH since I was 5! I agree with your 5 things but you miss a few women that deserved to be mentioned in your Feisty Women section.... Alexis and Dianne (Sonny's lawyer) to name two. They have GREAT chemistry! Lu-Lu is Feisty and even if you hate Maxi she's pretty go-get-um too! So there's my 2 cents!
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4-01-2008 @ 12:12PM
C C said...
What's cracking me up about General Hospital right now is their obvious shout-outs to 24. The character of Spinelli was clearly inspired by Chloe, and Jason's adventures are resembling Jack's more and more. And I have a hunch that "Kate Howard" was named for 24 producer Howard Gordon. There was a piece in EW a year or two back where they asked a GH writer and a 24 writer how they would write each other's shows. I think GH decided to just go ahead and do it.
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4-03-2008 @ 10:52AM
Ellen said...
I've been watching this since 1969 when I was a sophomore in H.S. in Montclair N.J. I used to sit inside and watch it with my boyfriends mother while he was outside working on his 67' Camaro. Of course now that boyfriend is my ex husband. There have been times that I didn't see it for months, then vcrs and now thank god for TIVO. I still miss Sean and Tiffany.
4-01-2008 @ 1:03PM
Ari said...
WHAT SHOW DO YOU WATCH AND WHO PAID YOU TO WRITE THIS!
THE MOB IS THE WORST THING ABOUT GH AND DON'T LET GUZA TELL U ANY DIFFERENT! SONNY IS AN ABUSIVE, ANGRY, THUG!
THEY DON'T REMEMBER THE PAST AND THEY KILL OFF VALUABLE CHARACTERS AT WILL AND THEN BRING BACK DEAD PEOPLE TO BE THE MURDERS AND THEN KILL THEM AGAIN!
THE WOMEN ARE ABUSED BY THE MEN ON THE SHOW AND FORCED TO BE WEAK AND SUBMISSIVE OR TOTAL **TCHES!
AND AS FOR THE "EVENTS" THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERED WAS THE NURSES BALL AND ITS OVER. EVERYTHING ELSE IS DRAGGED OUT FOREVER AND INVOVLES THE MOB!
LUKE IS THE ONLY GOOD THING ON THAT LIST AND HE'S BARELY ON ANYMORE!
U CLEARLY DON'T WATCH THE SHOW!
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4-01-2008 @ 1:50PM
pattie74 said...
I've been watching GH since I was little (I just picked up on Mom's soaps), but lately it's been a bit too much of the same. I'm tired of the mob storylines and wish they'd tone it down (or eliminate it altogether down the road). The only storyline I'm invested in these days is the Jason-Liz romance. And even that's fading fast.
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4-01-2008 @ 3:13PM
terri said...
I still watch GH for some of the reasons you mentioned; however, I am close to turning it off for good. I am sick of the misogyny (really did both Emily and Georgie need to be brutally killed and countless other women mistreated), I miss the romance (thank godness for Carly and Jax), they have ruined the wonderful character Lucky, I hate that they treat the mob as heroes and Jason and Liz are the most boring couple ever!
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4-01-2008 @ 3:22PM
Angelo said...
I love GH for three reasons only SONNY (The Don) Jason (The UnderBoss) and THE CORINTHOS FAMILIA!!!!
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4-01-2008 @ 3:30PM
Maxine said...
Without Genie Francis in the current cast, there is NO General Hospital.
Wouldn't even think of watching unless she's on screen, and I'm not the only one.
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4-01-2008 @ 3:48PM
indydavid said...
You're crazy! This show is the worst soap on the air right now. The mob s/l has taken over the show, it's too violent and the villians are heroes and the good guys are wimps and the women are nothing without the bad guys by their side.
Beloved vets have been phased out and/or written as pathetic losers while Sonny and Jason are almost always on the front burner. Tony Geary's "Luke" is a shell of what the character used to be.
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4-01-2008 @ 4:12PM
Lukesfan said...
Thank you for number 6! Tony Geary is THE greatest actor on daytime since 1978! He is the consummate professional and brought a character to daytime that is incomparable! He is the reason I still watch GH!
Vicky Sullivan
4-01-2008 @ 5:05PM
ingie48 said...
I have been a General Hospital fans for over 40 years. One of my earliest memories is of Tom Baldwin raping Audrey. That's when the show was only 30 minutes. Like a fine wine, it has only gotten better with age.
Thanks GH - I just can't cope, without my soap
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4-02-2008 @ 1:11AM
Barbara said...
I agree with the above posters about the mob storyline being overdone. Sonny NEVER loses a battle. They have had interesting counters to him with the Alcazar brothers, Faith Roscoe, etc. but Sonny always come through. I can't understand in this day and age why a show would put at its core a character who is so verbally abusive and ugly to women, who half the time never uses violence (a wimp mobster) and miraculously gets away with stuff and the other half of the time is totally violent and never pays. Faith Roscoe dies, the Alcazar brothers are killed but Sonny lives on to kill enemies and abuse women. I don't like that Claudia Zaccara is being played as a woman scorned. For once I want someone to take Sonny down and totally destroy him and let's get the mob out of Port Charles and focus on some other actors please. I gave up on this show a long time ago when they couldn't flesh out a storyline for one of the best actors in Soaps (Stephen Nichols) with the most fascinating character on Soaps - Stefan Cassadine. I still think his relationships with Nicholas, Alexis and Helena beat anything or anyone on this show before or since. I don't know how the people writing and creating the show then could still be in the business after the crap they pulled with that character. It was a TOTAL DISGRACE and if they couldn't come up with incredible plots for the most fascinating character and actor on GH then they have no right to be in this business.
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4-02-2008 @ 8:26AM
ann said...
Is this an April Fool's Joke? If it is, bravo. If not, then you and I are watching a completely different soap. This show is a shell of it's former self. Mobsters and thier hitmen are *not* romantic or moral heroes. Self-centered, jealous, mean women are not the heroines. And it's sad when the daughter of one of the most famous couples in soap opera history is such a grating, obnoxious brat that I want her off of my screen. I miss the days of romance and family and true emotional resonance.
Now it's simply all mobsters and violence all.the.time. Ugh.
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4-02-2008 @ 11:10AM
Jennifer said...
I have been watching GH since '92. I do agree with the some to the people who said that the Mob thing has taken over. It has. For this reason, I took a much needed break from GH to watch Y&R. After getting fustrated with Y&R, I went back to watching GH. I'm glad I did. No matter how crazy the s/l's get, GH was and still is the best written soap on daytime tv today. I must admit that everyday I am hoping to turn on the tv @3pm and get a glimpse of the 'old' Sonny (i.e. the Sonny & Brenda days) *sigh* . It has not happened yet, but I am still waiting and I will still be watching. Congrats GH!!
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4-02-2008 @ 10:06PM
Reva said...
I'm not sure what show you're watching, but it's not the current GH. I started watching almost 40 years ago. The GH I knew is not even close to this dark, misogynistic, black hole currently calling itself GH. Since mid-November, 7 women have either been murdered or attacked. The once dominate Quartermaine family is now decimated to 3 people. Any acknowledgement of history on this show is to change it. The bad guys always win, and the good guys are made out to look like baffoons. I question a show who makes its moral center a hired killer. The one thing I will agree with is Tony Geary. He can spin anything into gold, too bad the folks who write this show don't appreciate him as much as they should. These are the reasons GH is no longer on my dvr record list.
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4-07-2008 @ 12:05PM
Marianne said...
Um, seriously?! Bob Guza, is that you?! Are we watching the same show?! And the reason that GH is FAILING right now is b/c of the very things you listed-that the mob IS the focus, that they are more about stunts now than substance, that they DON'T remember their history (I'm sorry, Anna Devane would be all about ignoring her daughter and being some damn groupie while pushing her daughter towards an insensitive manwhore? No, I don't think so.), that their idea of a strong woman IS Carly who, imo, is a COMPLETE EMBARASSMENT to all womankind. I just....can't even believe this.
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4-07-2008 @ 2:05PM
Cat said...
The show is so misogynistic and spends so much time propping up its "heroic" mobsters Sonny and Jason that it must destroy other great characters in order to make these two look good. What a waste!
GH no longer has any semblance of balance... of excitement (since we know that Sonny and his parasitic coterie of enablers will NEVER lose)... of multifaceted male and female characters... of swoony romance or spine-tingling mystery... It is just mob mob mob all the time. Like an SNL parody of The Godfather.
While it continues to ignore its audience and push unsympathetic and self-righteous characters to the front-burner, its ratings will continue to fall. Simple as that.
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