This week on all-new episode of Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart, multi-Daytime Emmy and WGA winning writer, Ron Carlivati is the special guest. Carlivati, who over his expansive writing career, has been the head writer at One Life to Live, General Hospital, Days of our Lives and most recently was part of the writing team at Beyond the Gates for its first 200 episodes.

Throughout his sit-down, Ron shared his journey to the show he loved the most, One Life to Life, to the show he watched first growing up, General Hospital and becoming its head scribe, plus how he came up with some of his more memorable storylines and characters, and the intensity of writing for the machine that is a daytime soap opera that has with no end, and why he is now stepped away to refocus himself on his own projects and what’s next in his career.

Carlivati revealed that during his tenure at One Life to Live, his favorite storyline actually sprung out of six-time Daytime Emmy-winning star, Erika Slezak’s (Viki) annual summer break, where usually they would send Viki off to a conference or something. But not this time!

Photo: JPI

VIKI DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Ron explained, “My favorite storyline happened when Erika Slezak took her summer break. It was a thing where Dorian (Robin Strasser) challenged Viki about life is short and what are you going do with the rest of your life? Viki really didn’t know. We did this thing where Viki was seeing her kids off and all the people that came home for Asa’s (Phil Carey) funeral. She was seeing them off at the airport, and at the end of the episode she walks up to the counter and she goes, ‘Give me a ticket on the next flight out of here.’ And they’re like, ‘Where to?’ And Viki goes, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She asks for a one way ticket on the next flight out and she gets on and leaves. Then, I had her vacation time to figure out, ‘Where was Viki?'”

“So, I wrote this story where I basically ripped off the sitcom Alice,” he continued. “When Erika came back finally after her vacation, Viki’s kids were like, ‘I haven’t heard from mom. It’s kind of weird.’ They finally got her on the phone and you don’t really see her close up. Viki says, “I’m in Paris.” Then when she hangs up, you pull back and she’s in a waitress outfit and she’s in Paris, Texas.”

Photo: CBS

“We got Brian Kerwin to play Viki’s new love interest, and he was a big Broadway actor and a star. That turned out to be a great couple …Viki and and Charlie. Frank Valentini was completely supportive and game that we had this amazing diner set. It was called the Bonjour Cafe. On the soaps, there used to be so much more time and attention to detail. We had an Eiffel Tower with a cowboy hat on it on every table in the diner. It was fun.”

FALLING THROUGH THE ICE

In addition, Carlivati pointed how over the years when he would pitch producers at the soaps ideas of stories, it would often take the higher-ups some time to agree to it, but eventually they would come around.

One in particular One Life to Live fans will recall from 2010, “I wanted to do this thing on One Life to live where Gigi (Farah Fath) was walking on a frozen lake and she falls through the ice, and you know what the budgets are, you know what the sets are, and asking for a frozen lake with a water tank underneath is a lot of money.”

Courtesy/ABC

Frank (Valentini) is like, “Absolutely not.” And then, he gets excited about the idea and he doesn’t want to be the “no” person. So, he calls me up an hour later and he goes, ‘All right, here’s how we’re going to do it,” To make it work, this thing has to break out from under her. They did a controlled explosion to make this plastic ice break and her to fall through!”

FROM SALEM TO FAIRMONT CREST

After Ron’s exit as the head writer of Days of our Lives, he had planned to refocus himself, take a break from the rigors of head writing a show, when literally less than two months later, Michele Val Jean (creator, head writer, executive producer, Beyond the Gates) called Ron up and asked him, if he would want to join her writing team to launch the new soap opera After first resisting it, Carlivati shared how he came around to saying, yes.

Photo: CBS

“I had this five and a half hour drive back to New York City and I’m talking to my husband about it and he’s like saying like, ‘Well, you said you wanted to do less and you would have less responsibility with this job where you’re not the boss.’ So, there was that factor. Then, there was sort of the historic factor that this was the first new soap opera in over 25 years. It was the first hour-long soap centered around a black family. I had worked at ABC and NBC, but never CBS. Also, Michele had Bob Guza on board.  I’d never worked with him and he’s a legendary writer. All these pluses are adding up. I was like, ‘I only have to write one episode a week? Not oversee this whole thing? OK.”

Next, Ron explained his decision to leave the series after he satisfied the initial run of shows he came on for, “At that point (when I signed on), Beyond the Gates was greenlit for 200 episodes. So, the writers were all only hired for that, because no one knew if it would go further than that. I agreed to come on for that, which I’m so glad I did. Everyone was amazing. It was fun to be creating a new show.”

SOAP WRITERS OFTEN FACE FAN BACKLASH

Greg Rikaart, who’s current Days of our Lives character of Leo Stark was created by Carlivati, brought up the subject of how soap opera writers receive a disproportionate amount of criticism online from viewers, as opposed to saying something they watched was so incredible or well-written.

Photo: Peacock

Carlivati responded, “They will definitely blame the writer before the actor, because you guys are the ones they see on TV. That’s who they love. And, if they are doing something terrible, they’re like, ‘Oh, poor Leo had to do this thing that they made him do that wasn’t in his character.” So, yes, the writer does get disproportionate more of the criticism.”

Fans can listen and catch episodes of Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart on Audacy or wherever podcasts are available, and can watch full video episodes weekly on the CBS Brand YouTube Channel.

So, what did you think about Viki’s Paris, Texas journey being one of Ron’s favorite from his time head writing One Life to Live? From, OLTL, GH, Days and BTG, which soap during his tenure have you enjoyed the most?  Drop your thoughts in the comment section. You can check out the full interview with Carlivati below.