I have been a fan of soap operas since I was a toddler.  I remember watching Edge of Night with my grandmother when I was around three or four and being scared by this creepy, Manson-esque psychopath named Jonah.  My first taste of addiction came several years later, in the second grade, when I stayed home from school with chicken pox and discovered Search For Tomorrow during a women-in-prison storyline (another fetish of mine simultaneously established!) with Morgan Fairchild as bad girl/victim Jennifer Pace.  I was forced to go back to school but that summer fell back into the habit.  Summer 1975 was a great time for Search-- they were doing a teens-on-heroin story plus Morgan was out of jail and crashing through a sliding glass door!  For some reason, this mundane household accident endlessly fascinated both me and the CBS promo department.  They ran tons of commercials featuring Morgan carelessly trying to storm through a glass door during a snit with her lover and spectacularly shattering it.  I was so taken by this little moment that I would stand on my bed, melodramatically spew Morgan's dialogue ("When you said you didn't love me, that was the truth!  Everything else was lies, nothing but lies!") then burst though an imaginary sliding-glass door in slow-motion, tumbling onto an extra mattress.   Once my father caught me mid-performance and was undoubtedly disturbed.  I'm sure he's since blocked it out.

Next came The Young & The Restless.  Both of my parents liked this show and my dad usually came home at lunch and watched it with my mother.  I wasn't too interested until summer, 1979, when a brilliant teen prostitution storyline developed with Kristine DeBell, star of the porn version of Alice in Wonderland.

Way back when Traci Lords was probably still a virgin named Nora Kuzma, Kristine went from Playboy centerfold/hardcore starlet to legit actress, appearing in films like Meatballs and as the helpless blonde hooker abused by brutal madam Rose DeVille, played with delicious wickedness by Darlene Conley, the Divine of daytime TV.  Rose was big and bossy and kept me riveted the whole summer.  I remember visiting my grandparents and making it clear that all activities would have to be scheduled around Y&R.  I shivered with terror as Rose beat her girls, forced them to perform horrible off screen sexual acts and sometimes tossed them down a flight of stairs in the antique store that served as a front for her evil-doing.  At the end of the summer, Rose escaped Genoa City with the police on her tail after almost killing a series regular.

Imagine my delight when, seven years later, summer 1986, my mom told me Rose was back on the show!!  I dropped everything and became a total Y&R junkie, sticking with it even after Rose's black-market baby ring had been busted and she fled Genoa City again (only to pop up as sleazy fashion diva Sally Spectra on Bold & Beautiful -- she's still on it!)  Young & Restless was at its absolute best for the next couple years, and I really learned to appreciate great daily serial writing and the abundance of fantastic acting that went totally ignored by the non-soap-watching world.

Darlene, Eileen Davidson (Ashley), Tricia Cast (Nina, the pregnant street urchin terrorized by Rose), Tracey Bregman (manipulative tramp Lauren), Jess Walton (the best Jill ever),  Nina Arvesen (tragic femme fatale Cassandra) and then Barbara Crampton!  I worshipped her Stuart Gordon splatter epics Re-Animator and From Beyond and was ecstatic when she joined Y&R as unbalanced beauty Leanna.  She later cleaned up her act, wrote an advice column, and had normal relationships, but psycho-Leanna kicked ass!  She was prone to bizarre fantasies and hallucinations -- I'll never forget the one where, dressed in a skimpy leather dominatrix costume, she whipped a naked Victor Newman bloody.  I decided then and there I wanted to work on, and eventually write, The Young & The Restless.

During my freshman year at the University of Texas, I met alumnus David Holman, who was then a production exec at Columbia TV, the studio behind Y&R.  He told me the show used college interns and at last I had a concrete goal to channel all my celibate pop-culture energy into-- get an internship on the show for summer 1989 and impress them so much they would have no choice but to hire me.

Getting the internship was easy.  David referred me to the very sweet production coordinator Lucy Grimes, who had me send in my transcripts and a brief but passionate (and non-psycho) letter outlining my request.  I also included some sample scenes I had written for the show (featuring Leanna, of course). They sent me back a letter saying they'd be very pleased to offer me the chance to work for three months for free.  I had show-biz by the balls!!!!!!

My internship at Y&R was a hugely enjoyable experience, mostly because I had a great supervisor, Michael Minnis, the script coordinator and writers' liaison, who totally appreciated my ambition and tireless, cheerful work ethic.  I easily logged in 50 hours a week doing all sorts of office production assistant-type stuff, the most fun being script synopsis and extras casting.

Each daily script needed a two-page, scene-by-scene breakdown typed, indicating the set, the cast and a very brief summary of the scene.  These would be inserted at the beginning of each script before it was sent out for mass duplication and distribution.  I really loved devouring the scripts in advance and spewing out punchy, concise capsules of each scene.  These synopses were sent out to newspapers and soap mags so they could run weekly story updates after the shows aired, and I was stunned to see certain phrases I'd written ("Nikki is disgusted by Victor's flagrant adultery", etc.) actually showing up in TV Guide six weeks later.

Extras casting involved dipping into a massive file of headshots of people willing to fill in as non-speaking atmosphere for about 50 bucks a day.  Many of these people were aspiring actors trying in vain to break into real roles-- I can tell you it doesn't work that way!  Some people, however, make a career of being professional extras, and are quite proud of their fleeting appearance in major films and TV series.  I was very honored to be assigned the task of choosing, booking and managing the 200 "fans" needed for a big Michael Damian concert sequence.  I remember being shocked signing in one of my discoveries-- a guy in particular who had the biggest, most outrageously ugly nose-- a clever camera angle had disguised this near-deformity on his headshot.  I don't know if he ever made it on camera, but that proboscis stayed with me so vividly that 12 years later I recognized him walking up Highland in Hollywood as I drove down Fountain!

The cast was very nice to me and not at all put off by my fawning worship of them and the show.  They were actors-- they loved it!  Barbara Crampton and Nina Arvesen  were especially nice to me, and Tracey Bregman didn't even mind talking about her lead role in the women's-prison sleaze classic The Concrete Jungle.  Even Eric Braeden, the notoriously hot-headed star who played Victor Newman, was cordial and friendly.  The only diva was Beth Maitland-- Y&R fans know her as Traci, the shy, chubby Abbott sister who ended up landing superhunk Brad Carlton (sure!) and becoming a best-selling author (yeah, right!)  Beth tried to get me fired on my second day when she complained that I'd entered her dressing room without knocking to drop off a script.  Yes, Beth, the truth can finally be told-- I barged in there hoping for a forbidden peek at your flabby, stretch-marked body.  Michael let me off with a warning to knock REALLY loud.

I thought that by working so damn hard and endearing myself to almost everybody a job would materialize at the end of the summer and I'd gleefully quit college and move to L.A.  But they had no openings.  I came close-- the only other person there who was mean to me (a frumpy script supervisor with a big ass) had her apartment burn down that summer and if she'd been home, I woulda been IN, baby!  But it wasn't meant to be.   Our Lord Jesus had another plan for me-- my next job in soaps would be co-creator and co-show-runner.

Fast Forward to December, 1998—Soap mega-fan Drew Tappon at MTV Series Development had been trying to persuade his bosses Brian Graden and John Miller to greenlight a daytime soap opera for the channel.  Drew jump-started the process by giving Brian my novel Sex Toys of the Gods.  Brian read it and agreed I might have the voice to create something for MTV.  Luckily, I also had four years of TV credits and had just sold a pilot script to NBC, so Valerie and I had a little credibility.  We took a few meetings with Brian, John and Drew and came up with a manifesto—we wanted to do for soaps what Scream had done for horror films.  That movie acknowledged and even spoofed the conventions and staples of slasher films while never forgetting it was one.  It managed to be hip, funny, smart and scary all at once.  We wanted to distill everything people loved about soaps—the impossibly hot young characters and deliciously suspenseful melodrama—and eliminate all the things people hate:  the glacial pace, the endless recaps and all that praying and crying.

Since it was MTV, we needed to appeal to their 12-24-year-old demographic, so the characters and the setting had to be young and fresh.  We knew we wanted a core family, but preferably without middle-age parents doddering around.  So the Carlisle clan was born—four siblings ranging from 16 to 29 (a la Logan’s Run, the absolute limit for an MTV series regular) with no mom and a cruel, evil dad who dies in the first episode.  Actually, Boris Carlisle was dead from the get-go… we envisioned the very first scene of the series to be Boris’s funeral, where the wicked sexbomb daughter Natalia would slap Daddy’s lifeless face.

After pitching the characters (all of whom made it onto the screen over two years later), the first step was to write a bible—an elaborate 75-page document with complete bios of each of our nine leads and their first season’s storylines.  Since the show was designed to be written and taped in self-contained thirteen-week blocks, we built this first arc around the murky, creepy death of Boris Carlisle, a mystery that would be solved in the final five shows, as other developments hopefully hooked viewers into wanting many more than 65 episodes.  As consultants on the project, we enlisted the help of Jim and Dianne Stanley—a married writing team who’d done tons of Knots Landing, as well as helped launch the steamy cult sensation Savannah a couple years before the WB knew what they were doing.  They were incredible to work with and gave us so much support and terrifically twisted ideas that writing the bible was hugely fun—we were very sorry they were unavailable as executive producers when it came time to tape the pilot.

MTV okayed the production of a one-hour pilot called Spyder Web in September.  We had about three months to write the script and more dauntingly, find nine gorgeous, talented young stars willing to commit to a cable soap with network pilot season right around the corner.  Robert Hutchinson was cast first.  Sasha Carlisle, the rebellious, sexually charged teen was an aspiring guitarist/singer/songwriter, but Robert’s great youthful look, cool attitude and sense of humor made us all willing to overlook the fact that his only musical talent had been his high school trumpet-playing.  (Ultimately, Rob faked the rock stuff very effectively).  I was thrilled when Shawn Batten and Christina Chambers, both from the recently deceased Sunset Beach, agreed to play our two super-bitches, Natalia and Taylor.  After sifting through hundreds of hunks to play good guy Dmitri, we finally found the right combination of charm, smarts and pulse-pounding beefy heat in Joe Cacia.  But our February, 2000 start date was fast approaching and we still didn’t have a major chunk of the cast.  Daphne was one of the toughest roles—Valerie and I had a crystal-clear picture of who she was, and no one was coming close, until Nectar Rose walked in on the last day of auditions.

We had met Nectar before as a possible Julie Whitmore.  She hadn’t been right for it and we forgot all about her.  Then, desperation increasing, we saw her highly unusual name on the session sheet and whined to Pamela Azmi-Andrew, our fearless casting director, that we’d already passed on Nectar!  Pamela had joined us midway through and was wonderful, not to mention totally unflappable.  “Did she read for Daphne?” Pamela asked.  “No,” we whined.   “Just take another look,” Pamela calmly advised.  And wham-bam, problem solved.  Nectar was Daphne.

Taping of the pilot was scheduled for three days between February 28 and March 2.  An hour-long network pilot would normally be done in eight!  Luckily our line producer Jason Shubb had things under control.  We had one day in a studio and two on location, at a stunning, creepy Frank Lloyd Wright house high in the Los Feliz hills that would be the site of Ivan and Julie’s wedding reception.  Somehow Jason and director Tony Morina pulled it off.  When MTV saw the edited pilot, they flipped.  They wanted 65 episodes!

There were a few little problems, though.  Nobody liked the actors who played Julie and Ivan.  Like Nectar, they were cast at the last minute, but unlike Nectar, they ended up being completely wrong for the roles.  Since Ivan and Julie were the first two to appear onscreen, they were crucial.  As great as it had turned out, the pilot (actually episodes 1 and 2) would have to be re-taped.  (We ultimately salvaged and aired about five minutes of it.)

Another casualty was Chrystee Pharris, the actress playing Sasha’s platonic pal Cherish Pardee.  Valerie and I were surprised to hear this network mandate—we liked Chrystee and found her very appealing.   But MTV thought she seemed too old to play sixteen opposite Robert Hutchinson, who was 18 but looked 15.  We needed a new Cherish, too (Chrystee bounced back with a contract role on Passions).  Pamela would return to cast the series, but John Miller asked Mary Jo Slater (Christian’s mom) to find the three replacements.  Valerie and I instantly liked Mary Jo, especially when she brought in Byron Field and Monica Garnich.

At the network talent test, actors were paired up in male-female couples to audition  At the same audition, a pouty young stud-muffin and potential Ivan, discovered the character was gay in the waiting room, excused himself to “put money in the parking meter” and never returned.  Not that it mattered-- Byron was easily the best choice and his partner Monica Garnich (who had done several episodes of MTV’s Undressed) was coincidentally the best Julie.  Cherish was harder to find—despite a plethora of teen black girls who could sing their ass off, we just weren’t getting that blend of authentic teenhood, vulnerability and downplayed sexiness.  Then Mary Jo showed us a taped audition she’d done with high school senior Megalyn Echikunwoke.  (It’s Nigerian!)  We watched the tape, got her in front of the network, and had a new Cherish.  And she could sing her ass off, too.

We spent the rest of summer 2000 writing scripts and outlines and working with Pamela to cast some important recurring roles.  Valerie and I got Mink Stole to play bitchy comic relief Merna Young and wrote the part of Gretel Barnes, coffeehouse owner and Sasha’s musical mentor, for Jane Wiedlin of my favorite all-time rock group The Go-Go’s.  I knew Jane had done a bit of acting and lots of animation voices and was obsessed with getting her on the show.  Valerie and I visited her fab house in the hills (as seen on E! Celebrity Homes) and showed her the pilot.  We got her so excited about it that she was willing to take time out from her insane schedule of writing and recording a new Go-Go’s album and  releasing her own solo CD Kissproof World, to do many episodes of the show.  She also supplied us with some great music and sang and played guitar on-camera, injecting a very cool note of realism into Sasha’s story.

Taping would commence on September 22.  Jason Shubb put it all together; Patti Podesta, our terrific production designer from the pilot, started building Fort Kent and Carlisle mansion on a soundstage at Hollywood’s KTLA Studios; and our newly hired costume designer, Carolee Fisher, inundated us with a wave of brilliance, creating hot, distinctive looks for every character and working with Patti to make Daphne’s store, Come-On’s,  as chic and cutting-edge as any Melrose Avenue boutique.

The first scene to be taped was Julie’s erotic daydream in Episode 1, in which she and her groom-to-be Ivan make passionate love swathed in satin sheets.  Byron and Monica had met at the network test, but got to know each other much better over the next two hours, as, clad in nothing but flesh-colored briefs and a couple of tiny pasties for Monica, they went at it from every angle daytime cable allows.  It could have been a nightmare of awkwardness, but they were both so professional and focused the result was a great fantasy scene.  Monica, worried that the pasties would show up on-camera, even offered to lose the nipple-coverage.  The director declined.

This great attitude set a tone for our entire chaotic, cram-packed season, in which we taped 65 half-hour shows in 11 weeks.  The cast, most of whom had never done series TV, were incredibly devoted to their characters, memorizing gobs of dialogue, throwing themselves into racy, edgy scenes, and, amazingly, they were so into the story they eagerly read every page of every script, even the scenes they weren’t in.  Anyone who’s been around network soaps knows this level of interest is extremely rare.  Valerie and I knew we were on the right track with the storyline when we overheard cameramen, boom operators and grips chattily speculating about future plot twists between takes.  Shawn Batten and Christina Chambers were the acknowledged “veterans” of the group because of their stints on Sunset Beach, and it was exciting and fulfilling for us to see greenhorns like Joe Cacia, Nectar,  Megalyn and an amazing discovery named Bryce Mouer (he starts appearing three or four weeks in) learn the ropes, develop their characters and rise to Shawn and Christina’s very high level.

The days were long—we were there for about 10-12 hours per day, Monday through Friday and spent weekends writing and revising scripts—but Spyder Games was hugely rewarding and fun.  Part of the satisfaction came from the dizzyingly high ratio of what we wrote to what got taped and edited—on a daily soap, there’s no time for the endless (and at best lateral) rewrites that plague the sitcom process.  Since a driving, twisting, well-paced plot is the most important element of a soap, once the structure and progression of scenes was laid out, it was basically locked, allowing us to punch up dialogue and add little comic touches to scenes.  We were very fortunate to have John Miller and Drew Tappon as our network execs on the project—they knew exactly what they wanted, they knew we could deliver it,  and they let us carry it off without second-guessing and interference.  This just doesn’t happen in television, people!  Especially not during a writing/producing team’s first-created series.  MTV respected us and our abilities and, if anything, encouraged us to be more imaginative and to milk the format for all we could.

They especially got the humor of the show.  From the beginning we had been adamant about busting another soap opera cliché—that these shows had to be stiff, unhip and laugh-free.  We wanted all our lead characters to be sharp and sarcastic, and, whenever possible, to cast offbeat, funny actors in supporting roles.  In addition to the hilarious Mink Stole, we were able to use many skilled comic actors we’d worked with in sitcoms or local theatre, people you’d never see on a network soap that would give Spyder Games a unique, quirky flavor.  Sam Pancake, Steve Sobel, Madeline Long, Rob Helms and Jason Ginsburg all came from ChiP’d/Phacts of Life; Kate Flannery had done these plays as well as starred as Patty Duke/Neely O’Hara (on Broadway, too!) in the legendary stage version of Valley of the Dolls.

We paid homage to the genre with a few guest soap stars we especially loved—Robert Torti from Generations  played slick L.A. music manager Jimmy Rose; Tracey Bregman (crafty Lauren Fenmore on Y&R  AND B&B) was a steely attorney; and Barbara Crampton was fantastic as Dr. Leslie Bogan, the lovely and deeply disturbed “therapist” who specialized in curing gays.  Just for fun, we got our Clueless  pal Elisa Donovan to do a day as a fashion reporter.  Julie Brown was busy doing her own show, Strip Mall, at Comedy Central, but if we get a second season, guess who’s playing Daphne’s mother!

Spyder Games is finally ready to debut—it’s a nerve-wracking, thrilling time for me.  I hope it does well enough for MTV to quickly renew it so we can get back to work with this family of characters, performers, artists and technicians that somehow emerged last fall.  So watch it, tell everyone you know to watch it, tell MTV you watch it, and when you see my soap acting debut in Episode 17, remember the camera adds about thirty pounds, I think.

Magazine Articles About Spyder Games

Photos From Spyder Games Events

"Nobody wants to fuck a Penny, they want to fuck a Hope!"  Rena Riffel as Lydia, our high priced call girl.

This was a label made for wine bottles that were given as presents after the pilot was done.

Below are some pictures that were part of a photo album prop from the show.  Christian forgot about them until he showed the album to someone last night.  I included all the pictures of Ray Laska and Robert Hutchinson even if they were only slightly different from each other for all the mad Sasha fans out there who can't get enough of him.

Here are a couple more pictures I found recently.