WWE Writer's Motto: "Forget it ever happened" - Steph/Bischoff Kiss
From Seth Mates at: http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/sp...ions_eric.html
So while I've got a few minutes, now seems like as good a time as any to start answering your questions. And a great starting point seems to be one that many of you asked in regards to my post from yesterday: What was up with that Stephanie McMahon/Eric Bischoff kiss on the Halloween 2002 episode of SmackDown?
In no version of any script/rundown from that day will you find the kiss. It was never supposed to be a part of the show.
There HAD been an earlier machination of the script in which a mystery man would be at the party in a Triple H mask, which would intrigue Stephanie, who would track him down as he was leaving. He'd kiss her, and THEN reveal himself to be Bischoff, in a "screw you, I infiltrated your show again" type moment. But that had been changed well before the day's taping.
The plan was changed to where instead of a guy in a Triple H mask lurking at the party and Stephanie being curious who it was, John Cena would instead just tell Stephanie that her dad was here to see her. Then Bischoff would reveal himself and they would have words. I don't remember what the exact finish was to be -- but there was not a kiss involved.
As I understand it (and I wasn't there when that specific vignette was shot; I was still in the main Halloween party room), the kiss was just a last-second idea that they green-lighted and went with. When we writers saw it after the fact, we had the same reaction you did -- What the heck?
Having them kiss AFTER the reveal -- and Stephanie liking it -- added a whole new dimension to the thing. Though it was a surprise, it was one that we realized we could use to help tell the story; it could have had some legs and brought an extra intrigue to this whole new "general manager competition" thing we did back in 2002.
We threw together a number of ideas to try and follow up on it -- A secret affair? A drunken mistake? -- but we were told to forget it ever happened. I brought up the point that the reason why it's so easy for fans to stop watching our show is because of dropped storylines like that, but I was told let's forget it ever happened.
So that was it. |
