General Hospital – Low-Tech Secrets Revealed

As a General Hospital (GH) fan, did you ever wonder how the Port Charles production team keeps things looking amazing while churning out 250 episodes a year? Read on for a few behind the scenes secrets.

Little Shiny Tech

BTS, it’s not all shiny, high-tech Hollywood wizardry. Actually, most of what you see on GH really seems like a bit of clever, low-tech work. The fact is, when you’re filming 70 scenes a day, there just isn’t time for real elevators or fancy cocktails.

Notably, in the world of props, there’s no time for wasteful and unchoreographed actions. Consider, for example, the famous nurses’ station.

If you zoom in, for explale, on aa tense scene with Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst), you might notice something strange about the pens. In fact, they don’t move. And that’s because the production team literally glues them to the surface.

Fan folklore claims it’s a given that the cast tends to walk away with them. Allegedly, a moment arrived when one of the ABC actors tried grabbing a pen for a scene and lifted the whole desk tray in the process. Yay for bloopers!

Those Elevators

Of course, ABC has elevators on General Hospital. Often, you might see Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) or Carly Spencer (Laura Wright) enter those sliding doors and wait for the floor to change.

The truth? Those doors don’t have a motor. Normally, two prop people stand behind the “wall” and manually pull the doors closed on a cue. Apparently, it’s all about coordination, and if the timing goes wrong, then the grand exit turns into a farce.

What About Alcohol?

Whether the Quartermaines enjoy a fancy scotch or someone drowns their sorrows at the Metro Court, they’re not really drinking alcohol. Almost all the “whiskey” is reportedly just room-temperature tea or very diluted ginger ale.

Sometimes, they pop non-alcoholic beer, but for the hard liquor, it’s usually just Lipton. The “wine” is mostly just grape juice that’s been in a prop bottle so long that no one wants to talk about it, really.

Vending Machines & Fake Fires

Even the hospital vending machines are fake. By now, probably the goodies inside must be very stale. Word has it that the crew covers the brand names with fake stickers so as not to get into trouble with the law. Therefore, when a character is hungry and hits the machine, he’s probably after a piece of history from the early 2000s.

It’s all velcro house numbers, fake fire, and walls on wheels. And really? That’s the attraction. The low-tech side of the GH production makes it possible for the show to run the drama at light speed.

Additionally, it proves that goos drama can happen withoput massive amounhts of money being spent each day. Essentially, they need loads of super glue, a couple of prop guys, and plenty of tea.

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below, and come back here often for all your General Hospital news and updates.