GH's mysterious CO77X tag has fans playing CSI

Posted Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:30:53 PM

Thousands upon thousands of General Hospital fans have become private detectives, all thanks to mysterious graffiti that has started popping up across Port Charles. What does CO77X mean? The secret will be revealed during November Sweeps, in what is sure to be a very dangerous game of tag.

On Wednesday, October 21, there was a surprise entry at the top of the list of most searched-for terms on one Internet search engine. Unlike a regular news day, the top search term had nothing to do with the parents of octuplets, runaway balloons, celebrity couples, or even pornography. In fact, the search term wasn't even a word, but rather a seemingly random assortment of letters and numbers.

CO77X.

The spray-painted graffiti tag left General Hospital fans wanting answers. The desire to get those answers took fans to Google, where many fans thought they'd be able to find a real-world explanation for the graffiti.

Soap fans are well-known for their craving of spoilers and sneak peeks, but a General Hospital spokesperson tells Soap Central that the show didn't realize how the cryptic graffiti tag would spark such interest among fans.

"We are all so excited that this one beat in the story has created such a buzz," the rep states. "It was more than we ever expected..."

But what exactly does the mysterious tag mean? Don't expect any answers from GH's spokesperson -- not because the rep derives some sort of sadistic pleasure in watching fans go to great lengths to get answers. In reality, the show's tight-lipped executives are keeping even him in the dark.

"The meaning of the tag will be revealed as we get closer to the introduction of James Franco's character, whose name is Franco," the rep reveals. "This will not be something that is shown one-time."

Always a creative lot, Soap Central readers immediately took to our message boards to offer some of their ideas. Some were very creative... and even piqued the interest of General Hospital's spokesperson.

With Franco being linked to Jason Morgan in story, some fans wonder if the "CO" portion of the tag refers to "coroner's office." Perhaps, the theory suggests, the tag has something to do with a toe-tag identifier of someone Jason may have killed.

In another hypothesis, one fan went as far as to go slo-mo on a recent General Hospital episode. According to a post on Soap Central's message boards, a warehouse scene showed a mug shot of Jason Morgan with "Hispanic Male, first name Manuel" scrawled on some papers. Also shown was a birth date: May 25, 1969. Could slain mobster Manny Ruiz's cohorts be looking to enact revenge on Jason?

In a third scenario, fans wonder if Franco will be a long-lost member of the Alcazar family. Earlier this year, Ted King (ex-Lorenzo Alcazar) was spotted on the GH set and speculation mounted about the actor's possible return to the show. That visit, however, was nearly five months ago and there's been nary a mention of Alcazar in the soap's scripts.

If those three theories don't get your creative juices flowing, GH's spokesperson offers a teaser that certainly might. The rep teases that Franco's eponymic character might have ties to "past characters who are not necessarily currently on the canvas."

ABC has revealed that the mystery surrounding the graffiti will be revealed on December 11.

Photo Credit: ABC