titan1978

2 hours ago, Franko said:

This might have to be its own thread, but what are some of everyone's favorite moments in opening sequences? I always liked Lynn Herring's raised eyebrow during "Faces of the Heart."

Me too!  Also from that opening the scenes in between the character shots.  Steve, Bobbie and Amy with a patient, the explosion at the Triple L diner with Laura and Luke, Jason and Robin on the beach, the Puerto Rico action shots, Sonny and Brenda dancing, Lois and Ned.  Lois has a great shot with her nails visible in the update before she left the show.  I always like Luke and Laura in the middle of the opening, and that turtleneck on Mac is iconic for how long it lasted.

The 2002 AMC openings made me so happy to have that theme back.  Version 1 has a great shot of Anna, and version 2 I really love the two shot of Vanessa and Maggie.

Y&R I really love when Nikki turns with all her blond hair as the camera sweeps towards her at the end of the classic early 90’s era opening, and Rex placing the necklace on Ketherine.  The already mentioned Jill in the porn theme is a great moment too.

51 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Let's get this straight - 'Hold On To Love' was Robert Calhoun's contribution to GL, not JFP's. 

I didn’t know that, thanks for clarifying.  For some reason I was under the impression that it first aired during the blackout storyline which was during her tenure as an anniversary celebration.  That’s the problem with watching the show after the fact on YouTube. 

 Maybe I’m confusing it with GH premiering Faces of the Heart during its 30th anniversary episode.

People like Robert Calhoun deserved to keep getting jobs.  Instead people like Goutman, Tomlin and JFP kept ruining shows.

I prefer Falken-Smith on GH.  I think a lot of what I loved on the show came from her and then Monty ran with it.  The high style, the action elements.  His contribution was without question vital.  But I just enjoy her work more.

1 hour ago, Gray Bunny said:

Of course, DAYS and Y&R are timeless and iconic, but I think GL’s 1991-2002 “Hold On to Love” is soap music at its very finest. The beautiful slow closing theme, the upbeat opening, the background music used during the show... I even liked the 1995 updated version, and the 1996 slow jazz (the opening not so much, with the loud light rays and the music didn’t match the visuals, but the closing jazz theme is gorgeous). 

I love that slow jazz version, and the opening notes of Hold on to Love mirroring the classic theme it replaced in 1991.  Just like when GH went from the ambulance to the Riche era open, the hints of the prior theme music at the beginning of the new theme was a smart way to go for longtime fans.

29 minutes ago, Cat said:

This thread is epic. I've just spent hours watching the different openings, even the shows I never watched before. For me, a nostalgia hound, the oldies are the true goodies: the later revisions tried to make the shows 'modern' but failed to capture the essence of a show imo. Days is an outright classic which should never be touched. Before the days of YouTube, social media and viral marketing, soap openings were the only thing that I as a viewer had to trigger me into watching a show. AMC's pages turning opening may (by some, not me) have been considered 'old fashioned', but to me as a non-regular viewer, it was redolent with this gothic history I knew nothing about. It made me want to know more about a show and its backstory.

 

(I make an exception for GH's Faces of the Heart because it and the show meant so much to me at the time. The opening ambulance theme was GOLD though).

 

Consequently, my fave is Y&R's opening with Nadia's Theme and the line drawings which were somehow unfinished but managed to capture the intensity and beauty of the characters. Unpopular opinion, but the later addition of filmed actors turning to camera made the opening look a little dated. Still 80s Fabulous though.

 

 

 

B&B's original opening was so gorgeous and glossy, it looked like shots for a fashion magazine. It does not date.

 

 

 

Santa Barbara's opening literally made me tingle with anticipation as a kid.

 

 

 

GL seemed to change its opening every year, huh. I have a particular fondness for the disco theme of the very early 80s lol.

 

If we are talking worst soap openings, I would nominate any that JFP touched in a tacky, tryhard attempt at notional relevance. But that's a subject for another thread...

The only theme I think JFP got right was Guiding Light.  All the rest sucked.

DAYS is timeless, but I remember liking the opening notes of the more gothic version that aired during Reilly’s return to the show.  It only aired for a few months, if even that long.  I didn’t want it to replace the other one, I just kind of dig the opening notes.

Some of my favorites-

Edge of Night- love that last shot.

AMC- The only good thing that happened to this show during Frons was bringing back this theme music.  This is my favorite version though.

GH- I didn’t think anything could replace the sirens and ambulance, but this is my favorite soap open.

I’m also really partial to this version of the song used in the 1990’s Guiding Light theme, but I loved the images and cast best from the first version with Beverlee, Sherry, and Harley dancing at the end.

Favorite prime time soap open is Knots Landing.

I think Brenda was a great Ashley, but I still prefer Eileen.  But that was a great scene, and it reminds me how much the staging and music were instrumental in Y&R.  The classic character in the foreground (Ashley) with another character looking on in the background (Jill) as the scene fades out.  They always went for the drama, even if it seemed low key.  Simmering until it boiled over, then back to simmering.

If only the show had come close to living up to that luxe, sexy and dark theme.  Even with the king of darkness himself, Guza writing, it just didn’t materialize.

I think if someone like Ed Scott or Conboy or even JFP had been the on set EP that show would have had legs.  Tomlin’s work always looks cheap.

It had potential.

5 hours ago, Khan said:

Dear God, he's wearing the same turtleneck sweater and blazer in both photos!

OMG!  I wonder if those were the days when actors used some of their own wardrobe on daytime and he must really have liked that jacket and turtleneck!

I love Brooke Bundy.  But she’s clearly nothing like Diana in looks, style or temperament.

4 hours ago, j swift said:

Monica has had a remarkable arc as a character.  It would be hard to imagine that the woman who couldn't commit to Jeff or Dawn's father, taunted Leslie over her chemistry with Rick, and cheated on Alan would eventually adopt two children and then grieve the loss of three out of four of those kids on her own; although her grief over Dawn and Emily is mentioned less frequently than the loss of AJ.   She went from very selfish and mean to demonstrate extreme compassion.  Some writer could have made the connection between Monica's upbringing in an orphanage and her ability to parent Jason and Emily but I don't recall anyone doing so.  I know more recent writers have had Monica tell Jason or Drew about parenting an adopted child when Sam was pregnant but I don't think she talked about her own childhood.   Also, looking back her relationship with Gail as a mentor was so much more cleaver than making her a long lost daughter; especially because she was married to the long lost son of Steve Hardy.

I’ve also seen several really compelling scenes of her and teenaged Laura where she references her past and how much she wanted to have a relationship with Laura that has nothing to do with Rick or Lesley, to help her with her troubles.

I used to feel that way about Bobbie too.  On paper this is someone that has a background of tragedy and even when she was after Scotty she was still a good nurse that worked hard to give herself a new life.  To see people try to shame her in later years about her past as a sex worker and have her not be embarrassed, to be open and trusting and a loving character (who still sometimes had an edge) was great.

They just don’t write them like they used to.

38 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

 

Thanks! Of course, both the nursery accident and waterfront stalking would be seen several months later in the 35th anniversary primetime special. Stuart Damon gave hilarious commentary. 

Wick Webber!  I love that special.  And Denise Alexander saying the slap was so satisfying because she slapped Monica instead of the other way around.  

9 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

This was Pat Falken Smith's writing (with much' 'input' from Gloria I'm sure).

Was this one of the first stories where a villianous character got away with a crime ?

Alan was planning murder, but he certainly was not charged. Was he made to suffer in any way?

 

John Kelly Genovese critiqued this storyline in Afternoon TV and wasn't happy in that the viewer wasn't sure who they should be rooting for...

Maybe that was deliberate, in that each character had their point of view or was it just muddled?

 

Anyway, it seemed the harbinger of things to come in the 80's and beyond, where characters routinely were not punished for their crimes.

Alan loss the precision in his hands that he neede as a surgeon, and had to go into general practice because of it.  He had been a gifted surgeon before the accident.  So he lost a lot on a personal level considering how hard he worked to become a doctor, especially with Edward not approving of that.  It also led to his drug addiction in the late 1990’s, as he was initially using the pills for pain from a surgery to reverse his old injury and get back to surgery if I am remembering correctly.

18 minutes ago, amybrickwallace said:

How long did it take before the Qs became generally a comedic family?

I think that original Edward was always kind of snide and funny.  He was the most catty character on the show.  Then the rest kind of flowed from there.  They used to have humor, but didn’t become a joke until Guza came back from Sunset Beach.  Then it was just put them in scenes and have them argue over the same stuff over and over again.

Alan and Monica often had very humorous fights, even in their early years.

2 hours ago, Khan said:

You can see Gloria Monty injecting some Hitchcockian touches into the sequence.  I find them too distracting.

I think it ratchets up the tension all the way up the stairs.  She often said her mix was a little bit of Hitchcock, a little bit of Capra, and a dash of humor.  The Hitchcock references are really high in this scene for sure.

6 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

When did the focus move from the hospital to outside of the hospital?  Was it in the late 70s or more in the 80s?  And would you say Marland or Pat Faken Smith started the shift from the hospital to outside of the hospital? 

Post Lesley Webber, the hospital seemed to have lost the drive it once had.  Sure there were scenes there, but stories didn’t really revolve around it like they did again during Labine.  You still had people like Monica, Alan, Rick (until 1986 ish), Bobbie and Tony working there.  It wasn’t until they reintroduced Audrey and Steve’s son that I felt they invested at all in new hospital characters during the spy era of the show.  And that was post Monty, and more about his relationship with Simone than revolving purely around the hospital.

14 hours ago, victorlord75 said:

 

The place I seem to remember most from the pre-Monty GH is the little tiny medicine room right next to that big green window backdrop.  So much drama occurred in that little room!  Sometime after Tom Donovan took over as producer, even though the original 7th floor nurse's station was still being used, the medicine room stopped being used for scenes.  I recall missing that, strange as it sounds.

That medicine room is an iconic set for folks that watched the earliest days of the show.  My grandmother often talked about stories or scenes that involved the medicine room.  Even my dad, who caught a show here or there as a kid but wasn’t really invested used to tease my sister and I about our GH habits and ask if Jesse was still crying in the pill room in the 1980’s when we watched it as kids.

All this talk about Mary O’Brien reminds me of this quote from one of Michael Logan’s interviews-

Geary: There was this actress on our show named Mary O'Brien — she played Heather before they cast Robin Mattson — and she was having trouble crying in a scene. Gloria came out of the control room and said, "You've got to cry! We need you to cry!" Mary tried it again and Gloria came back out and said, 'You're still faking it! I want real tears!" After another three or four trips to the stage, Gloria finally went ballistic. "You must be the worst actress I've ever hired! I don't know what the hell was wrong with me! The whole scene is hinging on this! You are ruining General Hospital!" And she went on and on until Mary started to cry. Then Gloria said, "Yes! That's it! Shoot it!" And she walked off the set.

Clips like the one above just remind me how much your perspective sets the norms for being a soap viewer.

When I think about GH, so much of the things I remember were from Monty on.  Very little pre her.  Even the nurses station is the round one that I think Monty started.    And those things are so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine the days before.

I can’t stand that Rick either. He’s just seems wrong to me.  And I didn’t even see the show before 1983 that I can remember, and didn’t start actively viewing until Frisco pulled that hat off Felicia’s head.  But he is still not Rick to me.

1 hour ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing the original wedding ceremony between them either, although I was a regular viewer back then.

I was hoping you would comment and have details!  I don’t know anything about their relationship before they were married.  It seems like it was a short courtship.  But he liked her enough to give her the house!  Or was that to spite Edward?  I’m now so curious about Alan and Monica’s early days.

Before Alan (and really Lesley Charleson), Monica was pretty much between Rick and Jeff, correct?

9 hours ago, vetsoapfan said:

 

So many people I know readily admit to loathing Sonny, Carly, Michael Easton's 900 roles, etc.,  on today's GH, but lots of characters from the past seemed universally loved by the vast majority of viewers: Lesley Webber, Steve Hardy, Jessie Brewer, etc. Why can't soaps create likeable characters anymore?

Oh my mother hated Lesley back in the day.  Hated her.    She didn’t care for Audrey either.  So it’s not just modern fans.

I wasn’t really that fond of Robert.  But when he came back during the contagion story, I was shocked how happy I was to have him back and how much I had truly missed him.

Might as well post my favorite scene involving Lesley.  The good stuff starts around 6 minutes.  It’s also a pretty great Monica scene too.

Alan being gone left a huge hole in the show.  Not just as a Q or his relationship with Monica.  His scenes as a doctor, and his ability as a character to go from caring doctor to manipulative bastard never felt false.  Alan was all those things.

The loss of Alan and the diminshing of the Q’s also let out all the tension in Jason.  When he had that Jason Q past as a constant reminder at odds with Jason Morgan, it gave him more depth as a character.

10 hours ago, OldGHFan said:

Now this is the GH cast I want to see!

And other than Holly, we were seeing all of them regularly about 3 years ago.  Including Felicia and Mac.  And the ratings were higher!  And there was still room for the characters that are not popular but Valentini loves played by Michael Easton, Roger Howarth, Kiki, etc.  And again, the ratings were higher!  

The only neglected vet we see much of these days is Monica, and good for her.

6 hours ago, OldGHFan said:

 

She was.  Tonja Walker was great as Olivia.

I liked Julian back then a lot.  I thought he was cute, and I loved his dynamic with Cheryl.  Their dad was fun too.  But Olivia was he most dangerous.  She was just sinister and obsessed.

6 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

I still don't get the big deal where Adam is concerned. He didn't win a medal and has never completed a quad. He isn't even that attractive....IMO

The big deal is that he is the first gay American male in his sport to compete out of the closet.  Not come out later, but at the height of his career so far.

Gus is more my type, but I have nothing but pride for Adam.

Olivia Jerome was a great character.

4 hours ago, sheilaforever said:

Scott Thompson Baker and Joe Mascolo. Two actors I haven't seen on GH before. Cool find!

I loved Scott Thompson Baker as Colton Shore.  He was in a pairing with Felicia when Frisco was off the show, and was cousins with Lucy Coe.  His mother Charlene helped Lucy with her schemes (played by he great Marie Cheatham).