DramatistDreamer

What I really find to be the saddest part of the lack of an official social media presence for this soap—there’s nowhere to celebrate the alumni we love. If P&G had the grace to get an intern to even put up a dedicated YouTube channel, shift all those ATWTs clips that are buried in CBS’ YouTube channel and migrate them to an As The World Turns YouTube channel, that would be a big improvement. Just imagine if there had been one, it would be so special to see a clip of Bob Hughes giving the Thanksgiving toast and fans could wish Don Hastings a Happy Birthday. It’s really a shame that there’s nothing like this. An intern at P&G could at the very least, upload those episodes that the people at Soap Classics already digitized.

We were discussing this in the thread about The Gates, that it would be a nice overture to long time supporters of P&G soaps if they could do something like what B&B did with classic episodes of their soap, or even have a dedicated YouTube channel for ATWT clips (and one for GL, EON), maybe even put up episodes sometime. In Development means that a project is past the initial stage of pitch and planning, agreements have likely been drawn up and inked. From what I’ve read, a story Bible is being written. Michele Val Jean has left her job at B&B to work full-time on developing this soap. One point that needs to be remembered is that The Gates is not solely a P&G production, CBS partnering with the NAACP in conjunction with P&G. I am not even sure how much direct involvement P&G will have, especially if CBS is steering this show. I don’t know whether we can expect P&G to have any of the creative or production control that they have traditionally had with their soaps previously, I get the sense that CBS will have a bigger role this time around. And CBS is serious about this soap, or they wouldn’t have partnered with the NAACP. They know that Black women are a huge part of the viewing audience for their daytime soaps over the decades, even though they haven’t been serviced by the stories or content, so they know this is their opportunity to reciprocate on that. If they back out, they will risk alienating a huge part of their audience.

Very cool @SoapDope! Has CZ seen this recently? I am not on Twitter but would love to find out what her reaction is to this ad.

This is very bad. World Central Kitchen is a very popular NGO, Australian government officials are demanding accountability. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-airstrike-gaza-kills-foreign-aid-workers-hamas-run-media-office-says-2024-04-01/

No, Soap Classics was the company that issued the DVD box sets. They had their own independently run platform where you could read about the DVD collections on sale and a two streaming sites, on U.S. based and another site based in another country (can’t remember which country). AOL’s streaming platform was long gone by then, I believe. I really thought Soap Classics did a good job of working with people who really had respect for these shows (ATWT and GL) to curate these DVD collections and providing a well functioning platform where you could red about the DVD collections on sale, place orders and stream classic episodes all in one comprehensive system.

This forthcoming soap The Gates and P&G’s involvement has gotten me thinking about how much does P&G plan to acknowledge the existence of their IP. Especially since they will be collaborating with CBS (most of us in this thread will recognize the irony) on it. From time to time a pristine clip of a scene from ATWT (I don’t think this was done with the other P&G soaps) pops up on the CBS YouTube channel. Of course, these clips were uploaded over a decade ago when the show was cancelled. I am not expecting any acknowledgement from P&G but it would have been so nice if we could’ve gotten something, a few new clips on the CBS YouTube channel, Lord knows I couldn’t even dream that anyone would care enough to migrate those clips to a dedicated As The World Turns YouTube channel. Man, it’s times like these that I truly miss the Soaps Classics streaming platform! For a time, they would stream classic episodes, mainly from ‘79 into the 1980s. In the last few years, I would sometimes wonder why tptb in the last decade or so seemed to regard the show’s history as disposable. Sometimes I would think that perhaps they just didn’t care or that maybe the writers and executives were clueless or lazy and/or incompetent. But I recently, I thought about this and another aspect entered my thoughts: did these people assume that they no longer had to write for long-time viewers? Were they only absorbed in courting newer and more recent viewers, assuming that whatever long-time viewers would just hang in and watch, just because? I am just curious about the mindset of people who obviously know they are writing/producing a show that has been on air for generations with a long history, characters that were still on the canvas from the early years of the series and yet, decided to chuck so much history in the bin.

Those too! There were options, especially in the 1980s, the 90s though, for some reason made me think of sports programs (maybe it was the Tanya vs Nancy and Steffi vs Monica). But when you think of it network television programming on the weekends seems pretty dire these days. I remember during the pandemic CBS tried to bring back the Saturday night movie, I don’t remember how long they kept that going.

It’s sad how programming on network television has devolved over time. This is not exactly the same but remember weekend afternoon programming? I remember when Saturday and Sunday afternoons you might have sports like tennis and figure skating- it seemed like there was always something to watch. Then by the early 00s, many Sunday afternoons, I’d see “interstitial’ programming which usually seemed to consist of these weird Byron Allen produced filler shows.

The tipsy turvy world of “Truth” Social. Trump’s media stock plunges after posting a big loss for 2023

Because the show couldn’t be bothered to write any stories that paid actual attention to the show’s history. They threw almost every aspect in the bin.

Has anyone interviewed either? I would love to hear their perspectives on what the Writers Room was like for them. Did they face any pressures to write (or not write) certain stories and perspectives? We’ve heard and read interviews done with Black actors, many of whom have discussed issues they had experienced with various soaps. I am curious if these writers encountered any issues writing for Generations ?

Agreed. The soap had talent to spare but the writing left a lot to be desired. So many missed opportunities. And everyone who makes the point that the soap seemed to become more entertaining towards the end is right, because it was indeed a case of “too little too late”. I look forward to seeing what this upcoming soap has in store.

On Generations?? Yikes! Well, at least the NAACP is playing a part in this upcoming series because…bruh!😳 Wait @Khan, were they always there? Like from the beginning? Or did they slot in towards the end?

Oh, you should have been here in this thread at the time, we were all talking about this back then!

Currently, I am reading a script and 1619, so perhaps when I have finished those, I will set aside some time to read. I think it’s obvious that there were no Black writers writing for Generations. And like you, I sincerely doubt that this will be an issue with the forthcoming serial.

While reading his NYT obituary, it said that Louis Gossett Jr. had co-written a song with Richie Havens called Handsome Johnny.

And it shows, believe me. For all intents and purposes, the Marshall family was a family who just happened to be Black. It seemed that this was the approach taken, no specificity whatsoever, which was a big error in judgment, imo. It aired on NBC- perhaps someone should have called Debbie Allen to go and fix the show, lent some cultural traditions to the Marshalls.

Something that we’ve all been discussing in this thread.

Looks like Grigor was getting a pep talk.

Ah, thank you. Like @Soapsuds, I knew it was a Masters. In my case I mixed up the tournament venue. In any case, I hope he can keep it going.

R.I.P. to Emmy, Oscar and Golden Globe winning actor Louis Gossett Jr. https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/louis-gossett-jr-1st-black-man-to-win-supporting-actor-oscar-dies-at-87/ar-BB1kKuqZ?OCID=ansmsnnews11

I’m always rooting for the ‘Lost Boys’ to win something big. Grigor has won IW previously, right? It would be tough but if he could get Miami maybe a title might spur him on to capture an even bigger title this year. Keep the faith, Grigor.

Once again, I am here for the comments and y’all are cracking me up.🤣

To be honest, specificity is key in writing characters and stories that resonate. In the earliest days of the daytime soaps, characters were drawn very clearly: reverend, lawyer, doctor, secretary, housewife, nurse, teacher. It resonated because people could identify with either being one or knowing someone who fit into this profile. When soaps became more flashy and the prototypes became even higher on the socio-economic spectrum: Scion of a wealthy oil family, owner and operator of a publishing house, head creative director of a famous family run design house, owner of a family owned and operated boutique. There’s a reason why the Abbott family were introduced as Genoa City’s first family of cosmetics— it is a specific thing. Many viewers were either consumers of cosmetics or knew someone who was, so that was an entry point into the family’s story. Even in the case of the “management consulting firm”, as ATWT had in mogul Lucinda Walsh, the products and companies that they did business with were specific—real estate and construction, clothing manufacturing and in house design. My concern is that, if it’s not specific enough, then you get something like the current iteration of Newman Enterprises where no one can keep track of what they currently do as an “enterprise” and it just becomes ridiculous and inauthentic. The ice cream business on Generations could have worked, tbh, if there had been more writing that delved more into the history of African Americans and ice cream and the connection to the Marshall (wow, I can’t believe I remember their surname 😂). There actually is a very rich history with the creation of the dessert and even the invention of the ice cream scoop to Black people. Had the show had the Marshall patriarch talk about this, maybe with his unfocused playboy son, it would have strengthened the aspect of why this family went into the ice cream business. I hate to say this but, perhaps this is the function of not having a Black HW. Sometimes it’s not all about aesthetics.

Maybe if this were 1984, but in 2024, I would not be interested in watching that. Of course, I would expect that it wouldn’t solely be rich people on this soap but so far, the only core family that we’ve heard about is said to be affluent and powerful and I don’t see why they should have to acquire their means by way of sheer luck. The thought crossed my mind that the NAACP would end up calling for a boycott of a show they used to be a part of. Whew.😅