Franko

I imagine that if Bell took Y&R and B&B to NBC, than AW would have been cancelled and Days would have moved to 2, followed by Santa Barbara.  (And 12 years ahead of reality, NBC would have had an all West Coast-produced soap lineup.)

As long as I'm speculating, suppose that AW became the third soap (not only that, but the third P&G soap) to switch networks. Imagine, if you will ...

CBS -- Capitol at 12:30, AW at 1, ATWT at 2 (fulfilling Irna's dream of a World-verse 23 years later) and GL at 3.

ABC -- RH at 12, LOV at 12:30, AMC at 1, OLTL at 2 and GH at 3.

NBC -- Y&R at 12:30, B&B at 1:30, DOOL at 2 and SB at 3.

And, what the hell, as long as I'm fan-fictioning, Capitol eventually gets succeeded by Doug Marland's The Soul Survivors.

5 hours ago, kalbir said:

A hypothetical CBS schedule March 1987 could have been

10 am Capitol

10:30 am Card Sharks

11 am The Price is Right

Noon Local programming

12:30 pm Y&R

1:30 pm B&B

2 pm As the World Turns

3 pm Guiding Light

Who knows how long Capitol would have lasted in an early morning slot because clearances would still be an issue.

One other option, although clearances would likely be a tremendous issue, is having Capitol in the 12 p.m. slot. The problem is that unlike ABC and NBC, CBS traditionally always left a half-hour available to the affiliates. So, really, Capitol's conclusion was a fait accompli. 

7 hours ago, j swift said:

According to the National Enquirer, the part and plot were written specifically with Atkins in mind (can't link, it's from press clippings in an eBay auction).  And for me, I need nothing more that those speedo and crop top scenes to stay tuned into the entire season (along with the campy hilarity of Peter and Lucy's disco jeans modeling commercial).

I can dig it.

7 hours ago, j swift said:

Also, wouldn't it have been interesting if they kept the anxious personality trait for John Ross brought on the trauma of the fire?  Having JR deal with a son who was coping with mental illness could have been such a dramatic source of conflict. 

Agreed. I'm guessing that someone with the show figured that John Ross was the best tool for humanizing J.R., thus most of their interactions were as doting father and son. There's nothing wrong with that, of course (and Bobby and Christopher had a similar dynamic), but it does limit the dramatic possibilities.

6 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

The idea behind Sue Ellen and a toy boy was good but the execution was off.

Unless you are into twinks, Peter had zero appeal. Compare it to DH and Jesse Metcalfe.

Chris Atkins had moved full speed into his twank era.

I'd love to know if anyone else was considered for Peter. Something that I think may have slightly hurt reaction to the storyline was that it aired around the same time that Atkins' older woman-younger man movie, A Night in Heaven, came out. It's like, why am I seeing the same story twice?

With thanks, as always, to JASON47's site ...

Friday, Dec. 12, 1986 -- Marlena "dies" when the house explodes.

Friday, Dec. 19, 1986 --Marlena's alive and on a tropical island!

Monday, April 20, 1987 -- Bo & Hope sail away.

Thursday, April 23 and Friday, April 24, 1987 -- Marlena "dies" when her plane goes down.

7 hours ago, kalbir said:

October 6-10, 1986 Y&R dropped to 4th after killing it in the summer. What happened that week? Did ABC have something big go on?

Nothing really spectacular on GH. The initial Duke and the mob/Burt Ramsey is Mr. Big storyline wouldn't conclude for another two months. There was also Alan's feigned death/Edward tries to get the Quartermaines' money back from Sean storyline and the setup for Lucy eventually being framed for murder.

1 hour ago, j swift said:

I thought it was insightful of @Franko to make the connection between the rise of trash talk TV with the demise of Ryan's Hope, which happened in January 1989, because that genre fought for affiliate time with the soaps.  As we recall, neither Geraldo, Jerry Springer, nor Maury Povich started as trash talkers, but their shows evolved according to the ratings.  They might not have been trying to appeal to the same audience as the soaps, but they surpassed the soaps in terms of ratings per dollar because they were so cheap to produce.

Thank you. My apologies if I'm pulling the thread too far into the talk direction, but the LA Times' pre-airing article had some interesting insight into early Geraldo! 

"Rivera said that his style will more resemble newsman Ted Koppel’s on Nightline than the cozy studio approach of Winfrey or Phil Donahue. Using news footage and occasional on-location shooting, Rivera wants things hot, controversial, visual. 

Subjects of the first week of shows: the handicapped and their families; Marla Hanson, the New York model whose face was slashed with a razor; high-tech dating; the medical procedure of using fetal material to treat Parkinson’s disease and its implications for the abortion issue, and 'AIDS Assassins,' about carriers of the HIV virus who do not inform their sex partners. 'It should be considered a felonious assault, or at least attempted murder,' Rivera said."

I'm wondering if it was easy to grab several ABC stations as affiliates thanks to Geraldo's many years on 20/20, even if he had already been off that show for about two years by September 1987.

Now back to our regularly-scheduled soap operas ...

I've started doing some preliminary research for when Geraldo! debuted on Sept. 7, 1987. First of all, the national debut was considerably low (the Los Angeles Times reported only 60 stations for the premiere, while the New York Times said it was about 90) -- I've yet to confirm if the show initially aired in Philadelphia. Second, most of the stations I've seen so far have been ABC affiliates, which will give us something interesting to watch with Ryan's Hope and Loving. 

I'm sure we all know this, but just in case, Oprah's syndicated debut was on Monday, Sept. 8. She premiered on 120 stations.

ETA: According to a pre-debut article (Kay Gardella, New York Daily News), at least 25% of those stations aired Oprah opposite Donahue. Also, according to Oprah herself, the show would be airing on 137 stations (maybe she picked up more in January?).

9 hours ago, Bright Eyes said:

For some reason, Corday is really taken with Galen Gering. He only worked on the show during the time Rafe was running some club after being fired from being a cop for a reason I don't remember. I do think he succeeds when they give him comedy. That's where his talent lies. Probably should have been more of a Eugene instead of a bad Roman rip-off.

Speaking of characters who've lost their fanbases, Roman's got to be high on that list.

Monday, Feb. 17, 1986, on GH -- Terry's wedding stroll-serenade.

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Okay I have this note:

The 1981 Writer's strike was only 3 months long. From Apr 11 to Jul 12, 1981 & during that time period GH lost 2 mil viewers.

Does anyone have such a note about '88? 

Not sure about lost viewers, but the 1988 writers strike lasted from March 7-August 7, 1988. I'd love to know when the first post-strike material was being written or started airing. Speaking of the '88 strike and GH, it's pretty clear that someone rented Fatal Attraction, because entire plot elements from that movie were repeated for Olivia/Duke/Anna.

This one's more soap-adjacent, but Lonette McKee once came to my family's Christmas. She was friends with my great-aunt and they reconnected during my college years. I think this was the early days (or continuation?) of Lonette's actors workshop, which was apparently going to be Michigan based. At one point, my great-aunt was going to be among the acting coaches.

By the following summer, the friendship had ended, apparently for good. What I got out of the experience was my picture with Lonette and later, one bit of secondhand gossip from my bitter great-aunt. It has to do with a male movie star supposedly being gay. Here's a hopefully pretty big hint: my reaction was "Whoa." I'm not going to lie, my conversation with my great-aunt went something like this:

"Oh, auntie, that's just awful. I'm so sorry for you. ... Did Lonette spill anymore tea?"

I want to say that Monday, Dec. 26, was the day that Greg stopped Jenny and Tony's wedding. Sometime that week, Liza spilled the beans to Jenny about Tad having slept with her and Marian.

Luke & Laura left Port Charles together on Tuesday, Dec. 27.

Jessica's a real class act.

3 hours ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Did CBS combine with ATWT and Y&R often? I ask because I have a single print ad that is combo ATWT/Y&R themed "Secrets" but I have no idea of its date. Just happened upon it last week. Have seen lots where ATWT & GL are in together but this was a first. 

 

It doesn't get much bigger when you click on it, but I can tell that the ATWT portion has to do with the Doug Cummings storyline, so this narrows it down to early 1986.

1 minute ago, Franko said:

It doesn't get much bigger when you click on it, but I can tell that the ATWT portion has to do with the Doug Cummings storyline, so this narrows it down to early 1986.

Found it, the Feb. 8, 1986, issue of TV Guide.

https://vintagetoledotv.com/journal/2010/4/18/april-18-2010-i-pity-the-fool.html

The cancellations were made official during the week of Monday, Nov. 15, 1982, when NBC announced (ETA: most of) its daytime schedule effective Monday, Jan. 3, 1983. Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date for the schedule announcement, but I found Win Fanning (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) columns pinpointing the news to the week of the 15th (he teased the announcement during the week of the 8th, and ran it it in his Monday, Nov. 22 column).

ETA: Oddly enough, Just Men! (Betty White's game show) wasn't announced along with Sale of the Century and Hit Man (and the soaps cancellations). Just Men! was made official on Monday, Nov. 22.

John Carmody, Washington Post, Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1982

NBC filled out the last blank space in its revised daytime schedule yesterday with the announcement it will launch something called "Just Men!" in the noon time slot starting Jan. 3 .

Earlier the network had announced that "Sale of the Century," hosted by Jim Perry, will start at 10:30 a.m. that same date . . . along with "Hit Man" hosted by Pete Tomarken at 11:30 a.m.

The three game shows will replace "The Doctors" and "Texas," two of the soap operas that have kept NBC at the bottom of the daytime ratings race for so very, very long .

Earlier, the network had announced that "Facts of Life" reruns join the schedule Dec. 13 and that "Wheel of Fortune" was being moved to the morning* schedule .

*Odd choice of words: Wheel was on at 10:30 a.m.. It just moved up a half-hour (and kept that slot for the rest of its original NBC run).

Speaking of Dorian, she's been rather quiet as of late. I think her last memorable scene to date (so to speak) was when Viki told her to go to hell.

But hey, as long as we're watching every beat of Dan & Laura ...

4 hours ago, Vee said:

Revisiting the Rauch era recently you get a real feel of just how relentless an engine of a character Gabrielle was, moreso at times than even Tina.

Even in late 1990, when she's destroying Tina & Cord 3.0 (or 2.75, I guess) so she and Max can claim more security among the Buchanan clan, there's something so compelling. Talk about rooting for the anti-heroine!

Yup, that's Hasselhoff's butt.

58 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

There was never any mention of what 'Coming of Age' was about. Obviously about young people reaching maturity. But it could apply to many age groups,I guess.

Do you think it was a good title? Soap titles can be tricky.

It's not my favorite title, but I'll concede that a title isn't always the best way to judge a show. Not a CBS show, but All My Children wasn't built around a singular matriarch, for example.

I think my four '90s soap Holy Grails are finding bibles (if any exist) for Coming of Age, The Soul Survivors, Aremid and Manhattan Lives.

4 hours ago, j swift said:

Do we ever see Jock going into the office of Ewing Oil? 

Several times. I can't post the clips, but off the top of my head, there was when Pam had it out with J.R. and Jock over the reveal that Cliff's old girlfriend died from a botched abortion, Miss Ellie signing the papers to agree to allow drilling on Southfork, Sue Ellen signing the papers to initiate the countersuit against Cliff when he sued while still believing he was John Ross' father, in the aftermath of the news about the Asian oil wells being worthless to their new owners (when Jordan Lee lets them know Seth Stone killed himself) and one of several moments when Leslie Stewart realizes that J.R.'s really small short-sighted in terms of being a p.r. client.

4 hours ago, j swift said:

I wonder if JR took over Jock's office?  Or, if they kept one for him down the hall? 

I'm goin to assume that J.R.'s office was the one belonging to Jock when he was president. Jock did resume some responsibilities in 1979-80, after the J.R. mortaged Southfork and they nearly lost the joint fiasco, but it was temporary until the more or less permanent solution of J.R. vs. Bobby at work.

4 hours ago, j swift said:

I was also thinking about what Sly (or whomever was the receptionist at the time)'s relationship was like with Jock.

The only Ewing Oil secretary we ever saw Jock have a relationship with was Julie Grey (Tina Louise). "Julie's Return" involves Jock and Julie's non-physical affair. Sly (Deborah Rennard) joined the cast after Jim Davis' death.

Would a moderator please move this thread to the Discuss The Soaps page? Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to be mean, but HBS in full mug gives me a Scott Thompson vibe.

7 minutes ago, Jdee43 said:

Can anyone shed light on what the NBC execs were thinking when they brought over Search for Tomorrow in March 1982?

If I remember right, NBC was willing to put Search back at 12:30 p.m. EST, which P&G wanted and CBS refused. I'm now wondering what would have happened if NBC/P&G dared to try DOOL directly against Y&R, AW directly against ATWT and Search directly against Capitol.