mikelyons

I know the title is long and awkward, but bear with me.

I was recently telling someone how much I loved OLTL in the Labine era, but I was terribly turned off when Jill Phelps took over. I stopped watching for about a year or two, tried to get back into it, but I always felt like someone had ripped the heart out of the show. People would always tell me about the great things the show was doing in its final years, yet I never reconnected with OLTL. 

AMC is also on this list. I stopped watching with the rape of Bianca. When I tried to tune-in based on whoever was head writer, I'd see Bianca with that child and I just couldn't stomach it anymore. 

I've always loved Y&R, but the minute Kevin put on that chipmunk head, I turned it off. Ever since then, I'll try to watch Y&R if I'm home during the day, but it feels like watching someone you once loved acting totally out of character. It feels like nothing about the Y&R I once loved even exists anymore. At least we'll always have "Nadia's Theme".

EMMERDALE was a soap I loved, but the influx of Dingles simply ruined the show for me. I tried to re-connect with the show, but the rape of Victoria Sugden was the final straw. Ugh. It felt like shock for the sake of shock. I turned it off after that.

Before SEARCH FOR TOMORROW premiered, there was a big behind the scenes talk about whether or not to use cue cards or if they should only use actors two days a week to get them to rest. One of the producers from Compton insisted that ANY actor worth their salt could learn dialogue without cue cards because that's what they're trained to do! This producer went on to say that if theatrical actors in repertory companies can memorize three different Shakespearian plays to perform every day, a soap opera actor can memorize a few ten page scripts every week. Needless to say, SEARCH didn't get cue cards.

Which soaps did you try to watch multiple times, but you could never get into them?

For me, it was GUIDING LIGHT (although I find the 60s episodes quite engaging) and CORONATION STREET. I know but shows are institutions, but halfway through an episode, I would get restless and turn them off. I'm still trying to watch CORONATION STREET, but it's never connected with me and I don't know why. It's well-written, well-acted, and perfectly produced, but it never sticks.

I've tried to watch DAYS, but it never, ever stuck. I'm always think, "I must have missed A LOT!"

What about you?

Eric Braeden uses cue cards. They cut around it. 

43 minutes ago, I Am A Swede said:

I know I sound like a broken record, but when it comes to the Dingles there's only one thing to say.....

 

They should've caught COVID in that "house". End of. Bring back the Sugdens. Bring back ANYONE else. They're the reason I stopped watching a show I loved.

Colleen's issues with food on Y&R circa 2004-5. They briefly mentioned it at Crimson Lights when she was spending time with Lily and some mean girls commented if she needed that much foam or whatever in her drink. It would have been a beautiful storyline involving Colleen, Brad, and Traci, but it was dropped without a second thought. 

6 hours ago, BetterForgotten said:

While many would say this is in line with how Erica Kane would react - apparently the blue ribbon panel had a good laugh at this scene when Lucci submitted it as her Emmy reel that year. The soap press generally wasn’t that kind to Lucci around this time as well.

 

 

I completely disagree. From the time Erica discovered Mona's body through the funeral, it was a heartbreaking storyline. Erica took Mona for granted, screamed at her, brushed her off, and relied on her since their first episode together. Moreover, Lucci and Heflen were scene partners for 24 years. All of that was beautifully captured in Erica's grief. Over the top or not, Lucci's portrayal at Erica's loss of her beloved mother truly resonated with me. I'll take this over a demonic possession any day of the week. 

Ellen Holly's 1971 ONE LIFE TO LIVE contract from Creative Horizons:

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

It makes sense. So, of course, American daytime dramas won't do it.

 

Just think of how much money, acclaim and talent CBS, NBC and ABC daytime has lost due to their inflexibility. Actors who were being ground down by the rigorous schedule asked for time off and couldn't get it and elected to leave. Productiom companies that left incompetent people in charge for way too long rather than make a concerted effort to search for fresh production talent. Refusing to even entertain the notion of merchandising products for the consumer marketplace because they'd have to *gasps* profit-share with the talent.

 

The 60 minute episodes werr successful for about a decade and then they should have switched, just like they switched in the early 80s.  Explain to viewers that, in order to be able to continue to make quality shows that are sustainable, they needed to revert to th "classic television soap model". Viewers might have grumbled at first, in which case they can level with the viewers that , if they keep going along this unsustainable route, many of their favorite soaps will inevitably be cancelled. TPTB never tried.

 

I'm TOTALLY with you on this one!

People forget that two of the highest rated scripted shows of our time, DOWNTON ABBEY and THIS IS US, are steeped in realism. And, guess what? They were runaway hits! Imagine, telling stories about real people who don't have memories implanted in their pinkie. 

1 minute ago, Paul Raven said:

I agree re half hour. That would have allowed for more flexibility in the schedules and meant soaps weren't competing with one another as much.

But economics have always ruled daytime so when it was established 60 min was cheaper than 30 ...

We can point the finger at Lin Bolen/Paul Rauch for that.

Wasn't there an article that came out in the late-70s (maybe 78) that said the cost savings of an hour and a slight increase in ad rates really didn't seem to justify an hour? I believe one of the arguments was that by restricting ad revenue to a few half hour slots made the show more valuable in the long term. If Lever Bros. couldn't advertise on a P&G show, but could in the next half hour slot, it would be more money than them being locked out entirely from a 60 minute P&G show. 

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

For years before GL and ATWT were cancelled, I said the same thing.

These soaps weren't started as 60 minute serials, so why should they stay that way when it's clear that model no longer worked? It just seems like when execs' minds are already made up, there is a lack of will to do otherwise.

 

If networks could juggle two different versions of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?", surely they had the mental faculties and imagination to figure this one out too.

Third-ing making soaps a half hour. The hour hasn't worked very well. Half an hour is great; you're in and out. I also support mixing up the number of weekly episodes. The Archers produced six episodes a week pre-COVID and now they're doing four. Hollyoaks is five a week; EastEnders varies. It's doable. Your audience doesn't care. Just don't waste their time with crap.

One piece of realism that is missing from US soaps and is slowly fading from UK soaps are the celebration of birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, etc. I've always felt that marking those life events in terms of a daily story helps ground the soap in terms of place and time. Characters aren't vaguely 35 forever. Life happens. People grow and evolve. I suppose it's hard to say Character X is 35 when they've aged their child from 5 to 25 in five years. 

59 minutes ago, Bright Eyes said:

At this point, Salem is closer to being in Westeros than anywhere in the United States.

1 hour ago, Darn said:

In watching 80s episodes of AMC I discovered Pine Valley wasn't always meant to be set in PA. Tad specifically referred to his friend moving to Pine Valley from Pennsylvania.

That's correct. From what I recall, Pine Valley wasn't located in Pennsylvania until at least 1990. After that, all of the ABC soaps had their cities aligned with a state. Pine Valley was a grey area in that it was a pre-Revolutionary War hamlet within an hour of New York City.

36 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

For the longest it always seemed to me as Genoa City grew  was a Y&R replacement for Milwaukee as I always heard the characters talk about other regional locations such as Chicago, Madison, Green Bay etc. but never mention Milwaukee not once. During Isabella’s disappearance I remember it was alleged Christine dumped Isabella’s body in Lake Michigan.  Finally a couple years ago the city of Milwaukee was finally mentioned. 
 

I appreciate though Y&R had some veracity though as Dru and Neil once went off to Crystal Lake Illinois which is very close to the real life Genoa City.

 

That's a great fact about Genoa City and Milwaukee! I never heard that before, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Kay would live by the lake and everyone else would live in the city. Nice catch, @soapfan770

Pine Valley, Llanview, and Corinth are near each other on Philadelphia's Main Line. Agnes Nixon even used the Welsh naming system Main Line families used for their houses for OLTL's Llanfair. OLTL's Center City is a stand-in for Philadelphia. Pine Valley is based on Rosemont, PA, the same town which would later inspire the town in Pretty Little Liars. If I recall, Llanview and Pine Valley are separated by the Llantano River with Corinth being nearby. I'd bet Corinth is a stand-in for Bryn Mawr, PA, home to the university of the same name on the Main Line.

Exterior shots of Llanview from the 1980s opening were from Harrisburg, PA. The homes and houses featured as establishing shots for Pine Valley were located in Princeton, NJ and a town in Connecticut I'm blanking on right now. I believe estates in Long Island were used as stand-ins for Corinth at the beginning of LOVING.

Genoa City is a tiny town in Wisconsin and does look like where the down at heel Fosters would have lived with the Brooks living in wealthy Lake Geneva. There is a local TV documentary produced about Y&R's relationship with Lake Geneva and Genoa City. I only saw it once and haven't been able to locate it since, but it provides an interesting window into the people who "inspired" that world. From its inception, Chicago was supposed to serve as the closest "big city" to Genoa City, but now Genoa City rivals Chicago for the number of multinational corporations and billionaires! Once Y&R "grew up" Genoa City became Pittsburgh, which is where establishing shots and location filming were done for many, many years. Around 2004, they showed an establishing shot of the Chancellor Mansion which was a mansion located outside of Pittsburgh. I don't know if it's ever been shown again.

The Los Angeles of B&B bears no relation to the real Los Angeles or even Beverly Hills, save for establishing shots of the city.

Harmony, New England from PASSIONS never had any real sense of place. I'd guess it was meant to be Salem, MA due to its heavy use of historical witchcraft.

Irna's soaps almost always took place in towns in and around the Chicago region. Agnes' took place in Pennsylvania. 

Whenever you see an actor pop-up on recurring for a few performances a year, a lot of the time the show is helping the actor to they can keep their health insurance. You have to work a minimum number of days to keep the great SAG-AFTRA health insurance, so it can be a win-win for a lot of soaps and actors.

I believe around 2006, Drake Hogestyn and Deidre Hall were earning about $10,000 per episode with three episode a week guarantees.

One reason Heather Tom is rumored to have quit Y&R was because they wanted to cut her guarantee. I believe Martha Bryne was let go of ATWT because they wanted to cut her pay, which I believe she agreed to, but she wouldn't let them cut her guarantee. 

It's always been said Susan Lucci was the highest paid soap opera performer. I'd be curious to know if that included her pay from AMC or her other deals and business interests. If they kept her big salary on the AMC books, it could have inflated the budget. I'd be curious to see an ABC Daytime soap opera budget. Hell, I'd REALLY be interested to compare budgets from Sony and P&G!

32 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

 

Here's the end of a 13-week cycle (the episodes airing from 9/27/71-12/24/71):

 

At this point, Denise was guaranteed just 20 episodes over this 13 week cycle. But she worked 28. Bill Bell would famously overwork people, regardless of their guarantees. In this cycle, for instance, Ed Mallory was only guaranteed 20 episodes as well, but he worked 41 episodes, more than twice his average guarantee!

 

Mac had the best agent. His guarantee of 40 episodes over 13 weeks was double anyone else in the cast. The rest of the cast was guaranteed 20 episodes over this 13-week cycle, except for Susan Seaforth, who only had a 1-per-week guarantee at the time (13 episodes for 13 weeks).

 

 

Here's a standard AFTRA contract for "Days" for a U/5 appearance in 1991. At the bottom, it lists the payments for each time the episode is repeated, or aired in other countries:

 

11 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

Here's a contract of Susan Seaforth's for an appearance on GH in 1964:

 

 

Thanks for sharing these!

The Lords (OLTL) were said to be based on the Annenberg publishing dynasty (TV Guide, etc.).

The original SEARCH FOR TOMORROW guarantees called for an actor to appear 2 times during a 13 week cycle, except for Mary Stuart. She appeared in every show for $1,000 a week. 

Generally, most American soaps will use a weekly guarantee, while UK soaps use a yearly guarantee due to larger casts. An actor on a UK soap is promised a set number of yearly episodes (a minimum of 50) as part of their contract. Sometimes UK actors with lower lower guarantees are well-paid, but want to do a ton of theatre, outside projects, etc. If I recall, B&B and Y&R use a yearly guarantee (pay or play) versus a weekly guarantee. 

I have a 2009 test option for a DAYS actor which sets forth the following: Year 1.) $1,350 for an average of 1.5 guaranteed performances per week; Year 2.) $1,450 for an average of 1.5 guaranteed performances per week; Year 3.) $1,550 for an average of 1.5 guaranteed performances per week; Year 4.) $1,700 for an average of 2 guaranteed performances per week. 

Direct language from the Corday/DAYS option contract regarding cycles: "Corday shall have three (3) options to extend Player’s engagement and the term of this Agreement (the “Term”) for periods of thirteen (13) weeks each, followed by six (6) options to extend the Term for periods of twenty-six (26) weeks each.  All such options are separate, dependent, irrevocable, and consecutive and are exercisable by Corday in its sole discretion.  The initial period together with the periods covered by the three thirteen (13) week options are herein referred to collectively as the “first contract year”; the periods covered by the first and second twenty-six (26) week options are herein referred to collectively as the “second contract year”; the periods covered by the third and fourth twenty-six (26) week options are herein referred to collectively as the “third contract year”; and the periods covered by the fifth and sixth twenty-six (26) week options are herein referred to collectively as the “fourth contract year."

"The option for each subsequent period shall be automatically exercised unless notice of termination is given by Corday at least four (4) weeks (with respect to thirteen [13] week cycles) or six (6) weeks (with respect to twenty-six [26] week cycles) prior to the end of the then current period.  During the Term (on a one-time basis), a cycle may be increased or decreased by a period not exceeding four (4) weeks in order to conform to periods of Corday’s network agreement."

Most soaps are crafty about how they use an actors guarantee. If an actor only has a 2 episode guarantee, but appears in less than half of that episode, the show considers it a half of performance (hence the 1.5 in the above option agreement). In theory, an actor could appear in half of four episodes to create a 2 episode guarantee. DAYS has been using the half episode trick since the 60s. 

Cars to and from the studio are usually done as a courtesy to actors who have a very early call time. Several actors on Y&R who were first up had town cars provided to and from Television City. Jeanne Cooper was always scheduled to start around 10AM-11AM as a courtesy to her and the production coordinators stuck to this. Generally, all perks are negotiated by your agent.

I've often thought that the lack of realism on US soaps has allowed them to become odd relics of our times. They are often divorced from reality, science, or plausibility. As much as I love a good evil twin or baby switch, the soaps seem to have lost their way in terms of relating to their audiences. Upon watching a few old episodes of THE GUIDING LIGHT and AS THE WORLD TURNS, I had a feeling of community, being part of a larger world, and watching people you might know or see in town. I'm all for fantasy and escape, but isn't it possible to escape into well constructed realism, too? I'd love to know what you guys think, one way or another.

25 minutes ago, Faulkner said:

When you watch Dobson-era GL or Russell-era OLTL or pretty much any soap in the late ‘70s, it’s noticeable how much thought and care went into the dialogue. It’s all very nuanced and rich yet natural and varied. They certainly didn’t dumb things down for the great unwashed. 

THIS!!

26 minutes ago, yrfan1983 said:

Vault: https://bit.ly/3kMIjRN

Many thanks!!!

Can someone provide the current link for The Vault? Many thanks!

2 hours ago, allmc2008 said:

I will give you what it says in the AMC bible -- I found a copy dated 1967 at Northwestern University.

The last section reads:

 

But underlying our story, the inexorable fact is always there; that in this, our human predicament, what happens to the LEAST affects the GREAT, the STRONG are indebted to the WEAK, that SORROW and FEAR are the absence of JOY and HOPE, and that without TRAGEDY there could never be TRIUMPH.

 

Further, every Anniversary, beginning with the 20th, someone states:

The Great and the Least

The Rich and the Poor

The Weak and the Strong

In Joy and Sorrow

In Sickness and in Health

In Tragedy and in Triumph....

...you are All My Children.

 

The 25th Anniversary has a Prime-time Special in which Carol Burnett says it. She actually reads the way it's written in the first page of the show's bible

The Great and the Least

The Weak and the Strong

In Hope and Fear

In Tragedy and in Triumph

...you are All My Children

 

--------------

If you ask me, in short, every story when it was at it's best, had no character without redeeming factor. Even characters like Billy Clyde Tuggle, who trafficked women, raped them, got them hooked on drugs, and burried them alive had a redeeming factor. Billy Clyde was driven by what we all want--security. But, how we was going about it was wrong. Characters like him, Janet, Ray Gardner, all did horrific things but it was treated as 'wrong things for the right (or simply understandable) reasons. We HATED what these characters were doing but we understood why they were doing it.

 

Of course, Erica Kane took the cake for that one. Start with May of 1991 on YouTube. That is the start of "Janet from Another Planet"--no, not a space alien. I'm currently in July of that year. Every damn scene reiterates the above.

The theme was featured in a very short video following ABC's broadcast of ANNIE on November 7, 1999.

They changed the order of the "facts" to:

"The Great and the Least The Weak and the Strong The Rich and the Poor In Sickness and Health In Joy and Sorrow In Tragedy and Triumph.... ...you are All My Children."

According to fans of BBC 4's THE ARCHERS, the death of Nigel Pargetter as unnecessary and people are still furious about it. 

"...the audience has still not quite forgiven its former editor of 22 years’ standing, Vanessa Whitburn, for having Nigel Pargetter plunge to his death from the roof of his stately home a decade ago, as a 60th-anniversary plot shocker. (She received death threats. “Even now, if I give a talk at a Women’s Institute, people ask why I killed him off,” she told me.) "

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/15/the-archers-weird-genius-peculiarly-english-epic

On 11/11/2020 at 3:31 PM, allmc2008 said:

Radio_IN_DEFENSE_OF_DAYTIME_S(1).pdfUnavailable

What I posted is an article co-written by Irna Phillips AND Elaine Carrington

 

Would you mind reposting this PDF? Many thanks!