Max

August 13, 2022

1 hour ago, DramatistDreamer said:

The past year for former soap stars for P&G soaps in particular has been bitterly mournful.

Kathryn Hays, Lisa Bown, Michael Tylo, Marnie Schulenburg, Ray Liotta, Jerry ver Dorn and now Anne Heche as well as a host of others.

I did not know that Jerry verDorn had passed away. That is heartbreaking to learn.

August 12, 2022

May Anne Heche rest in peace. As others have indicated, she was certainly the best Vicky and Marley AW ever had. She gave AW a much-needed shot in the arm after that soap had so many missteps in 1985, 1986, and the first half of 1987. And the show was never the same after she departed in 1991.

This has been a very tough year when it has come to deaths of soap stars. Though the circumstances of her death were very different, I was also tremendously saddened when the great Kathryn Hays passed away earlier this year.

June 4, 2022

4 hours ago, JoeCool said:

Agnes Nixon did not want AMC to go to an hour. She had concerns about the quality of the show and the expansion to 1 hour on the ratings. AMC was the highest rated soap on ABC from 1973 onward and was making ABC a lot of money. ABC convinced Agnes by building a huge studio just for AMC and getting her writing help. Agnes relented eventually.

I thought that it was a likely possibility that the long period of time in between AMC's experimental, hour-long episodes and that soap's permanent expansion to 60 minutes was due to Agnes Nixon's objections (and/or reservations). However, I never knew the lengths to which ABC went to convince her to agree to the hour-long expansion. That is a really fascinating bit of information.

June 3, 2022

Unlike the finales for AW, GL, and ATWT--all of which had serious flaws--I consider SFT's finale to be the gold standard. (Full disclosure, I've never watched the final episodes of RH and Texas, both of which were also heavily praised.) It nicely wrapped up the storylines of the current characters and, even more importantly, had such a touching final scene with Jo and Stu.

That said, I wouldn't say that SFT's final episode was perfect. I could have done without the scene in which, after some villain (whose name I don't recall) was arrested, that character had the following line of dialogue (before drinking a glass of wine): "To the McClearys...They won, in the end." Honestly, that line was a needless reminder of how much the McClearly brothers (who granted, at least were portrayed by talented actors) were shoved down viewers' throats during SFT's final years. But a bigger reason why SFT's finale wasn't perfect was that it would have been nice to have had returns of many classic characters from the past.

In SFT's defense, perfection wasn't realistically possible: not much time passed between the cancellation announcement and the finale, the show was only 30 minutes in length, and the then-current characters did need to have their stories wrapped up. But in a perfect world, if you didn't have some of the constraints that SFT's writers and producers had (say, for instance, had SFT had the luxury of an hour-long final episode), how might you have improved upon the finale? I'm curious to read people's responses to this question.

June 2, 2022

I realize that this is very belated, but I wanted to apologize for the way I upset some SON members back when the AMC/OLTL cancellations and reboots happened. I do want to say that I really haven't changed the way I feel about the cancellations and reboots. Thus, I still think the reboots (while OK) weren't anything great, that they were unlikely to succeed due to the fact a large time period elapsed between their debut and the final ABC episodes (which meant the reboots were probably going to have trouble attracting casual viewers of AMC & OLTL), and that there were unethical businessmen who were taking advantage of the situation for their own financial gain (e.g., the people who ran Prospect Park and the executives at Hoover, the latter being a company which I believe never did anything to help AMC & OLTL when the reboots actually were airing). From a business standpoint, I can still understand why AMC & OLTL were cancelled. For reasons most know, the AMC cancellation was the easier decision for ABC to make, and the less controversial one at the time. The OLTL cancellation was extremely controversial due to its being in better financial/budgetary shape and due to its very impressive rise in the ratings after the cancellation announcement was made. However, I can understand why ABC cancelled it due to its lackluster ratings during the few years preceding the cancellation. Of course, because of OLTL's post-cancellation rise in the ratings, ABC should have reversed its decision and uncancelled the show. This last point was one I seldom mentioned, and I am sorry about that. (However, it is possible that ABC did want to reverse its decision to cancel OLTL but couldn't because of contractual obligations it had already made with Prospect Park.)

As is evident from what I wrote in the above paragraph, I'm not apologizing for the way I felt (and still feel) about the cancellations and reboots (because nobody should apologize for his or her sincerely held opinions). What I am truly sorry about is the fact that I went on ad nauseum about the topic. (I should have stated my feelings on the subject a few times, at most, and then moved on to discussing other things.) My behavior upset a good number of posters and showed a real lack of sensitivity as so many were mourning the loss of both shows. For what it's worth, I've probably watched OLTL more than any other non-P&G soap. The show had many positives, and it is very regrettable that its demise meant the extinction of NYC soap operas. I was (and still am) critical of the Cartini era, but the mistakes they made could have been fixed simply by firing them.

June 1, 2022

16 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

One reason AMC became a hit was the 1pm timeslot. There was no network competition for it. When it debuted they tried a soap block 12-1.30 but only AMC survived.

To move either AMC or OLTL would put them in the firing line of other more established shows.

eg if OLTL was moved after AMC that would put it up against ATWT which was #1 in those days.

You do make a good point, one which I had thought about. I also realize that ABC actually found success in the 1:30 to 2:00 timeslot from 12/30/68 to 12/26/75, when Let's Make a Deal occupied that slot. However, I do think that by 1974 or so, the prospect of a rival network airing a soap opposite of ATWT wasn't the dreadful thing it once was (as ATWT, while still # 1, had ceased to be as popular as it was at its zenith). And that was very likely an important reason why from 12/1/75 to 3/2/79, the entirety of DOOL competed with the entirety of ATWT from 1:30 to 2:30. (OLTL, of course, had yet to become a smash hit as of 1975 in the way that DOOL had by that point, so this is a somewhat flawed argument. But I do stand by the point that a soap competing against ATWT had become a considerably less daunting task than it once was.)

Nevertheless, given the risk of competing against ATWT, I would have thought it best for OLTL to occupy the post-AMC timeslot at some time other than 1:30 to 2:00. As of 7/7/75, AMC assumed the 12:30 to 1:00 timeslot, so I would have had OLTL air from 1:00 to 1:30. It's certainly possible that ABC seriously considered doing that but chose not to, either because it really wanted RH to air during that half hour and/or because the network was already making long-term plans to expand OLTL and GH. (It's probably a safe assumption that in 1975, ABC already was hoping and planning to have AMC expand to 60 minutes, given that AMC aired experimental, hour-long episodes the week prior to RH's debut. Though I am getting off-topic, I am curious as to why close to two years passed before AMC finally did expand to an hour on a permanent basis; I'm guessing it was because Agnes Nixon had mixed feelings, or worse, about the prospect of AMC expanding.)

June 1, 2022

7 hours ago, JoeCool said:

Great analysis.

All My Children hit #1 for the first time during the summer of 1973. ABC did indeed have faith in Agnes Nixon and gave AMC and OLTL time to grow, Because of AMC's strong ratings from 1973 to 1975, ABC bought both AMC and OLTL from Agnes Nixon and her husband and their company Creative Horizons for around $5 to $10 million.

Thank you for your kind words.

I think that OLTL would have become a big hit quite a bit earlier had ABC not waited so long to give it the post-AMC timeslot. In fact, it is quite puzzling as to why ABC aired AMC and OLTL so far apart from each other for many years. Based on data I found at the Daytime TV Archive website, the following is a partial history as to when ABC aired its soaps in the Eastern Time Zone: (Note that times not listed were devoted to non-soap programming. And I'm sorry for the awkward spacing, as what should be single-spaced is double-spaced and what should be double-spaced is quadruple spaced. I tried and tried to get around this problem, but I was unsuccessful.)

01/05/1970 to 03/27/1970

01:00 P.M. to 01:30 P.M. - All My Children

03:00 P.M. to 03:30 P.M. - General Hospital (timeslot held since 12/30/1963)

03:30 P.M. to 04:00 P.M. - One Life to Live (timeslot held since 07/15/1968)

04:00 P.M. to 04:30 P.M. - Dark Shadows (timeslot held since 07/15/1968)

03/30/1970 to 09/25/1970

12:00 P.M. to 12:30 P.M. - The Best of Everything

12:30 P.M. to 01:00 P.M. - A World Apart

01:00 P.M. to 01:30 P.M. - All My Children

03:00 P.M. to 03:30 P.M. - General Hospital