All: TIME: "Sex an Suffering in the Afternoon"

[All My Shadows]

I'm one of the millions who grew up watching soaps with grandparents, so for me, no matter what era it was (and I grew up in the 1990s, mind you), soaps to me always meant drinking coffee with grandma at the kitchen table, watching "The Price is Right" and "The Young and the Restless," then helping her do chores around the house while the news was on in the background, then retreating to the living room for B&B, ATWT, and GL, before my mother came to pick me up. In essence, I feel like I grew up in that 1970s soap environment, but in the 1990s. Grandma actually told me stories about the characters on the show who had been around since the early days (ATWT was her favorite, so it was always a goldmine of memories for her, which she always shared with me).

Anyway, I absolutely love this article. I've read it many, many times since TIME posted it on their site a few years back, and I'll keep reading it every now and then. It's really a good, fun article. I still stand by my opinion that soaps began to really hit the bricks when they all expanded like crazy. I just can't imagine anything beating the game shows in the morning/soap operas in the afternoon formula. It. Just. Worked! Even now, most of the syndicated game shows in my area air on the major networks in timeslots that were traditionally for network game shows.

[AMCHistory]

Do you have a scan of the article. I am sure it must have some pretty rare historic photos as well. Gosh, Susan Hayes looks so hot on that cover.

That is what Sarah Bibel asserted in her blog, and she is so right. The guilty pleasures of the afternoon are now in the evening.

[Sylph]

No, sorry I don't have the scan.

YES! The whole photography exudes sophistication and subdued sexiness!

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah I got it from Amazon.marketplace for cheap. it's not as essential as, say, Schemering's indispensible Soap Encyclopedia but it is one of my better soap boosk--great pictures and an interesting collection of essays from different sources on many subjects about soaps

I wanna see those soap ratings from the article...

And yeah it's pretty true that primetime now offers more and more things you used to only be able to find in daytime--I mean even the majority of popular sitcoms took up SOME soap opera elements (Friends' Rachel/Ross romance, etc)

[TC]

I'm going to look for the actual magazine this summer. If I find it I will scan it, including the "tear drops" instead of "stars" ratings for each soap. My Grandmother is long dead now but most of her old TIME and LIFE magazines, along with some really interresting "Crime Does Not Pay" comics from the 40's and 50's, and old PHOTOPLAYs are stored in the cottage attic. Wish me luck. I know this issue was well read and might have disappeared.

[MarkH]

Sorry to bump, but I just want to thank EricMontreal22!

I knew about the Worlds Without End exhibit, and really wanted to go....but was not able to at that point in my life. I never knew a book resulted...

I'm now the proud owner of the book ($1.99, used, via Amazon). The Thurber article looks GREAT. And the pictures....swoon!

[EricMontreal22]

You're welcome Very glad to help--and that you got the book for such a great price!

[JackPeyton]

[Sedrick]

IMO, the problem with the hour-long soap is that there are very few headwriters who can successfully do them, and this isn't just a recent thing. I think it would be a great idea for the return of the half-hour soap, but it'll never happen. It is cheaper and more cost effective for the networks/production companies to produce an hour show than 30 minutes...in fact, that was the main reason for the initial expansions.

When the soaps first were expanded back in the mid to late 70's, they were in the hands of highly talented and creative artists such as Harding Lemay, Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, Pat Falken Smith, and Bridget and Jerome Dobson. They were able to take the hour and not just stuff it with filler...the extra time was used to flesh out the characters and the drama, to expand upon the themes of the individual programs. This was during a period when each individual show was unique with both stated and underlying themes, and they were actually 'about' something' other than stunts.

These days, the current versions of the soaps are mere carbon copies of each other, with interchangable storylines and/or characters.

[Cat]

Bridget and Jerome Dobson. :::hyperventilates::: Could we ever get them to come back to Daytime?

That Time cover is the sh!tniz. Susan Seaforth Hayes' red dress reminds me of a gown I once saw a stunning professional tango dancer wear. And the look in her face -- twixt suffering and ecstacy!

I'm glad they mentioned Love of Life in the article. I've only seen fragments of an episode from the mid-70s and read old SOD synopses but both make me want to see so much more. Tudi Wiggins was the bomb as scheming Meg... with Cal her emotionally fragile daughter. It sounds so old-fashioned now when we see the Wimmin of Daytime all supposedly Kicking Ass and Taking Names Later, but soaps really were about sex and suffering in equal measure back then. They seemed to represent the uncertainty and unfairness of life, all wrapped up in one seductive package.