Proposed Soaps Over The Years

[Mr. Vixen]

Thanks Carl!

[John]

Arleen Sorkin also pitched a daily soap to HBO called Dirty Laundry but it never materialized

[John]

Proposed CBS Soaps

• 1957: The Will to Dream by Doris Frankel about the relationship between an atomic scientist and his wife
  
• 1964: Roy Winsor created The Widening Circle, a spinoff of The Secret Storm. A pilot was shot with James Vickery as Alan Dunbar and Diana Muldaur as Ann Wicker.
  
• 1971: Fred J. Scollay created Absent Without Love.
  
• 1972: Winifred Wolfe and Mary Harris^{[disambiguation needed]} had a proposal for a one hour serial titled Yesterday's Child...Tomorrow's Adult
  
• 1982: Beverly Hills
  
• 1983: Grosse Pointe - set in Michigan; featured competing families in the auto industry and auto racers
  
• 1986: During her absence from Ryan's Hope, Michael Brockman, former President of CBS Daytime, asked Claire Labine to develop a new serial in 1986. Her proposal was entitledCelebration but never made it to the air.
  
• 1986: The Billionaires by Barbara Bauer and Paul Rauch
  

[Gray Bunny]

Finally have my old Digests out of storage and will finally, as promised, scan some old articles from early-90's Digest where they would constantly talk about MANHATTAN LIVES and COMING OF AGE.

What's funny is that they expected Manhattan Lives to come into fruition so quickly! I think one article was from late Summer of 1992 where plans were still in early development stage, yet they expected to be on air by January 1993 (to replace Santa Barbara, no doubt, whose cancellation would be announced 1 month later). Yet I remember hearing about plans for Sunset Beach 2 years before it came to be; same with Passions, so they clearly thought they would be able to get a lot done in 4 months!

[DRW50]

A September 1976 TV Radio Mirror mentions possible plans to have a Y&R spinoff by September. I'd never heard anything about a Y&R spinoff, especially that early on. Does anyone know about this?

[John]

That is interesting. Wonder which Family it would have focused on

[John]

One of the reasons I read The Days Spinoff Pacific Lives didnt sell is that NBC was using Days cast members that had been off the show for years. Plus NBC would have had to recast many of these roles as the actors who previously played them on days werent available or interested

[DRW50]

March 1992 SOD talks about a "wish list" for the then-unnamed Marlena and Carrie spinoff. Besides Anna and Tony (already mentioned in that fascinating 1992 newsgroup article someone posted a while back), there was Patch, Kayla, Chris Kosichitek, and Eugene.

This issue also mentions a Bill Bell Jr. soap, another hour long show. I wonder why that never happened.

[Paul Raven]

In 1970,Warner Brothers TV optioned a daytime serial to an unnamed network 'The Woman Inside'

And there was a syndicated effort in 1981 called Worlds Apart

Also,in 1970,Paramount TV produced a pilot for ABC entitled Holm Sweet Home,written by Roy Kammerman and described as a humorous soap centering around a midwestern family's experiences in the age of 'the atom,the pill and the mini-skirt'.

[Paul Raven]

Jan 1971 World of Women

Universal TV created by George Lefferts produced for General Foods.No network announced."An update of the patriachal society of the era of The Forsythe Saga with the heroine of the 'now' generation replacing the patriach of yesterday'.The half hour show will deal with the modern female as she confronts the problems and rewards of a contemporary existence,

[Paul Raven]

The previously mentioned 'Salem's Children'. Created by the Karpfs (Capitol creators).Janice Lynde and Jose Ferrer are recognizable from the sketches and I'm sure some other known actors were cast.

[DRW50]

I can't believe this got far enough for this photo and yet wasn't ever put on the air. Thanks so much for finding this. Was it in Variety?

[SFK]

Exactly, Carl. Looks like it got quite far to have never seen the light of day.

That mean little Fancy Feast kitty is kinda cracking me up.

[Paul Raven]

I think a pilot was made to interest buyers with Taft and Group W shelling out he money in the hopes of the show being picked up.I wonder if they did 5 eps to show buyers how a week would pan out,or just a 30 min pilot?

I sorta recognize the actor to the right of Jose Ferrer.Is it Robert Forster?

[Paul Raven]

I also posted this in the PP thread at cancelled soaps.