What network did you grow up with?

[Chris B]

You kinda had no choice for many years, especially if you used a vcr to watch soaps, as I did.

I grew up with CBS which is my family network of choice. The only soap I'd watch as a child was B&B, which I didn't realize was a soap. Then as a pre-teen/teenager I started watching PC, OLTL, Ryan's Hope and the primetime soaps on SOAPnet. Then in high school I returned to the CBS soaps and now I'd say I'm more of a CBS fan.

[JackPeyton]

NBC. Santa Barbara, Another World and Days of our Lives.

I really dont remember much of anything on Santa Barbara or Another World tho. I would see them when with my great Grandma and she was put in a home in about 96. I kept watching Days however, but only days. I do remember Another Worlds last year. but Days has always been my soap.

I found GH one day when board after Days and seen Lucky find Liz coming out of the bushes after being raped and was hooked. That led me to Port Charles and AMC, then OLTL. Then i found Y&R and B&B in like 2000. I started GL and ATWT in 2001 or so.

[SFK]

So, can anyone help me with who that guy was on GL or ATWT who had the throat cancer? I remember it so well because my grandmother had throat cancer and I can see her so clearly in my memory, like it was yesterday, sitting on the foot of the bed nodding in agreement as the doctor described to the very distraught character what his potential laryngectomy/tracheotomy would involve.

[DRW50]

Do you remember what the man looked like?

[SFK]

He had sandy brown hair (iirc), maybe mid-thirties... I found out who it was a few years back after finding it in some sort of Wiki synopsis, and now it's slipped my mind. No biggie, it's more my grandmother's reaction that I'll always remember, but it would be nice to have all the pieces to the puzzle, you know? I wonder if it was GL since I would have been most likely home from school at that time rather than for ATWT, but maybe this was during the summer...

ETA Okay, wow, just found it:

Johnny Bauer

Airplane pilot and son of Jack & Lainie Bauer. (See Part 3: Family Trees.) Due to his past involvement with art smugglers Paul and Christine Valere, Alan Spaulding was able to blackmail Johnny into smuggling items for him. Later, Johnny developed terminal throat cancer while involved with Roxie Shayne. In one of GL's more absurd stories, Johnny went up in his plane, planning to fly until he crashed & burned from lack of fuel. On the ground, all his friends held a candlelight vigil for him, and eventually they convinced him to land the plane. After he landed, Johnny was miraculously free of cancer, but Roxie had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized. Johnny later became involved with Chelsea Reardon. They hosted a TV show together on WSPR and became engaged, but then Roxie started to get better, so Johnny left town to be with her.

[DRW50]

Oh right. I didn't know what type of cancer he had. I've heard about how awful that story was, and how insulting Roxie's exit was.

The late ClassicGL put up three clips from that story. Here's the link to the first:

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[SFK]

Hey, thanks! OMG, but LOL, Roxie's *acting* totally reminds me of Parker Posey's character in Waiting For Guffman.

Oops, ClassicGL, in the thread about the nutso blogger who faked his death on New Year's, I mistakenly referred to ClassicGL as IvnKipling (though that may have been another one of his screen names??).

[YRBB]

Well, the only daytime soaps in Greece that ever really caught on were Y&R and B&B, and I was hopelessly hooked ... So, CBS? Does that count? DAYS was also doing OK.

[DRW50]

Those were both his accounts. IvnKipling he used for more recent GL material.

Roxie's not a very good actress (good comparison to Waiting for Guffman -- that was such a sweet and fun movie too, not like a lot of the mean spirited comedies), although she does have a lot of charisma. Too bad they just sort of pretended she never existed after she left.

[Cat]

Bleurgh. Mad About You was so up its own ass.

I was an NBC girl. I tuned into Santa Barbara one summer (86?) and was immediately hooked by the humor and romance and mystery and the music. Those thumping opening credits grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me into watching the show!

And because I was in Boston and SB (3pm) was preceeded by Days (2pm), I got into Days. I missed the Bope first go around, as well as original Roman & Marlena. But they had Steve & Kayla's romance starting out, which I loved, as well as Drake Hogestyn's Roman smooching Diana (Genie Francis). I personally thought both actors had zero chemistry with each other and the shadow of this Marlena person seemed to hang over the whole show. So when she finally showed up, the ground had been prepared for me to expect great things from her. Deidre Hall exuded star wattage so that helped.

Boston's NBC affiliate did not show Another World so I missed out on the show which in hindsight was a tragedy. It was only after AW was cancelled and SoapNet started showing AW (the Sajewski era) that I thought "Holy [!@#$%^&*], where have you been all my life?!" Anne Heche and Paul Michael Valley as Vicky & Ryan were electrifying; and Linda Dano and Anna Stuart were v. glam. I'm sorry I missed out.

I started watching B&B when it started because for some reason I wanted to get into a soap from the get-go. From there, it was a short skip to getting into Y&R. Also, I started following GH during the Duke & Anna era -- I used to switch between SB and GH as they were timeslot rivals and we had no VCR. For that reason (and the fact that a lot of SB crew and writers were lured to GH), I saw a lot of similarities between both soaps in terms of tone and attitude.

Sometimes, on vacation, I would catch Loving at 12.30pm. I think I've watched all the soaps at one time or another. Don't know if that's such a good thing, lol.

[SFK]

I went through a similar period, at the height of my soap fandom. It's funny to me how GH became absolute must-see TV for me and quite a few friends in high school, during Monica's breast cancer and Stone's HIV s/ls, and suddenly I could have given a damn about the show. But my roots planted deep in AMC have always kept me hanging on to that show, and the DID s/l on OLTL made a huge impact on me, I have stuck with that show thanks to the awesome work of Slezak and Strasser during that period.

[EricMontreal22]

So Pam Long wrote the story to write out some Bauers? I just watched part three and that is one LONG lovescene. lol

[DRW50]

I'm not sure if she was around for this story or not -- I think this may have been during the writers strike. Does anyone know?

A few years before this, when Long was away from the show for a few years, they brought in Johnny Bauer, his parents, and his little sister, Lacey (?), who was a gymnast. When Long came back, I think she wrote out all of them except for Johnny. She kept him around until about 1989. He was paired with Roxie and then with Chelsea Reardon. I'm not sure if the actor left or he was fired.

When I started to get fed up with the CBS soaps in the mid-90s, I started to try ABC and NBC. I was especially drawn into OLTL and AMC. I have kept up with all of them ever since but some of them just to read about and occasionally watch, not really get hooked on.

[EricMontreal22]

I wasjust going by some comments in the youtube links. Johnny wasn't directly related to the core original Bauers (Bert etc)anyway was he--wiki says he was Ed's second cousin once removed (lol)

[DRW50]

Oh, sorry. I didn't remember the comments. I don't think this was done to get rid of Johnny, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it was and that's why he got the miracle cure. I thought it was all writers strike.

No, he wasn't directly related to the core Bauers. They brought him in around 1986 to help revive a family which had been gutted. I thought he might have had a wacky entrance, but I might be thinking of Alan Michael.