Jump to content

All - New Families That Worked


Recommended Posts

  • Members

OK, this is the flipside to the failed families thread.

Over the years, who are the new families that were introduced that you personally liked (they may or may not have hung around) or that became part of the fabric of the show?

DOOL - The Brady's and Di Mera's. Pat Falken Smith brought them on in 82 and they are still core to this day.

Y&R - The Abbotts. Bill Bell gave Jack a family and the rest is history.

OLTL - The Vernons.Will,Brad and Jenny were frontburner for years.

Looking forward to your contributions...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 18
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

GL-The Coopers, The Grants(for a few years at least, 1992-1998)

ATWT-Whatever family Rosanna, Carly, Molly, and Gwen all come from. It's a jumbled mess but the four of them are related to each other. The Snyders.

Days--The Reeds/Roberts

Y&R--I liked the Gutierrez's, even if Diego was the biggest punching bag. Bell's last family the Dennison's weren't so bad although I think Keith should have been played by a much stronger actor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

OLTL - The Buchanans - it all started with Clint, then Bo & Asa came along and they are still presences on the show, in one form or another, even Asa. And there's a boatload of Buchanans & exes of Buchanans.

AMC - The Cortlandts (Palmer, Nina, Daisy). Kinda gothic in the early days.

GL - The Coopers. In the beginning, there were Frank and Harley and Pops. Then Nadine & Buzz. Uncle Stavros. (Lucy not so much!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Y&R Barber/Winters, Williams, Romalottis, Newmans, Abbotts, Fenmores, Gutierrezes, Hodges

AMC Chandlers, Hubbards, Dillons, Montgomerys

ATWT Munsons, Griffins, Stenbecks

B&B Spectras

GH Quartermaines, Spencers, Jones, Scorpios, Cassadines

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've always thought one of the smartest thing they ever did was make Carly and Molly family. The Carly/Gwen connection served it's purpose, but I think Gwen would have made an impact whether or not she was part of a family. Molly needed family to make her sympathetic on some level.

GL's Coopers, Marlers, Lewises and Spauldings.

Y&R's Williams family (along with the Abbotts) filled in the gaps after the Fosters and Brooks were phased out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I wasn't watching ATWT a lot at this time but I felt like they made Gwen and Carly sisters almost like an afterthought, because Jennifer Landon had already become popular. I wish they'd done more with that relationship.

Being related to Carly definitely made Molly more tolerable, because she had a connection to someone beyond the ridiculous baby footprint and made up Holden flashbacks. I also wish there had been a bit more with Carly/Molly/Rosanna -- this last time, Molly and Rosanna overlapped for a month or two but there was only one scene with all three of them, I think at Rosanna's bridal shower.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

AW - Frames

ATWT - Montgomerys/Dixons/Perettis/Crawfords/what have you. Even if the show likes to pretend that a lot of them never existed, they are the only family on the show which has three adult siblings still on the canvas.

GL - Bauers. They didn't start on GL until almost a decade after it had already been on radio. They ended up supplanting everyone else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

GL -The Norris family came on in 1970 Barbara,Holly,Stanley,Andy and Ken.Stanley was murdered early on and Andy didn't get much play but Ken,Holly and Barbara were frontburner for many years.

Earlier,in the 60's there were the Grants and the Scotts.

Love of Life successfully introduced the Sterlings when Van married into the family.Bruce,his children Barbara and Alan and in laws Henry and Vivian were there throughout the 60's.

Edge of Night - The Pollocks. When Mike married Nancy,her siblings Lee and Cookie and parents Joe and Rose became integral to the show.

The Doctors -The Dancys. Joan,Luke,Sara,Nola,Barney,Jerry and Virginia were all featured at various times.

The Aldriches. The writers built a family around Steve.His mother Mona,stepson Billy,brother Jason and his ex wife Doreen and stepdaughter Stacy. Carolee and Nola married into the family also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Hmmm, I don't know how well the Coopers actually worked...(and of course this is my own bias as I HATED them, well, as much as you can hate fictional characters..)as they really were just retreads of other families...the Reardons early on (Harley-Nola, Frank-Tony) and then Wheeler and her gang of idiots tried to make them blue collar Bauers..and the entire center and existence of GL. The family, I thought, always had an idenity crisis and they lived and died with two female characters/actors//Harley/BE and Eleni/MK. Anyway, they were around to the bitter, bitter end so I have to conceed that they "worked," (or just chugged on.)

I would have to vote for Spauldings. They blew into town just Alan and Elizabeth and an annoying kid Phillip, and the family grew and grew until they became as much a part of GL as the Bauers were in the golden days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I do agree that the producer at the time would tend to make the Coopers what she wanted them to be. I thought that JFP dramatically rerouted the Coopers to center around Buzz, since she loved Justin Deas. The characters themselves were all pretty drained, including Buzz himself, by the time JFP left. Then Laibson and Rauch and Conboy used them comparatively less, until Wheeler pushed a lot of stories about Harley, Marina, etc. without capturing most of the best of the family. The self-righteousness of the family in those last years was hard to watch.

The interesting thing with the Spauldings was that they managed to hang on in spite of the best and brightest actors in the key roles leaving and in spite of a lot of bad writing. I mean Alex had bad writing for over 15 years! Even if Wheeler just used them as foils for the "heroes", like Jonathan, I'm glad that they returned to a more central and three-dimensional role, or two-dimensional at least, in the show's last year.

With ATWT, would you say the McColls and the Andropoluses were a success or a failure?

I wonder which writers, overall, gave the most popular new families to soaps. It seems like a tie between the Dobsons or Marland or Pam Long.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

How can you say the Guiterrezes worked when it was just Raul and Diego (who was recast and then rather quickly written out). To say nothing of their parents who were in about, what, 10 episodes total, if that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • Well, her staff pointing out the movie connection never seemed to stop Long from using those plots.  She was right about Vanessa--she needed a man who loved her, which she'd never really had up to then. But as others have pointed out, Long borrowed heavily from Taming of the Shrew to get it done. (which while I kinda disputed that, I get more now, having watched Kiss Me Kate a few times since.)
    • "Holly had her share of the blame..." NO, she did NOT. WOW. That's what you get for trying to be fair and giving these people the benefit of the doubt! The Rita rape episodes do not seem to be available. It sounds like Calhoun thought it was not dramatized, but it was. I saw it when it aired. Yes, it's close to 50 years ago, and memories aren't 100% reliable. I also know that Zaslow reportedly complained that it was written too much like a seduction and that's why the Dobsons portrayed Holly's rape differently. Maybe it started like a seduction and she rejected him and that's when it turned violent. I don't remember that part, if it exists. What I do remember is that Roger threw Rita so violently to the floor that she hit her head. They showed him coming at her from her point of view and he looked all fuzzy. It was an act of violence, not a seduction. Rita kept it a secret until it looked like Roger might be acquited, and then finally admitted it. She didn't make it up, it definitely was not a ploy.
    • I was actually referencing another scene between Roger and Alex, which I think is right after they marry.  But yeah---I'm not really impressed with Calhoun's reasoning. Or the "both recall it wasn't unprovoked" line. Wasn't Holly trying to leave him when he raped her? Oy vey.
    • I know we have discussed the location of Bay City in the Another World thread and the fact that originally Irna conceived of it as being the real Bay City MI, and it was later writers that treated it as a fictional Bay City [probably IL]. This article seems to suggest that that idea was well-established by 1981. I wonder when it started.
    • Desert Sun, 22 December 1983 Guiding Light’ writer looks for fresh ideas By TOM JORY Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - “Guiding Light” has been a daytime companion for millions since 1937, starting on radio and switching to TV after 15 years. Can anything new, really new, ever happen to the Bauers or the Reardons or any of the other folks in Springfield? “I get really upset,” says Pamela Long Hammer, principal writer for the CBS soap opera since March, “because I’ll come up with this neat scenario and someone will say, ‘That’s like “Strangers on a Train.’” “I think, ‘They keep stealing my material.’ “The way I figure it,” she says, “there are only so many stories in the world. It’s the characters who keep the show new and exciting. All of our stories come from them: I don’t come up with a plot, and then work a character into it.” Continuity is important. Someone out there surely knows all that’s happened, to everyone on the show, in 46 years. How about Miss Long Hammer? "Nope. I care about what our core families have been doing,” she says. “I’m always interested in what happened to Bert Bauer (played since 1950 by Charita Bauer) 20 years ago, but as far as going back and reading scripts, no. “Others on the show keep track,” she says. “I’ll suggest something, and be told, ‘You don’t remember, but five years ago, they had this terrible fight. They would never speak to one another now.”’ Miss Long Hammer, a former Miss Alabama who came to New York as an aspiring actress in 1980, began writing for daytime television while playing Ashley on NBC’s “Texas.” She eventually wrote herself out of the story. Her staff for “Guiding Light” includes nine writers, among them her husband, Charles Jay Hammer, whom she met while both worked on “Texas.” NBC dropped “Texas” after two seasons, and episodes from the serial currently are being rerun on the Turner Broadcasting System’s cable-TV SuperStation, WTBS. Gail Kobe, who was executive producer of “Texas,” now has the same job on “Guiding Light.” And Beverlee McKinsey, who played Iris Carrington in “Another World” on NBC, and later in "Texas,” will join the Light” cast of the CBS soap in February. Miss Long Hammer is reponsible for the long-term story, which can mean looking ahead 18 months or more. Staff writers deal with specifics, including the scripts for individual episodes. She says she draws on “imagination and instinct” for the “Guiding Light” story. Often, that involves inventing new characters. “‘I look at Vanessa (Maeve Kinkead), one of our leading ladies,” Miss Long Hammer says. "What could make the audience care more about her? “Then I think, ‘Why can’t she find a man she can love, who will also love her?’ Voila, here comes Billy Lewis (Jordan Clarke). “Another example,” she says, “is Alan Spaulding (Christopher Bernau). All of a sudden, he’s got a sister no one ever knew about. “They come complete,” says Miss Long Hammer of the serial’s characters, including the new ones. “We know who they are and where they came from long before the viewer gets all that information. That’s one of the most interesting things about daytime, the complexities of the characters.” The writers make a big effort to keep the show contemporary, and four of the leading players are in their late teens or early 20s Judi Evans, who plays Beth Raines, Kristi Tesreau (Mindy Lewis), Grant Aleksander (Philip Spaulding) and Michael O’Leary (Rick Bauer). “Guiding Light,” longevity notwithstanding, is a moderate success by that ultimate yardstick of the industry; ratings. The show is behind only “General Hospital,” “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” all on ABC, and CBS’ “The Young and the Restless,” among soaps. And Miss Long Hammer says she’s convinced writing is the key to even greater achievement. “When I say I love the characters, it’s not a light thing,” she says. “I think what the audience senses is an enthusiasm and an energy among the people who do the show.”
    • I initially read this as Marilyn Manson and did a double take.  Thanks for the screen grabs. The outfits are horrible. Somehow Victoria's Miss Piggy dress is the best. Ashley looks like a French madam bent on revenge, and Abby looks like she hot glued lace scraps to her garbage bag.
    • LOL...I do have the vaguest of memories of Katherine driving her and Phillip Sr to his death. But I don't recall Katherine being as over-the-top as Reva. Surprisingly, I don't even think Brenda Dickinson's Jill was---although lord knows Brenda probably is a real-life Reva. I have read the recaps of earlier Roger, and it surprised me that he doesn't love Holly. He had an affair with Hillary (SHOCK, I tell you, SHOCK when I read that one) while married to her.  Thanks to the cast turnover, other than Jerry and Maureen Garrett, there wasn't anyone else he had worked with, that I can recall. It would've been interesting if Mart Hulswit had still been in the role of Ed, how much more they might've let Ed/Roger clash. I really do have a soft spot in my heart for Krista's Mindy.
    • San Bernardino Sun, 21 July 1981 Soap gets a new lease on life By TOM JORY Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) NBC's Texas premiered Aug. 4, 1980, in the toughest time slot in daytime TV opposite top rated General Hospital on ABC and CBS' enduring -Guiding Light As recently as the first of this year, " Texas appeared doomed, a victim of barely measurable ratings. All that has changed, and the show approaches its first anniversary with a new executive producer, a new team of writers, a new look and a new slant on life. Even the ratings have improved a bit, from 14 percent to l5 percent of the audience in the time period in November and December to 15 percent to 16 percent today. "We have Houston like Ryan's Hope has New York City," says Gail Kobe who took over Texas as executive supervising producer in March,"and we feel a real tie with that city. We've got to reflect in the show what's happening in that real town, and I think we're doing that." It was a significant step, taking Texas- its roots in the fictional Bay City of NBC's Another World -to a real-life setting. "I don't think it's got to be  the kind of place that people can't can't find on the map," says Ms. Kobe "I think the audience in daytime is more prepared for reality today." It meant giving the show a recognizable Houston backdrop, a more contemporary sound -country and western performers like Ray Price will appear periodically and a lighting system that would clearly represent the hot, bright Texas sunlight. . Texas faced difficult odds from the start, the competition and the inevitable comparison with CBS' prime-time superhit, Dallas, notwithstanding. There was the problem of introducing a multiplicity of characters, many of them imports from Another World, as well as a story line, in an hour-long format. "It was the first show to start at an hour," says Kobe, a former actress who had been supervising producer for Procter & Gamble Productions, which owns Texas and five other daytime shows. "It's very difficult to fill that much time with a large cast, and not leave the viewer confused. "With a daily show, you have to let the audience know who to root for," she says. ''And if you're trying to begin a story, too, no one's going to keep track." The changes began even before Kobe took the show from Paul Rauch, who had faced the seemingly impossible task of producing both Texas and Another World simultaneously. Beverlee McKinsey, whose generally unpleasant character, Iris, had come to Texas from Another World as a young ingenue, was given back her mean streak.  "She had become a sweet woman,"Kobe says, "and the audience was used to seeing her do terrible things. It just didn't work." In addition, she says, time was spent establishing the identities of the characters. Joyce and Bill Corrington, who had created the show with Rauch, were replaced as head writers in February by Dorothy Purser and Samuel Ratcliffe.  
    • 1995 CBS was sold to Westinghouse and Les Moonves arrived at CBS. I pointed out 1995/96 Murder, She Wrote as sabotage in the Tank Jobs and Sabotage thread.  
    • I think Flannery did some great work, but I always found Stephanie's underlying hypocrisy off-putting. And while I don't think KKL's the world's best actress (I completely understood why she's received so little attention from the academy for her work), I do think that her appeal as Brooke was responsible for a lot of B&B's success.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy