All - New Families That Worked

[Paul Raven]

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...

[soapfan770]

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.

[applcin]

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!)

[DeeeDee]

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

[cct]

AMC--Merrick/Greys

[TC]

AW - Loves/Hudsons

[P.J.]

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.

[DRW50]

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.

[DRW50]

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.

[Paul Raven]

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.

[Cheap21]

AMC - The Santos, Marricks and Fryes. Those were 3 main families introduced in the 90s which worked effectively well.

[alwaysAMC]

I think one of the more recent in AMC's history ---- The Santos family.

[Mitch]

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.

[DRW50]

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.

[Darn]

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.