As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

I wonder how far back Martha's VHS  collection goes?  I wish more former soap stars would post episodes up on YouTube like Patricia Bruder and Margaret Reed have been known to do. I

I'd be interested to see what episodes others have. Maybe we can fill in the blanks of missing episodes from YT and I doubt that P&G even cares at this point.

[KMan101]

 

That would be awesome. I wonder if Martha would/could do that? Someone should ask her, lol (they probably already did)

 

P&G doesn't care. They should. Why are they sitting on money to be made? OBVIOUSLY the cost to convert and other issues cause problems but ... ugh. I hate P&G/Telenext whoever the hell they are now.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

When it was announced that ATWT was being canceled, I was on a hiatus from online life and I wasn't watching the show, was there a big petition (a la Change.org) circulated around, or anything?

Years later, I heard some folks had gathered in front of the NYC CBS building to protest, or something (even though P&G headquarters in Cincinnati would've been more effective, tbh) but unless it was a crowd of tens of thousands, I doubt P&G would've so much as blinked.

 

When SoapClassics was ending their partnership with P&G (according to SC, was P&G's decision not to extend the license), a Change.org petition probably should've been sent to P&G requesting that they extend the SoapClassics videos or at least allow some streaming of episodes.

 

I don't expect P&G to ever get out of the way because this is how they are- they've never offered a reason why they don't bother, we all assume that it is prohibitively expensive to digitize their episodes but honestly, from 2012 or  whenever SoapClassics stopped streaming and selling videos, had even a small group of people continued to digitize episodes, could you have imagined how many episodes would be viewable by now?  People are assuming that the process of digitization has remained at the same arduous level, without considering the fact that technology always continues to innovate and move along and facility with technology always improves.

 

Another aspect is that P&G could've damn well just stream rather than sell videos and, in most cases, this would ease some of the issues concerning music rights. Yes, there are some artists that undoubtedly will not give permission to re-air their music but I bet most would if asked. A simple way around that might be to have a chyron in the bottom corner that displays the artist's/band's name and song title. A dedicated ATWT website or even YT page could provide links on where to purchase the song and artist's/band's music.  Would it take some work? Undoubtedly but we know how many dedicated people who are skilled at this and yes, many are soap fans, classic television fans, etc.

Yes, there are a lot of episodes, even given the fact that we are dealing with 1980-1998/99 (the majority of episodes after were automatically on digital format) but like I said, between 2013-1020 is seven years, a substantial amount of time for even volunteers working in their spare time to work with.

 

If anything this whole crisis has taught me is that, it's not usually lack of money or even time that prevents things from happening...it's often the lack of will. When people, companies, governments truly want to do something, they do it.

[KMan101]

 

I have so much to say but for this second: 

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And I'll sum it up simply: where there is a will ... there is almost always a way ...

[Brolden]

What's interesting about all of this is that SoapClassics was actuallty working on an online platform to release episodes. In The Netherlands (and I believe South-Africa?) it had set out a site which contained the first five months of 2005 (The Netherlands) and two weeks in August/September 2007 (South-Africa). Quite a bit of music had been digitally removed, which was a bit odd, especially when characters were dancing to nothing, but the episodes were very watchable and of high quality (visually, that is. Early 2005 wasn't my favorite era of the show, and I say that as someone who only watched the 00s originally. The show ticked back up in the summer of '05 in my opinion). 

Unfortunately, soon after this project was set up, SoapClassics went out of business. I'm glad I saved the episodes immediately.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

The SoapClassics website also streamed some episodes from the 1980s. I remember a few of the episodes streamed on their platform were some crystal clear episodes surrounding Tom and Margo's wedding. It was quite a treat since I had never seen those episodes before.

[DramatistDreamer]

You could tell that this was uploaded from a SoapClassics DVD because of the abbreviated opening theme (which the theme was better before they made changes in 1987, which I didn't really like).  This was one of the episodes that had streamed on the SoapClassics website.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH5PmjWpAVI

[Paul Raven]

I'm sure many actors and BTS personnel have episodes stashed in the attic...I recall that Len Valenta or another long time director was mentioned in this regard.

Would the tapes that were sent to Australia in the 60's or 79's eg have been trashed or stil lsitting in a warehouse somewhere?

[DRW50]

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[victoria foxton]

Quality isn't great. 

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Edited March 31, 2020 by victoria foxton

[DRW50]

I think those may be from some of the episodes Astheworldstillturns put up.

[DramatistDreamer]

Why would anyone chop up episodes this way? I detest character and couples' edits.

[Mitch]

Damn, Deas was so good in this..what happened to make him chew the scenery and for me to detest Buzz?? Colin is great too...the producers made a huge chance in recasting both of them.

 

This Dee is snooze inducing.

[KMan101]

Really not sure what happened to Deas. His very early days on GL weren't atrocious either. It's bizarre.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

They probably didn't have anyone BTS to reign Deas in. By the mid '90s GL seemed to be mostly made up of a few characters who appeared to have gotten all the spotlight and the rest kind of seemed disappear and fade after missing so long that you wondered whether certain characters were even still on the show. It's no coincidence that as Deas started chewing scenery, the lack of balance on the show was more glaringly obvious than ever.