Jump to content

As The World Turns Discussion Thread


edgeofnik

Recommended Posts

  • Members

 

Oh, the troll said that? Gotcha. 

 

It's ridiculous they keep pulling out the 'youth' card. That 'theory' has gone back to at least the 80s with the soaps and it NEVER worked. Did it?

 

What works is a multi-generational show with layered characters and writing. When I was younger I didn't watch for the teens. I watched for the adults. So many in the industry just 'don't get it'. They're there to push an agenda, follow the status quo and keep the show on a budget. Some care of course. When care is taken, it shows.

 

I would have loved more follow up questions with Goutman. 

 

EDIT: I've been rewatching some Marland ATWT and as I bemoan how useless characters like Beau and Pam are, I realize Marland was brilliant in having younger people to 'check off the box' while cleverly showcasing the veterans. The younger people really didn't 'matter' because the show was happening around them. 

 

Unless I'm giving him too much credit. Just a thought. Writers/producers should take note.

Edited by KMan101
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 17.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • DRW50

    2969

  • DramatistDreamer

    1958

  • Soapsuds

    1715

  • P.J.

    823

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

  • Members

 

I agree and disagree on this point.

On the one hand, it would appear the there was a Nielson based research project published in 1974 that suggested that young people should be a target audience because they had less brand loyalty and were therefore more suggestive when it came to advertising.  The immediate result was seen in CBS's historic "rural purge" where they cancelled older skewing shows like Green Acres in favor of the Norman Lear shows like All in the Family.  

However, in the 48 years since that study nobody has ever tried to replicate the finding.  Grocery shopping has changed so much with the advent of big box stores and online shopping, that basing decisions on how people did their marketing in 1974 seems obsolete.  Also, given how few young people today watch linear cable, promotional strategies have shifted to micro-audiences that consume certain types of media.

On the other hand, I think that fans have over exaggerated the misuse of legendary characters.  In fact,  Don Hastings credited Goutman on his achievements in the final episodes in the NY TImes and Kathryn Hays said in EW, "We had been given six months warning, and our executive producer Chris Goutman absolutely insisted that we veterans drive story all the way to the end." So, while I can see that fans of Lisa would be disappointed about her ending, the same was not true of all legendary characters, nor was it the universal belief of the actors. 

Edited by j swift
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I had a great messenger conversation with Alan Locher. He's a sweetheart. You don't reach 200 episodes of The Locher Room without having viewers. I support him. And in no way shape or form did anyone on this board affect his questions to Chris Goutman, per Alan. I loved his conversation with Goutman. Very insightful. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Found the Goutman interview interesting and could appreciate his efforts with ATWT.

Re the vets and younger characters. I remember when Nancy was in scenes with Katie and there was blowback.

I'm sure Goutman felt he was doing the right thing in having Nancy on and involved with a younger character but if Nancy had been involved with a daughter of Frannie or Don's daughter Christina it would have worked better.

The show needed to refocus and simplify. Frannie, Andy, the Ward quads etc would immediately give the vets more opportunity to be involved or if budget didn't allow at least the onscreen characters were linked to them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I agree..the show was so simple to write and produce..you have a core family (the Hughes) and you have three different families orbiting them...(get it...) Stewarts, Snyders, Walsh..and the people they interact, screw, blackmail and you got a show that writes itself. No desert islands, no stolen jewels, no aging clinics no weird pilots stuck on the island..no horse poisioning...

I thought the backlash with Nancy and Katie was ridiculous and more directed to Katie eating the show then anything else. What, seniors can't interact with non-family members, and actually, Katie is part of the family...being Margo's sister. Nancy had a history or taking under her wing the misquided girls of Oakdale...(all the while acting judgey on everyone else...) so I liked it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Speaking of backlash- 

I posted this in the "Other Topics" forum, but thought I'd post it here too since a few of us have been discussing Procter and Gamble's lack of appreciation and lack of value for their archives, their daytime dramas, in particular. Well, P+G's lack of value placed on their productions extends beyond their entertainment production archive, but to their actual products.

Y'all can argue ball you want about the detritus of the show in it's last few years (everyone is entitled to their opinions) but it can't be argued that P+G is a wasteful corporation that doesn't place much value on the "World", let alone what's on and in it. 

Just ask the descendants of the company's founders who are publicly slamming the corporation for its dereliction of public duty.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Goutman also mentioned going on those "inconsistent remotes" because they couldn't afford to "rent a tree". 

"Dark Shadows" was never BIG-BUDGET, but they had a zillion "trees" in their studio, most of them being branches glued to music stands or something.  Those little kids on Dark Shadows could get lost in the "woods" and wander around all night, without ever leaving the studio.   It didn't look spectacular (obviously) but it set the atmosphere in a somewhat believable manner.  I was hoping Goutman would expand a bit more on the cost of "renting a tree" versus going on a remote, and if they simply didn't have the backstage personnel to figure out how to improvise with the props they already had.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

To be fair...DS was more "surreal" so the branches worked...and it was always a good laugh to see somone knock over a cardboard tombstone.

I do think it odd..I mean wouldn't cost more to send people out....but I also always wondered why soaps didn't do that even when they had budgets...seeing someone on a fake park bench with an obvious backdrop when you can go on the street to film that.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I suppose it's pretty cheap to send a couple of cast members outside, with a director, a production assistant, a sound person, and a hand-held camera.  But it seems as though it'd be even cheaper (with today's technology) to invest in a couple of fairly realistic trees.  I just had a lot of questions about that segment of the interview; Locher didn't though.  lol.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • It's such a delicious set of circumstances that I'm actually a little surprised that I can't think of ones that exactly match. I've just got a couple of close but no cigars (the reveal wasn't public, like when Alexis told Dominique at her and Garrett's engagement party that Garrett lied about being married; or the revealer didn't come up with the idea of the party). Maybe I need to think some more about it.
    • Not too shabby, making her mark in only six episodes. There's a project for the soap historians -- characters with the least episodes/most impact.
    • Which could make sense , except that we have seen Mariah function for years w/o any real residue pain from her upbringing. Josh decides to randomly make it a thing, when a good writer might foreshadow that for months. It's not like he's just arrived at the show. He's been there for years . Everything seems to be thought out only a few weeks ahead. It's like Phyllis all freaky from being kidnapped when she has done a million other things that didn't seem to bother her at all.
    • Unrelated, sort of, but he looks absolutely nothing like Amanda Setton or Dominic Zamprogna so it's kind of hilarious they decided to make Gio their kid.  It's very clear this was not the original origin story for Gio when they cast him. He is a very handsome guy though. 
    • I tend to agree, although going back to OLTL, Frank has so often cast guys who are meant to be attractive yet come across as cold and dead, I'm surprised he managed to get one who has a bit of a pulse.
    • For all I care, the boy can parade around in a g-string.  It won't make this show suck any less.
    • AMC was about a decade later so things may have changed by then, although maybe they never approached her anyway. She joined Santa Barbara in 1985, when they didn't seem interested in bringing back Hope. SB ended in late 1992, so JFP could have asked her back, but I doubt she did. For as much as JFP clearly had some use for Rick Hearst given that she hired him on GH and kept him around as often as she could, I don't think she ever used Alan-Michael well. I can't see Elvera as Delia, but she could have worked well as Faith - she had a glimpse of a strong personality alongside warmth, which only one Faith ever managed (Catherine Hicks).
    • IIRC, FC reruns aired for awhile on Lifetime, way before the network became the Women in Peril Channel, lol.
    • PAM!! YES!!! You have jogged my memory. She worked at Cedars. She's mentioned in a write-up of Tim's history in the show. It says she was a nurse, but I seem to remember she was a secretary at Cedars, working for either Ed or Sarah. (It's almost 50 years ago, so I definitely could be wrong). I'm certain she was an unwed mother. I recall reading an interview with the actress, Maureen Silliman (I looked it up, that's her correct name, LOL). She started on the show just before the Dobsons started writing it. She was shocked to get a script that said her character had been pregnant since she hit town. I remember a scene where she told Tim she was going to leave SF for a better job for her daughter's sake (really, I think she was upset he was serious about Rita). I don't remember them getting married and leaving town, but according to "Who's Who in Springfield" that's how the characters were written out. Mattson did All My Children for several years, so she might have been persuadable. Here's an interesting factoid I recently learned on these message boards: Elvera Roussel was in the running to play Delia on RH when the show first hit the air. How wild is it that Mattson played Delia for a while? (Though from what I saw of her performance, she was miscast). It's hard to know if Roussel would have been a good Delia. You'd think she would have been better suited to playing Faith Coleridge, but who knows? She didn't get to show a whole lot of range as Hope.
    • If I were to do an EON reboot, I think I would start at the beginning, with Mike Karr leaving the police force in order to begin a new career as an attorney, and dealing with his wife, Sara's, crooked family.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

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