As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[adrnyc]

 

I'm with you on all of that. I didn't watch AW at the end, but I heard about it. I would love to know why P&G hated their soap operas so much. Was it just one person who was in a position of authority? Frustrating. I'm glad that there's a lot of the hey day to watch on YouTube.

[Mitch]

Yes, there were rumors years before their cancellations that they were under orders to dismantle the shows so that no one was watching and no one cared anymore so there would be no backlash. P & G wanted CBS to be the bad guys so they wittled the shows down until they made no money, or at least an alternative would make more, and CBS said goodbye.

 

As for Lisa, I always thought her happy ending should have been her just being happy with her businesses, her family and her friends. I would love to have had some guy pursue her and she would be "I'm in it for the friendship and sex, but I have had my fill or romance..thanks!" I think Lisa (and Fulton) was at her best when she was on her own being a buttinsky out of her big heart, when she had the McColl kids and all the other young people she took under her wing. She was the anti-Kim, and earth mother in sparkly clothes who wasnt above lying and subterfuge to get a positive outcome for hers. I HATED when Fulton played the dewy eyed romantic and threw back her had swooing..UGH. She was always best bitching at someone or taking care of someone.

 

I thought way back during the Dobsons time that they had brought back Don as Ellen's love interest, back when David came back with amnesia. They brought in a boring non entity doctor for Ellen and it went no where. It would have been fun to see a widowed Don come back with Mary's son and Lisa and Ellen, who were both engaged to him, form a triangle, but the Dobson's HATED the Hughes so there was no way they were going there.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

P&G never truly thought much of these shows to begin with, other than the fact that they were "cash cows" in their heydays.

 

The daytime soap was created specific to "sell soap" literally and it was all about turning a profit, the entertainment was secondary to the $$$.

 

It was also a genre that was started by a women, Irna Phillips, that largely appealed to women, who made up the bulk of the viewing audience, while the large majority of the executives were men who did not much value "women's work" and any field that was seen to be dominated by women (even though, in reality most of the headwriters tend to be men).

Want to know why teachers have the lowest average salaries of the majority of the industries around? How about nurse's salaries compared to Wall Street?  Which of these careers do the most vital work?

 

Industries that are seen as attracting and/or catering to women usually command the lowest regard. This is a very sad fact.  The soap industry is no different.

 

Production companies like P&G barely valued soaps when they were raking in the money (e.g. 'wiping' of classic episodes, Eileen Fulton also once mentioned P&G's seeming reluctance to market the show even at the height of its popularity), let alone once ratings began to steadily decline in the 90s.

 

It's about placing value on what you have and doing what you can to preserve it. If P&G never put much value on these shows, why do believe believe that they'd do what they could to preserve them?

 

One can only hope that somewhere, someday, there will be an employee who rises in the ranks at P&G who grew up watching and valuing these soaps and decides that the company has wasted a big opportunity to connect with fans of these shows and decides to amend this.

 

Just to add a bit more, 

 

To add to this P&G was different from other producers of soaps, in that they were also a corporation that sold consumer goods and would be listed on the Stock Market, with a board of directors and investors to please and all the restrictions and limitations to go with it.  

Unlike the other producers of soap operas, P&G was not specifically an entertainment company either, their bread and butter was consumer goods, so its possible that other entertainment based production companies (e.g. Bill Bell Productions, etc.) had a bit more creativity and flexibility while P&G was a bit more rigid in how they financed their productions.

 

P&G was the first but you cannot tell me that Bill Bell Sr. and Agnes Nixon, having once worked under P&G, didn't take notes and figure out what they wanted to emulate as well as how they wanted their shows' business to be conducted in a drastically different way than from what P&G did.

[adrnyc]

Thanks @DramatistDreamer for the detailed information!  It makes a lot of sense why they felt that way but still so frustrating.

[Soaplovers]

Agnes Nixon did create OLTL partly in reaction tinthe restrictions she had while working under P and G.  She wanted a diverse soap in terms of class, religion, gender, and face.  To tell the stories she couldn't tell under P and G.

 

In the 70s and 80s...ATWT seemed more conservative and tame in comparison to GL.  Hence why the dobsons worked on GL and not ATWT.  Marland even adapted to GL and wrote it differently then he wrote ATWT.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Hm, I'm not sure I agree.  Can you offer specific cases on why you feel this way?

[NothinButAttitude]

 

That's why I don't get why they didn't continue to have Lisa be close to Casey and his peers like she originally was. I remember her having a relationship with Gwen and taking to Maddie at one point. They should've continued that the remaining years of the show. It would've been very interesting to see Lisa and even Kim be thorns in Casey's side when he got involved with Allison. Knowing their hatred for Susan and Emily, Kim and Lisa would've been the perfect interlopers to the pairing. I might've actually cared for them more had they been so. 

[John]

How long was Jeremy wheeler a character

 

I know his Mom Dawn was on from 1993-95

 

Rewatching some 1995 episodes and John Dauer was good as Jeremy 

 

was he the only actor who played the role?

Edited August 12, 2017 by John

[DRW50]

 

No. A child actor played Jeremy in his 1993 appearances. 

 

He was on the show off and on from 1993-1995.

[John]

Thanks

[P.J.]

I don't think ATWT was more "conservative" in the '70's, I think they were less reactive to the changes around them. And why shouldn't they have been? They'd been on top for 12 years by 1970, and they stayed on top until '78, IIRC. IMO, the Dobsons didn't fit at ATWT because they were trying to emulate GH's adventure-ish aspect, not because they couldn't write the same family-centered drama that ATWT was known for. GL under the Dobsons from 75-79 wasn't vastly different from ATWT.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

So true. 

 

We also see that ATWT departing from a model that worked with them caused them float like a ship w/o a rudder during the first half of the 80s until Marland came and centered the show again. 

 

Moving away soaps from their central themes has caused the death of almost every soap that has been cancelled. 

[DRW50]

 

I remember reading that Chris Schemering book talking about how ATWT in the '70s had the story where Jennifer wanted to go back to school and Bob not happy and with Nancy also not happy. She changed her mind. He compared this to the '80s where Bob bawled out doctors who were dismissive of Annie. 

 

Of course it mostly depends on what type of progressive view you prefer, because a lot of the women on ATWT in the '70s seemed to be complex and vibrant, while most of the women I've seen in the early to mid '80s seem weak to me, and completely defined by men. 

[P.J.]

I remember reading that in the ATWT book too. It seems shocking now, that either Bob or Nancy wouldn't have supported Jennifer working and/or furthering her education. Especially since Nancy's background was teaching.

 

The early-mid 80's was not a kind period in ATWT's history.  I'm not saying that maybe the '70's women weren't more vibrant, somehow...but to be honest, I only have some vague impressions of that period.

[P.J.]

just for arguments' sake...does anyone know how much of other soaps' episode libraries are intact? I know P&G gets a bad rap for not keeping theirs intact...but tv as a whole was viewed differently back in the 60's. Someone's going to have to remind me when ATWT quit doing their show live too.