As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

 

TGL from the 1950s. Perry Mason too.

 

Yes, Rona Barrett's magazines were rather catty, but were packed from cover to cover with great material. Not like some other rags like TV Dawn to Dusk which often had so much filler.

[Mitch]

I can't believe that they have not rebooted a couple of them for primetime.  I think (cause I loved them the most) that ATWT and GL would be perfect fodder for a reboot.  ATWT is set in suburbia and has the middle class Hughes family with the rich Lowells...Imagine a young vixeny Lisa going after med student Bob, good girl Ellen getting preggers..slutty Aunt Edith getting on with Ellen's dad, etc. For a more urban take GL has an immigrant family trying to make their way in a midwestern mid sized city..you would have to tool around with that one .introduce the Spauldings early, etc. AMC would be perfect also to reboot in these political stressed times with the middle class Martins all having different political views while vixeny Erica slides her way in.

 

I can't believe that producers, who use those old themes over and over again, wouldnt want to use a brand name.

[DramatistDreamer]

I can't even believe that P&G couldn't be bothered to do a measley reunion webisode for ATWT or GL's anniversaries.

 

Honestly, why doesn't P&G/PGP just sell the damn libraries for these shows? 

If they think these shows are so worthless, why not just sell to some clearinghouse or video production company that could actually do something with these titles?

Or is PGP the corporate version of The Dog in the Manger? Or are they secretly holding out for what they assume will be some big payday someday?

 

I'm perplexed by these people.

 

Also, no reboot would happen unless PGP sells/leases the rights to their shows, which they've shown no inclination of doing at this point. 

So far, they don't even want to do anything with their old episodes (and don't dare tell me it's the music rights holding things in limbo, digital technology could remedy that) let alone clear the path for a reboot.

[Faulkner]

I don’t think they’d find many takers for 7,000 to 12,000 episodes of series that would still need to be reviewed for rights, digitized, edited, and tagged. (Even a long series like Gunsmoke had fewer than 650 episodes in its entire 20-year run, which wouldn’t have covered three years of a daytime drama.) 

 

The big streamers like Netflix and Hulu don’t have a ton of interest in classic content of any kind (old films, TV shows - this article explains why, and it rings true to my experience), much less something as culturally frowned-upon as daytime soaps, so they’d need to figure out some kind of niche service à la Britbox for British classics or Filmstruck for arthouse/Criterion films. It just sounds like a lot of work with not very much return on the investment.

 

Reboots sound more plausible, but I think they’d go for something that skewed younger/hipper than the P&G soaps (like AMC) or has a longtime cult audience like Dark Shadows. 

Edited February 1, 2018 by Faulkner

[DramatistDreamer]

It wouldn't have to be the entire collection but clearinghouses are good vehicles for selecting what would potentially be the top sellers, similar to what Soap Classics did, but on a larger level.

 

There should be some imaginative collective thinking other than just to decide to let the videos completely deteriorate.

 

If there are no takers, why not give it away to Soap Classics or the TV department of a university library and see what can be done?  Had they done it years ago, how far could they have gotten in the digitization process by now? 

 

SoapClassics did a hell of a lot with limited staff and limited resources.  Imagine what they could've accomplished had they had years, not months.

Edited February 1, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[amybrickwallace]

 

Bingo.

[cassadine1991]

Are you talking about a full-on reboot or a continuation? 

[adrnyc]

I don't think I could handle a reboot. Seeing someone else be Kim and Bob or Lisa or Nancy, or god forbid, Lucinda and John, Lily and Holden or Carly and Jack??????

 

I was so sad when Soap Classics lost the rights to all the P&G shows. I loved watching their 1979-1980 episodes they posted, as well as getting some of their collections. I preferred the ones that did several weeks in a row rather than just random episodes. I think that was just because I had only seen the '00's and had no idea who so many characters from the 80s and 90s were.

 

I would pay good money - I mean I would bankrupt myself, in order to buy episodes of ATWT in good quality. I'd pay $20/month for access to a streaming service. Ultimately, I'm glad that such a thing doesn't exist as I would spend most of my time revisiting soaps and checking out ones that I never watched!

[DramatistDreamer]

Honestly, I never thought about a reboot for ATWT. The only soap I've ever seriously considered as having a great shot at a reboot is Capitol.  

Capitol had a short enough run that some fans might remember but not a huge number would be 'married' to the original characters or their portrayer.

 

Honestly, I think there would be problems with reboot of ATWT, especially if there were none of the actors that made certain characters so memorable.  

 

I don't know of any show with half as long a run as ATWT that anyone is even considering for a reboot. If you're going to use different actors, may as well do a 'prequel' and then give the characters different names and the show a different name as well.

I remember the whining and complaining over the 2.0 version of AMC/OLTL.  I think the backlash over a reboot of ATWT/GL without any of the actors who made their roles well known might exceed that.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[mango]

 

Can I get in line with you? 

 

This is as of about two or three years ago, but P&G still has all of ATWT. However, about 80 per cent is in a format that needs to be edited, digitized and so forth. What the company decides to do with it is anyone's guess, but there certainly is a niche market for it.

[adrnyc]

@mango  I know - it's sooooooo frustrating. I think there must just be no way for them to make any money off of it due to that 80 per cent. Still...the soaps classics people, I'm sure, would do it as a labor of love. It might take years and years to accomplish, but I'd help out if someone could teach me how to do it. I don't know if that's possible as I don't know just what it entails. But I'd be willing to learn! Ah well, I'm sure I'm dreaming. 

 

There's an app called BroadwayHD which is trying to gain traction. Right now, they don't have a lot of content of any value, so I think they've had a hard time getting many takers for the amount it costs per month. But, once the content was digitized, there are so many soaps owned by P&G. Throw Dark Shadows, The Doctors, and Ryan's Hope on there and you've got a ton of content worth a $20 per month ask.

[Soaplovers]

If any shoe could be rebooted of P and G...it would be edge of night...crime and drama will always be in.  Also, Capitol could be rebooted and this time taking advantage of the DC backdrop.

[amybrickwallace]

 

Agreed. The premises are timeless and could/would work in any time period.

[watson71]

All the P & G shows could also find a home on stations like Antenna TV or MeTV- many episodes are already digitized from when they were on the AOL platform.  Amazon Prime is now home to many of the Goodson/Todman game shows from the 70s.  That could be a viable option as well.  

 

I would hope that P & G has these episodes in storage right now and did not have them destroyed so that they don't have to pay storage fees.

[DramatistDreamer]

It would be interesting to get an estimate of how many undigitized years still remain, after AOL and SoapClassics had a hand in the process?

 

I just get the feeling that PGP/P&G wants someone to come to them with the perfect solution where they can maximize some unrealistically high profit margin, while doing/giving absolutely nothing in return.

That's just the sense I get from the company and how they've treated their soaps over the last several years of their respective runs.

Edited February 3, 2018 by DramatistDreamer