As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[vetsoapfan]

 

I agree: making classic episodes available for the audience to stream or buy: YES. 

 

A reboot with new writers, producers and actors: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

I would also pay good money for vintage episodes of ATWT from the 1950s to the early 1990s. Nothing in its last 15 years would really interest me, however, except perhaps edited highlights featuring the veteran characters.

 

When a single hour's worth of material of Another World from 1973/4 went up for auction on eBay, frenzied soap fans drove the bidding up to over $300.00. There is a market out there for rare soap episodes, I am certain.

[DramatistDreamer]

I think that PGP claims that they only have  episodes from 1979 onward.

They claim to have 'wiped' many previous episodes. I know they have that Kennedy assassination episode (where Cronkite interrupted the live broadcast) that was likely preserved by CBS. 

I've seen other vintage episodes from the 60s floating around. I once read that a rare, believed to be lost collection of BBC performances were found in the house of a widow of a BBC cameraman. I don't rule out the possibility of a newly discovered reel. 

There were even people who worked in television who had television recorders (early prototype to the VCR) as early as the early 70s, so I hope for some random discovery of 'lost' episodes to be made someday.

For now though, I have to take P&G at their word that their reels only go as far back as 1979.

Edited February 4, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[DRW50]

Someone put up a June (I think) 1991 (June 28 per YRFan23) episode I haven't seen on YT before. It's not too long after the epic takeover of Walsh and it shows what Marland knew so well and what soaps haven't known in 20 years or more - that aftermath, showing ramifications of actions, is key. This is what made me love ATWT and love soaps. It's what soaps were built on.

 

And so many of my favorites - Andy, Lucinda, Iva, Julie, Evan, Connor. And just like then, there's also Courtney, getting on my damn nerves.

 

It's a bit jumpy, which can be annoying (especially when it breaks up scenes like Lucinda bitching about Lisa), but still very watchable.

 

This is when Iva had that haircut which was likely supposed to be kicky but made her look like Emo Philips. 

 

The best part for me is probably the frostbite from Emma to Iva over John. Brilliant acting, so biting and raw.

 

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by DRW50

[DRW50]

Now that I've finished it I'll add that the Emma and Lucinda scene in this episode is just sublime.

 

Even if there were no Hughes (aside from Frannie) the psychological elements of this episode reminded me a lot of Irna Philips. I think she would have been fascinated by Lucinda. 

[amybrickwallace]

I heard one fan describe Lucinda/Lisa as the Joan Crawford/Bette Davis of ATWT. What do you think?

[DRW50]

 

I guess Lucinda is Joan and Lisa is Bette? I guess I could see it a bit - Lucinda's insecurity ruling her life, beyond her tough public image. Lisa and Bette not as much. 

[vetsoapfan]

 

Yes, I do believe it's true that P&G only began conserving their soaps on a daily basis in 1979, but we know that many episodes much older than that are still floating around out there. We see them on youtube, in the hands of casts and crews and private collectors, in TV museums, etc. Missing eps of Ryan's Hope were found in Ireland. Soap Classics found Papa Bauer's funeral ep from 1973 when they were preparing their TGL DVDs. I have the premiere ep of SFT from 1951 which apparently even P&G did not preserve. If some of these classic older episodes could be brought together and sold in a package to eager fans, I think it would be good way to test the market. Since Y&R and DAYS have all their episodes in storage, how about a collectors' boxset of, say, the first 40 eps of Y&R from 1973?

[DramatistDreamer]

 

The question is, who will take up this effort when it comes to P &G shows?  PGP/P&G seems to have no appetite for doing anything so far (that I'm aware).  A grassroots effort seems to be the only alternative but who would spearhead that?  Many soap fans, especially P&G fans, seem resigned to the current status of these classic shows.

 

Personally I'd be all for some type of effort to get a message to collectors to cull their classic episodes to at least be entered into a database to see what's out there and  build some type of support (maybe even through crowdfunding) for continuing the digitization process with an eye toward selling downloads or boxed sets, streaming or a substation channel, etc but I can't get my hopes up for anything happening given P&G's history.

[vetsoapfan]

 

You know, I've been about this a lot lately: getting soap fans to come together and create our own Vintage Daytime Drama channel. We could post links here on SON to classic soaps from anywhere on the web we found them. Fans could also upload any of their prized episodes they wanted to share, and include the links in the folders here..

 

I think we could even open separate folders for each soap title, and then subfolders within for each decade. For example, a main folder for As the World Turns, with different sections for the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, etc.

 

We could probably amass a HUGE, centralized library listing for soap lovers, but it would take a lot of work.

[edgeofnik]

One big issue with soaps getting released on streaming or other services - the unfortunate use of pop songs starting in early 1980s - the licensing fees are very expensive especially compared to an individual episode's relative worth. I also don't think they are easily 'wiped' from audio tracks based on the way they were filmed and preserved back then. Wasn't this an issue with the DVD sets that were produced a few years ago?

 

I've often wondered how Dark Shadows is doing on streaming services like Amazon (I've been watching) as well as The Doctors on RetroTv. With those soaps, it really helps that they are only 30 minutes - so they are easyier to watch, focus on fewer stories at a time, etc.   

[vetsoapfan]

 

That is an excellent--if discouraging--point. Music rights have hindered the release of many classic primetime series over the years. Shows which were made with a mono soundtrack could not have only  their music edited out for DVD sets, so entire scenes containing pop music had to be cut entirely. This was a disaster for DVD releases like WKRP. On the other hand, being able to edit out the original music but replacing it with cheap substitutes is REALLY ANNOYING. The 90210 and Tour of Duty discs  with cheap substituted music are unwatchable, IMHO.

 

In one early B&W ep of DS, I noticed that they had a Beatles song playing at the Blue Whale, which made it to the DVD. I wondered how MPI managed that.

Edited February 4, 2018 by vetsoapfan

[cassadine1991]

Who's to say they'll recast the roles? AMC/OLTL 2.0 didn't recast anyone except for a few of the younger cast

[amybrickwallace]

 

"Lily! Get me the ax!" 😉😂

[danfling]

Actor Louis Zorich, who played Inspector Haniotis on As the World Turns in 1988, has passed away. Here is his New York Times obituary: Louis Zorich, a busy actor who appeared on Broadway with stars like Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman, on television in the comedy “Mad About You” and in numerous projects with his wife, the Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 93. His son Peter confirmed his death. In a career of some 60 years, Mr. Zorich played scores of roles, mostly of the character-actor variety. He was the father to Paul Reiser’s character on NBC’s “Mad About You” from 1993 to 1999 and the grandfather on “Brooklyn Bridge,” a well-regarded CBS series that ran for two seasons earlier in the 1990s. But he also occasionally tackled the big roles. The year before “Brooklyn Bridge” made its debut in 1991, he played King Lear in a production at the Whole Theater in Montclair, N.J., of which he and Ms. Dukakis were founding members. In 2004 he portrayed the title character in an Off Broadway version of Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” by the Aquila Theater Company, opposite Ms. Dukakis’s Clytemnestra. Mr. Zorich continued to work into his 90s, so there is some irony in the fact that his final film appearance was in “No Pay, Nudity” (2016), a bittersweet comic drama by Lee Wilkof about the troubles older actors have finding work. Louis Michael Zorich was born on Feb. 12, 1924, in Chicago. His parents — Christ, a stationary engineer, and the former Anna Gledj, a homemaker — were immigrants from Yugoslavia. Mr. Zorich was drafted into the Army at 18 and served in an engineering firefighting platoon attached to Gen. George S. Patton’s command during World War II. After returning to Chicago from Europe he attended Roosevelt College under the G.I. Bill, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1951. He earned a bachelor of fine arts from the Goodman School of Drama in 1958. “I never had to do anything outside the theater since the day I left acting school,” he reminisced in a 1991 interview with the Newhouse News Service. “I never had to drive a cab like everybody does. I never had to wait on tables like people do, or work in temporary office work. It was just sheer luck.” His first television credits were in 1958, including two Canadian anthology series, “Encounter” and “On Camera.” He made his Broadway debut in 1960 in a small role in “Becket,” with Olivier as Thomas Becket and Anthony Quinn as King Henry II. Those early credits set the pattern for a career that would mix a lot of television and a lot of theater, with the occasional film thrown in. His movie roles included a constable in the 1971 film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” On television, he was seen on episodes of “Route 66,” “Naked City,” “Columbo,” “Law & Order” and the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope.” But he most loved to work in the theater. “I don’t know why or how people cannot want to go to theater,” he once said. “I don’t understand that. It’s not like TV, it’s not like the movies.” One theater audition he went to in 1961 proved particularly life-changing. It was for an Off Broadway play called “The Opening of a Window.” “My dad was up for the part of the husband,” Peter Zorich said by email. “The wife was already cast — Olympia Dukakis. He read for the part but didn’t get it — can’t make that up. They moved in together.” They married the next year. Mr. Zorich received a Tony Award nomination for best featured actor in a play for his 1969 performance in “Hadrian VII.” In 1984 he played Uncle Ben in a “Death of a Salesman” revival that starred Mr. Hoffman as Willy Loman; he reprised the role in a well-regarded TV version on CBS the next year. His other Broadway credits included the 2001 revival of “Follies” and, most recently, the 2003 revival of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Though Mr. Zorich and Ms. Dukakis were in many high-profile stage productions, they frequently worked in smaller theaters, both in New York and beyond, individually and together. Sometimes their collaborations would turn into family affairs, as in 2001, when Mr. Zorich and his brother-in-law, Apollo Dukakis, jointly directed “The Cherry Orchard” for the Pacific Repertory Theater in Carmel, Calif. The cast included Ms. Dukakis and Christina Zorich, the couple’s daughter. A particularly enduring collaboration was the Whole Theater Company in Montclair, where the couple lived for many years. They were part of a group that formed the company in 1970. It staged its first Montclair production, “Our Town,” in 1973, and brought numerous actors, known and unknown, to Montclair before closing in 1990. Mr. Zorich and Ms. Dukakis’s home became something of a gathering spot. “It was like growing up in the circus,” Peter Zorich told The Montclair Times in 2015, when the troupe held a reunion. “There was someone living in the basement, in the garage, in the carriage house.” In addition to Ms. Dukakis, his son Peter and his daughter, Christina, Mr. Zorich is survived by another son, Stefan; a sister, Helen Cochand; and four grandchildren. In 1991 Mr. Zorich spoke of the one play he and Ms. Dukakis had done that he would not want to revisit: Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” They played George and Martha, the warring couple at the play’s center, in a 1979 production in Montclair and, he said, had gotten a little too into their characters. After playing the show for a few weeks, he said, he marched into her dressing room and asked, “Why are you going after me like that?,” only to hear her explain that she was merely playing the role. After another week or two, she confronted him with the same sort of accusation. “I’ll never forget that,” he said. “We almost got divorced.”

[NothinButAttitude]