As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[Mitch64]

Nancy Hughes was always a more cold, dominate matriarch...so I don't think it was as much execs as it was the Dobsons as Bridget would always airly say they "Write what they feel, and what interests us and no one else."  It would have bene interesting to see writers evolve Nancy more.to see her gradually see that she she can let go of her family a bit more and have another interest..I think she also should have been the one more aggressively angry with Joyce then Lisa..(she shot her kid) and show her trying to block Joyce's access to that kid and ride Joyce...all the right reasons (Joyce was neurotic and unreliable) to show her iron fist..and I am sure more fun for Wagner then being a walk on and serving coffee.

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

I absolutely agree with what you said here.
For years, I have been somewhat exasperated by soap fans repetition of the same boilerplate reasoning behind the decline in popularity of daytime soaps to a single inciting event like the O.J. Simpson trial, rather than a number of factors that include the production companies behind these daytime soaps’ and their rigid adherence to the same format, plots and unchanging characterizations (pandering to the anachronistic idea of the mythical Midwestern housewife from the 1950s) for years on end. 
For years, I have believed that the idea of the supercouple was one of the best and perhaps the worst thing to happen to the daytime soap opera. It should have been a brief marketing campaign that lasted for about 48 months and dispensed with when it became limiting and tired, which it had obviously become by the very early 90s.

If there was anything that soap production company executives should have doubled down on, it should have been the insistence that their viewers had not truly abandoned these shows but that time shifted viewing (viewers recording their favorite soaps on VCRs preset via timers) had become a bigger factor because of more women working outside the home and those numbers were not being recorded, and figuring out a way for those numbers to be factored into the ratings as DVR viewing is now factored into today’s ratings.

 

I still think the executives and industry set the standards for how archetypes were and are written, especially female ones. There should have been room for all types of matriarchal figures, the way that there was room for patriarchal figures (Bob Hughes was a fatherly type and also a serial cheater, for instance) but there was an industry wide standard of having a warm, very nurturing matriarch. GL never allowed the likes of Vanessa to be a matriarch because, despite her being of age at the time, a matriarch wasn’t supposed to ever be ambitious in her career or even sexy enough to attract younger men. If you had an ambitious figure like an Alexandra Spaulding or a Lucinda Walsh who had any maternal feelings at all, it was usually presented as a weakness, a character flaw or something that the woman, as intelligent as she was, could never quite manage properly and despite repeated stories, the clumsy way these women could never seem to manage their maternal relationships with half the level of competence as they did their businesses. It was a sexist trope that needed to die with the evolution of more women in the workplace but it persists to this day.

[P.J.]

What? Bert was certainly no slouch in the vinegary-interfering mother department. If Nancy was seen as a bit colder, maybe it was because she didn't have the obstacles (broken marriage, health problems) that Bert did. 

I think the structure of Guiding Light at the time allowed the Dobsons to keep the Bauers "front and center". (Although there were probably viewers who saw the Spauldings and Marlers as interlopers) Mike and Ed were diametric opposites, each who generated story. When the Dobsons took over ATWT, they didn't have that with the Hughes, who at that time consisted of Bob, Tom and teenage Frannie. 

 

[Paul Raven]

Donald Hughes was also onscreen in 1980 when the Dobsons arrived. So they had the two brothers template, one a doctor and one a lawyer, similar to the Bauers.

But I think Don and Bob were pretty similar by that stage.

[DRW50]

Beyond having less interesting Hughes relationships compared to the Bauers on GL, and maybe not understanding Nancy, I wonder how much of the change is down to the Dobsons joining ATWT at a time when P&G was beginning to more actively push to phase out older vets and core families.

[Khan]

I think sponsor and/or network interference is mostly to blame for the difference between the Dobsons' work on GL and their later work on ATWT.  By the time they had joined ATWT, pretty much all of daytime was chasing after the same demographic that had flocked to GH in the wake of Luke and Laura's success.  The rules of the game, as they say, had definitely changed.

[DRW50]

I think you're right. What hurt ATWT was no one in place there seemed to have any idea what this shift needed (was anyone in the viewing audience horny for Brad Hollister?). With a few exceptions, like the casting for Margo and Craig and recasting Tom, they didn't seem to figure it out until around 1984 or 1985.

[kalbir]

CBS and P&G were really shaken up by the huge rise of ABC in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and we've seen evidence of that in the ratings threads and of course on screen.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Since the days of Irna Phillips, P&G was known for being very actively involved in stories and characterizations on their shows. Both the showrunner and the executives were known to have bumped heads numerous times and in the end, P&G mostly got their own way.

Although his reunion videos are not always known for being of the highest quality, several uploads provided insight as a few former ATWT actors talked about the battles between writers and the brass at P&G and/or CBS Daytime for content in scripts that the higher ups considered to be objectionable. Scott Bryce once described it as being akin to being called into the principal’s office. Creativity by committee tends to yield insipid results.

[DRW50]

I should also credit Betsy and Steve for tapping into a younger audience while pleasing older viewers. Looking back at my post I should have mentioned them even if they aren't to my own taste.

[DramatistDreamer]

Their big fat Greek wedding will always be stunning. They did have chemistry and the actors promoted the hell out of that pairing, regardless of how each actor now looks upon their time on the show. I do think the promotion of the supercouple should have faded with the end of the decade (1980s).

[DRW50]

Everything said earlier in the thread about how much ATWT and soaps suffered from trying to still cling to old patterns in the OJ era is so true. ATWT was based on complex friendships and family dynamics - they did have one of the first soap supercouples (Penny and Jeff) but that wasn't their calling card. ATWT trying to still cling on while running away from the family units and complicated histories and becoming whatever mutated '80s primetime soap the show was trying to be for so much of the mid/late '90s (aside from some of the stronger moments of 1995) was unfortunate. I remember disliking Mike and Rosanna so much, but assuming they were loved by viewers with how heavily pushed they were. Only years later when I read more soap magazines from that period did I learn they weren't ever very popular. All that for nothing.

[P.J.]

But IIRC, Don was gone shortly thereafter. It doesn't feel like his character was ever well-defined. Certainly not the same kind of impact Mike Bauer had on GL. If there was ever any kind of rivalry between Bob and Don, it certainly got overshadowed by Bob and John's animosity.

[Paul Raven]

Earlier under Irna Phillips, Don was more clearly defined I think. He was more of a contrast to Bob, more ambitious and resentful of Nancy's treatment of Janice.

By the time he came back in the mid 70's a lot of that was forgotten/ignored.

They should have kept Don's stepdaughters by Janice in the picture as they could have become honorary Hughes and the show would have had 2 young women to write for.

Irna drastically aged them (for no real reason) in the mid 60's but they could have played around with that a little and kept them early 20's in the mid 70's.

They could have held off SORASING Dee and Annie. Those 2 characters had only a few years in the spotlight when they should have been leading the next generation.

[P.J.]

ATWT was clearly trying to recreate Lily/Holden and ride Shawn Christian's popularity. Of course, the best thing to come from the Ro/Mike relationship was Carly. LOL.