Y&R: Old Articles

[vetsoapfan]

 

The only good thing about my being so ancient is that I was fortunate enough to witness the soaps' golden age. I think the 1950s to 1970s were the very best years for daytime drama. We had Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, William J. Bell, Pat Falken Smith, Harding Lemay, Henry Slesar...all the great writers at the height of their careers! 

[Soapsuds]

The funny thing is that Y&R didn't become number 1 until the Brooks family was phased out. I thought the Brooks era was fantastic but it never reached #1 in the ratings.

[SoapDope]

I don't think any of the actors from Y&R's first 10 years were ever submitted for awards, even Jeanne Cooper. A lot of people said Jeanne, Brenda Dickson, Jamie Lyn Bauer, Janice Lynde, and Dorothy Green should have had nominations for their work. I saw some of Dorothy's storyline as Jennifer having the mastectomy. It was heartbreaking and was emmy material.

[vetsoapfan]

 

But as a brand-new serial, it soared very quickly in the ratings, and was very influential in how the soaps were presented from then on.

 

I think the lack of strong competition in the 1980s helped Y&R reach the number one spot, whereas in the 1970s, almost ALL the soaps were great and fighting for the top spot. 

[Soapsuds]

It debut at #13 but went up the following year to the #9 soap with an 8.4 rating. By its 3rd year it was the #3 soap and dropped slighty its 4th year to #4 behind GL.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2017 by Soapsuds

[vetsoapfan]

 

Some of the Emmy nominations during the 1970s were based on name recognition more than actual talent. Farley Granger was not good at all on OLTL and kept noticeably flubbing his lines, yet he was nominated. A lot of the decade's very best actors were consistently overlooked. IMHO, Janice Lynde deserved an Emmy nomination for her character's descent into madness, as did Trish Stewart for her performances during her character's rape storyline.

 

By 1975, it had flown way up to number three (behind ATWT and AW), with a 35% audience share, the highest of any soap that season. It also attracted massive numbers among young female viewers whom the networks coveted the most.

 

That year the show also won Best Daytime Drama and Best Directing at the Emmy Awards.

Edited January 1, 2017 by vetsoapfan

[kalbir]

 

 

By the early 1990s, the Abbotts were almost all recasts, the Williams family was almost all gone, and the Newman family expanded.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Yes, the show has continued to change over the decades.

[DeeeDee]

The Foster & Brooks families need to remain in the past.

 

There are way too many things currently wrong with Y&R that need to be fixed & Y&R's writers can't even write the current characters they have correctly.

[vetsoapfan]

 

There are several current characters on the canvas who do not work very well, and may end up being written off if they cannot be fixed. Since new characters are bound to be brought on anyway (they always are), it won't make any difference whatsoever to younger viewers if these new people are tied to Y&R's original founding families or not, because they will still be strangers to the audience. But the older, longer-running fans would get a kick out of it and appreciate the nod to history, so there's no definite "need" for any founding families to remain relegated to the past. All characters should be well-written, cast appropriately, and woven into the fabric of the series, and their origins and family ties do not negate the possibility of that happening.

Edited January 1, 2017 by vetsoapfan

[KMan101]

 

+1

 

What's the difference between bringing on Chelsea when they could have brought on Jill's niece? Or Cane could have been a Prentiss. It makes no difference IMO.

[DeeeDee]

She's not Jill's 'niece' & it would mean Y&R spending more time explaining a convoluted retcon to please a handful of viewers instead of fixing a broken show.

[vetsoapfan]

 

Twenty-three years after she had been written out, and long after most of her on-screen family had disappeared, THE GUIDING LIGHT brought back Meta Bauer in 1996, and the fans loved it. Even younger viewers got behind the idea of having an original core character back in Springfield. When Claire Labine took over LOVE OF LIFE in the 1970s, one of the first things she did was bring back Vanessa's sister Meg, who had not been seen or mentioned in years, but again, the fans loved it and it gave the show a real shot in the arm. The success all depends on how the characters are written and how they interact with the other players on screen. Of course it's not feasible to bring back all four Brooks sisters, both Foster brothers, and their assorted children, but one or two offspring from the Brooks, Foster, or Prentiss clans, if written well and given interesting storylines, is perfectly do-able.

[DeeeDee]

The key word is "if".

 

If the world was made of cotton candy everyone would be a diabetic.

[vetsoapfan]

 

JILL: "I was raised as the daughter of Bill and Liz Foster, and this is my brother, Greg Foster's, daughter."

 

I personally don't see this five-second exposition as particularly "convoluted," and it would still leave the writers 35 minutes on that day's show, alone, to fix everything else that is broken.

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