All My Children Tribute Thread

[SFK]

That's a gorgeous picture of Kathleen Noone, I loved her too R. One of my earlier AMC memories is when Stuart snuck out from behind the secret passage and cracked a vase over her head.

*DEAD* at Little Billy Mack (aka irritating Carl) asking foxes, "What's your sign?"

Edited May 6, 2011 by SFK

[DRW50]

Was Pamela the girl who had an affair with Mark and then tried to commit suicide?

I guess one of the movie offers they mentioned was Sleepaway Camp. She's interviewed about it here in 2002 (some gory photos included).

http://www.angelfire.com/retro/officialsleepaway2/kkamhi2002.html

She seems to be active in S cientology.

I wonder if she keeps in contact with anyone from AMC.

[All My Shadows]

I wish the show had brought back Carl somewhere along the way. The idea of Jake and Jesse being good friends is odd to be because of the age differences that they try to gloss over. If Carl was around, Jake would have his age-appropriate friend that he actually did grow up playing with.

[DRW50]

February 27, 1979 Digest.

[DRW50]

[AllMyDaysatGH]

I love all of these Kendall scenes. I LOVE KENDALL!

<iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uvv3AGaYkUo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/08Ia20Rdp-Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TpgDQzvHKqc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3Z31w7-ZgJ8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jEYlxNyE454" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KJJ7eX0ixL0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pROe7xfDHxs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="227" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MfLHxz_pncw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

[R Sinclair]

Gross.

[Cheap21]

How the heck do you sticl that many video clips in one post? Whenever I try for more than 2, the board wont let me

[Jonathan]

I'm calling the cops. Ricky Torres is among us. I told you mods to suspends this kid's account, but did you listen to me? Nooooooooooooooo.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

You guys are mean! LOL @ "Ricky Torres is among us". Wow

Instead of using the 'insert media' button on SON, just use the embed code provided with the YT video and copy/paste it onto here (make sure enable HTML is on). I discovered last night that it doesn't limit how many vids you can put on here if you use the embed code.

[R Sinclair]

You know I love you! You're so exuberant and energetic about things, which is fantastic!

Unfortunately, it's all going to waste on that dead end Kendall Slater character.

ETA: Sweet Jesus, bless this post! This is my 6,666th post! Hallelujah, to God be the Glory. Amen Amen Amen!

Edited May 8, 2011 by R Sinclair

[All My Shadows]

Yeah, AMD/GH, we just like funnin' with you lol You like that screechy shrew with the ugly hair until you're blue in the face. I hates the sin, not the sinner.

I defended Krystal and Babe all through the baby switch, so I know the feeling.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Ha, yeah i get it. At the end of the day I <3 you guys to!! ;-).

LOL! Congratulations

[Paul Raven]

From 'The Soap Opera Book ' 1976

All My Children is a light-hearted soap—perhaps the only light-hearted soap on the air. It may also be characterized as a home-and-familv soap, in the doctor-lawyer formula.The setting is the small town of Pine Valley. The major families are the Tylers (who founded the town) and the Martins.

All My Children was created and originally owned by Agnes Nixon, who also wrote or created Another World and One Life to Live. Today the show is owned by ABC; but Nixon retains creative control and her production company is listed as producer. As of January, 1977, All My Children is still in the half- hour format, but there are pressures to move to an hour, and this may well happen in the Spring of 1977.

In its home-and-family orientation, All My Children very much resembles traditional soaps. But there are differences in tone. All My Children seldom succumbs to dark feelings of loneliness or instability (as does As the World Turns) or to sexual despair (as does Days of Our Lives). On All My Children, there is little serious evil. Bad characters like Phoebe, Erica, Mrs. Lum, or Benny Sago, tend to be fun, or funny. They do not ask much of us.

For example, when Phoebe Tyler is left drinking alone on Christmas Eve, she gives a sarcastic, rather maudlin toast. If she pities herself, we don't. On As the World Turns, a character in the same predicament would suffer visibly and so would we. Indeed there is remarkably little real suffering on All My Children , compared to other soaps—little at least that we must take seriously. Many viewers seem to identify with the writers—speculating on what development will take place next—instead of sympathizing with the troubled characters.

If there is a message to the show, it is that people with all their destructive emotions are only human ; and that happiness is best found in the sharing of experience with a loved one, within the context of an extended family. Characters tell one another that they can find happiness if they do not demand too much of themselves or others.

The show is, in other words, optimistic. Dialogue is shot through with references to hope and faith. You have to have faith that things will work out is said in many forms, and very often. One character will tell another that her problem can be solved. All I have to hold onto is that hope, is the typical response. Men spend a lot of time encouraging younger women, who are fatalistic, guilt-ridden, irrational, and sometimes right.

It is said that as much as 30% of the audience for All My Children is male. Well, there really are an awful lot of very admirable men on this show (Dr. Charles, Dr. Chuck, Dr. Frank Grant, Lincoln Tyler, Danny Kennicott, Paul Martin, etc.,etc.). Except for Phil Brent, who has been troubled, male characters are generally rational or reliable. The only bad guys are people who don't belong in Pine Valley and who do not stay (for example, Hal Short, Benny, and Tyrone the Pimp).

Most of the dramatic interest comes from women. Villains are delightfully overdrawn. Phoebe and Erica are so bad as to be funny, and so good as to set all kinds of improbable plots in motion. The story, however, tends to revolve around sensitive, vulnerable types like Tara, Kitty, Anne, Ruth, and Donna. Here there is an effective mixture of real-life and fantasy-based material. Ruth's marital breakdown was an adult situation, sensitively played (at least until the end).

This was, typically, off- balanced by a fantasy of the innocent prostitute (Donna), and the search for the long-lost mother (Kitty). All My Children treats difficult life problems, such as the maintenance of marriage and career. But fortunately there are always a few fun- and-far-out storylines going at the same time. Most fun (and more heavily drawn here than elsewhere) are confrontations between black and white, right- and wrong-headed characters (Mona vs. Erica; the good black doctor vs. the bad black pimp).

Although All My Children is a modern-looking show, with a young following, it is respectful of old soap conventions. The show features an eternal triangle, complete with a child who does not know his own father (the Phil/Tara/Chuck triangle). Both Chuck and Phil refer to little Phil as my own son, as Tara stands by beautifully and usually in tears. There are also the usual troubled pregnancies and well-timed illnesses. (Who would have thought that a healthy-looking man like Chuck Tyler would collapse from kidney disease exactly when marriage, then divorce, were imminent; or that Joe Martin would need an emergency appendectomy at the very moment his wife was set to run off with another man?) True, there are some social issues: a speech against war; some rumbling about drugs and women's lib; a not-very-well-integrated sequence on child abuse. But this is essentially a fun romantic drama. We listen to the women's lib rhetoric, and feel good about it, but what we really want to know is whether she will stay married to him.

All My Children plays more story, at any given time, than most other soaps. Yet it is easy to follow. It's well paced: different storylines move at different tempos, with major stories moving quickly. The lighting is exceptionally bright and clear. Generally recaps are re-presented or re-dramatized, rather than merely stated. Flashbacks-in-the-mind are an important (though perhaps corny) reminder of what passed before. Music is essentially dramatic, ranging from surrealistic modern sounds (for emotional disturbance), to swarmy violins (for Tara and Phil's theme).

All My Children is usually in the top three of the Nielsen ratings and is especially popular at college campuses and high schools. It has received more than usual press attention, partly because of the publication of Dan Wakefield's All Her Children and rather lively public relations campaign that accompanied it.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Paul Raven

[DRW50]

This is interesting. I thought AMC was more serious in the 70's than this article describes. I also didn't know Benny was considered one of the "bad" characters.