7 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

It's probably one of the best soap promos I've seen - gets everything right to entice a new viewer. Makes me sad to think of how ABC later lost the plot. 

The family and community elements of soaps used to one of the genre's principle draws.

TIIC everywhere lost the plot and forgot what soaps should be about, decades ago.

@vetsoapfan

Grandma Kate and Ruth Martin were the grandmother and mother that everyone wanted.

I know my sister & I did.

Our mother was more like Marian Colby.

 

Edited July 15, 20241 yr by Janet Marlowe

13 minutes ago, Janet Marlowe said:

Our mother was more like Marian Colby.

I'm so sorry.

42 minutes ago, Janet Marlowe said:

@vetsoapfan

Grandma Kate and Ruth Martin were the grandmother and mother that everyone wanted.

I know my sister & I did.

Our mother was more like Marian Colby.

 

Soaps used to provide ideal, fantasy-fulfilment families for so many viewers.

Daytime TV lost an essential ingredient when the older vets (parents and grandparents) started getting let go and replaced by the hair models and himbos du jour.

I could sit and watch Ruth Martin, Alice Horton, Bert Bauer, Nancy Hughes, Mary Matthews, and a host of other moms and grandmas all day. Horny teenagers running around having sex? Yawn. Not so much.

Some old promos I found on a disc. I don't think they are up on Youtube at present. If anyone knows exact date, thanks. (I am not sure if the Liza one is from 1995 or 1996 but I just put 1995).

 

@Janet Marlowe Thanks for that detailed response. Yea, Anne was definitely the type of character that got me hooked on a show. I wish there was a way she stayed around until at least the middle 80s. Could you have seen her with Adam or Palmer? 
 

On 7/14/2024 at 3:17 PM, Khan said:

That's the key: if you're going to tell a story that could be depressing to viewers, you have to surround it with lighter stories, or else viewers will get sick of all the heaviness and tune out.

Facts! I love it that way. Even on reality Tv I been hoping for more variety stories at once.

I wonder how much Anne suffered from the loss of Judith Barcroft. I know she wasn't the first Anne but she seems to have been the one who registered. They could have tried to just write Anne out rather than kill her off, but then considering Paul Martin wasn't killed but still barely ever came back, it might not have mattered. I wonder if they killed her off to try to show viewers they were turning the page into a new era, the era of Cliff, Nina, etc.

12 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I wonder if they killed her off to try to show viewers they were turning the page into a new era, the era of Cliff, Nina, etc.

It seemed like, every ten years or so, AMC would "clean house," so to speak, and refresh the cast.

Judith had to be considered a draw for the show on the strength of her time as Lenore on AW/SOM. Not long after she joined the cast in 1971, she was in a promo encouraging viewers to tune in for her "new part."

I wish they hadn't killed Anne off. I can understand wanting to show that they were expanding the show and setting the Cortlandts down as the new "money" family, but honestly, how much character space did the Cortlandts take up? For a while, it really was just Palmer, Nina, Cliff, and Daisy. I think ultimately Anne suffered from not having much of a place anymore. Myrtle was running the Boutique, Brooke had taken her place as Phoebe's exasperated relation, Nick Davis was gone for good (besides short-term returns), etc. Having her and Paul ride off into the sunset together at around the same time Linc and Kelly did would have been a nice happy ending for the Tylers who kept the PV pot boiling for the show's first decade.

The Cortlandts coming in as a second wealthy family really changed the tenor of Phoebe's character. Instead of being on a pedestal all by herself and looking down on basically the entirety of the rest of the cast, she was in a position to want to constantly want to impress Palmer.

9 minutes ago, Khan said:

It seemed like, every ten years or so, AMC would "clean house," so to speak, and refresh the cast.

And this worked when the cast they brought in for the refresh was strong enough. When it didn't work (the people brought in around 1999/2000) the show paid the price.

On 7/17/2024 at 8:09 PM, DRW50 said:

Some old promos I found on a disc. I don't think they are up on Youtube at present. If anyone knows exact date, thanks. (I am not sure if the Liza one is from 1995 or 1996 but I just put 1995).

 

Great promos. Thanks for uploading.

Thanks, @Jonathan . That's very kind of you.

I just read on Alan Locher’s FB page that Esta TerBlanche (Gillian) has passed away. She was only 51 years old!

Just now, All My Shadows said:

I just read on Alan Locher’s FB page that Esta TerBlanche (Gillian) has passed away. She was only 51 years old!

That's awful. I remember some here talking about how she didn't seem right when she was on Locher Room last year or the year before. She was so charming and compelling as Gillian, especially that first year or so before McTavish took away Gillian's spark. 

9 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

That's awful. I remember some here talking about how she didn't seem right when she was on Locher Room last year or the year before. She was so charming and compelling as Gillian, especially that first year or so before McTavish took away Gillian's spark. 

Alan linked the video, which I hadn’t seen before, and she does seem to not be well in it. Gillian was a major player when I first stumbled across AMC in summer 2001, and I remember loving her with Ryan when he was still a regular character who existed within the ensemble. I’m so glad she was able to make one last appearance before the ABC finale.

 

She was low-key one of AMC’s funniest characters, too. This is hilarious.

 

 

Edited July 20, 20241 yr by All My Shadows