What if OLTL and AMC became ONE?

[Cheap21]

they only retconned her history to get her on GH. Nothing about her was altered on OLTL for the bulk of her stint till the very end and that was to usher her out

[aMLCproduction]

Im just so glad we got all these experts on SON who already know it won't work. Take a chance take a risk who knows it may work. Just kuz YOU won't watch or give it a chance doesn't mean it WONT work. Give it a fair shot at the very least. I just think it would have been very interesting IF done right

[psychofan]

LOVE THAT! I would definitely watch!

[HeedTheMessenger2.0]

I think the last time they were toying around with this was the huge baby switch crossover... with Todd, Kevin, Kelly, Dorian, Paul, Babe, JR, Adam, etc. I think they really wanted to see if the audiences would move one soap to another. It wasn't a huge failure but not a major success either.

Even if they merged the soaps, they'd have to get rid of the majority of the main casts anyway... unless they kept a huge cast and just focused on different characters every week.

[Khan]

AMC and OLTL have been cancelled b/c they are losing fans at alarming numbers. Take half of AMC's already dwindling audience (and "half" is about as much who would likely watch a mashup show), combine that w/ half of OLTL's, and you'd still have a series with anemic ratings living under the constant threat of cancellation. So, IMO, a mashup series featuring characters from both cancelled shows would merely be an exercise in futility (not to mention, prolonging the inevitable).

[Mr. Vixen]

Thanks guys

[Cheap21]

In light of hearing that at least 4 OLTL characters are going to GH with the likelihood that more could join, do people think that combining AMC and OLTL would have been a better idea? I know some people think the OLTL/GH merger seems odd bc of the ifferent styles of the two soaps. Would it have mademore sense for ABC to just cancel one soap and have the other incorporate some of the other's characters/stories/history?

[JackPeyton]

A+

[Eric83]

If AMC had been canceled alone, I wouldn't have minded seeing Griffin, Kendall, Jake, and maybe the Hubbards move to Llanview. Erica's story should have ended on AMC so that would be a no. I found Tad, JR,The Chandlers, David etc. Boring and redundant that last year and a half so no to them as well.

[Chris B]

It's funny reading this considering they very well may be merging GH and OLTL together. It'll be interesting to see how this experiment works. First they need to get GH's ratings up and the show is in such bad shape it could honestly stand to lose and gain a lot of characters. I'm willing to take the leap because the show needs something drastic and at this point, why not? With the Manning's, I see it as a new family that mixed with the existing characters can take the crime stories in another direction. Then John McBain paired with Robert and Mac in real stories could make the police side of things fresh and viable again. Basically, GH has many gaps that could easily be filled with OLTL characters and also the GH vets both on canvas and who could be brought back. I'd rather try and bring over some of OLTL's audience with their characters than bringing on new faces or the old OLTL actors in new or recasted roles.

[ellabelle]

I would LOVE an Erica spinoff, and really, the AMC ending set it up perfectly for a spinoff for her to go to California and make her movie. Once her movie is made and premieres, perhaps she and Kit would continue working together producing new films. Erica's family could come visit in CA, and you could have a bunch of AMC characters on the show when Erica and Kit come to Pine Valley for some location shoots and again when the film premieres. After seeing Susan on Hot in Cleveland, I'd love for a movie spinoff to have some humor to it.

[HeedTheMessenger2.0]

I think they "tested" this idea with the big baby switch a few years back, and the "massive" crossovers that involved a lot of people... I thought they were definitely testing to see if AMC's audience would flow to OLTL and vice versa. From what I recall there was some short-term ratings success with the story.

The problem is that you could "mesh" the shows together but the characters have very different histories and you would have to cut half the cast of both which probably would mean losing "vets" and characters we like and keeping ones we don't (for example, I'm sure John McBain and Ryan Lavery would be mortal enemies or BFF's, clogging the screens).

You could always bring back a character to tie some of the shows together, like Skye Chandler/Quartermaine (and hence you could also use her to tie the OLTL actors to GH). They could have sent some to GH and combined the rest into All My Lives To Live, ha. I think it would have been a way to keep some of the fans... and if done well it could have been a long term solution.

The core families should have been kept on the hybrid OLTL/AMC and the "one offs" like John McBain who have fan popularity should have been shipped to GH to free up story time for the rest...

[tune_in_tomorrow]

I'd prefer the two to stay separate. My experience with the two shows -- mostly just in the 80s and in the last 10 years, so I know I don't have the complete picture -- is that at their bests, they were very different. OLTL was showy, bold, and larger-than-life at times. AMC was rooted more in reality and relationships, subtle (and no, this doesn't mean boring.) I enjoyed them both for very different reasons and don't think they meld together as well as it seems on the surface. Perhaps it would have made sense if both were still the shows Agnes Nixon created 40+ years ago, but I think their identities are too separate to successfully combine them.

[EricMontreal22]

I think that's fair enough. Both shows (at their best) complemented each other IMHO and while they seemed so share more of a similar universe than other soaps have, I agree that their overall tone was pretty different. While OLTL was not always as campy as it was for much of this past decade and under Rauch, I get the impression that even for much of the 70s it was always more urban, and maybe broader (although AMC for much of its lifre seemed to have more of the broad comic characters like Opal in the 80s). AMC seemed more focused at its best on the domestic and a smaller town feeling-- Even when OLTL was perhaps its most AMC like in the past little while--the Gottlieb/Malone/Griffith era with focus on social issues, etc, it still had a larger more over the top feel to its drama IMHO.

Back when Frons tried his massive cross over the rumour s of combining the shows, as mentioned were *everywhere*. While the crossover seemed to do alright ratings wise (though I think AMC, where more of the baby draqma played out, seemed to get the better numbers), fans were pretty against this idea. However, I suspect some fans now, if it had meant another year or two, would be more willing to try an experiment like this than they were back then, now that it was clear the shows weren't going to last--I admit a part of me would, as much as I think ultimately it wouldn't work.

I'm not sure if crossovers have ever really done much to save a show one way or another. I thought Angie and later "Jacob" were welcome additions to Loving, (Jeremy was perhaps less of one), but I don't think it ever really brought in enough fans of those characters to make much rating impact. Same for Tracy coming to The City where I *loved* her (but I barely knew the character before then--I think I had seen her a few times on Daytime to Remember), Anna on AMC, Skye and her muddled crossovers around the soaps, etc... Creatively some of these worked better than others, but I'm not sure rating wise they did (I'd be curious to try to find out if Loving's week long cross over with AMC in 1992 with the Carter story affected Loving's numbers at all).