All: 25 biggest blunders in Daytime Soap History

[EricMontreal22]

Many of us did on here... I think it was an example of RC's OLTL having issues with tone. Many seemed to find it gay overkill, but I think the bigger problem was trying (and doing well with) to tell a serious story with KISH, the gay bashing, etc, and at the same time playing this jokey gay marriage story (that ultimately led to nothing except I guess making Dorian mayor, but I always wondered why suddenly super gay friendly Llanview didn't seem to mind that Dorian's lesbian "lover" disappeared--I guess she' s with the psychic-, Dorian got married, etc, when ti wa implied she won her election on the gay vote. Which again is a bit hard to take for Llanview even on a soap opera).

[All My Shadows]

The gayDorian storyline is basically representative of all that is wrong with Ron Carlivati's writing.

[edgeofnight]

Thank you, EricMontreal22, for clearing this up for me. I can't imagine the gay community not being up in arms over KISH's storyline ending so abruptly and then Dorian's 'unprintable' campaign strategy of pretending to be gay to win votes...and then to be elected! I spent 30 years in local, county, state and national politics, before I got sick. Almost 20 years ago, i was innocently involved in a local political scandal when a Village board member (who, ironically, some 30 years earlier was in the seminary studying for the priesthood) was talking to me on the phone and referred to another board member with an ethnic slur. Unbeknownst to us, our telephone conversation was taped, and the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan. It was all over the lcoal newspapers. It cost me my position on the local committee. (And, I did absolutely nothing...it's not as if I agreed with his assessment) So, I know all about local political scandals.

[DRW50]

I don't think it's online. The story really wasn't that bad at all, aside from the ridiculous man in the gorilla suit. Delia was lonely, she felt like she had no friends or support, her marriage had just broken up, so she went to visit Albert at the zoo. She was always so nice to him that he became obsessed with her, and finally when he was being mistreated by a new handler, he broke out, and kidnapped Delia. He kept her in an abandoned building. There were some location scenes outside the building where he was holding her body, a la King Kong. The police had to rescue her, she was traumatized for a while, Albert was sent away. It was a nice chance for Randall to do something as Delia besides whine and scream all the time.

Randall was so beautiful and delicate, able to play vulnerability, and also able to effortlessly fit into the fur coat/evening gown/nightclub era ABC was moving RH into (to the point where it was tough for Ilene to have to work with that when she returned). A lot of her material mostly involved Delia being stupid or childish, and it didn't have the buildup or the edge that Ilene's writing had. But Randall did a great job with it. She was also a very funny comedienne.

Here's a little of her run. There are some short clips under "Who's Sorry Now" that have the climax of when she ran over Barry and framed Faith.

I'm posting these fantasies because I just love them.

There's another moment I just love that isn't online where Delia, around New Year's Eve 1980, dances to "Red Light", with Michael Corbett, and his two girlfriends look on in disgust and envy. It's one of those scenes that captured the magic Randall brought to the role.

[marceline]

I had my issues with KISH. Actually I had "one* issue with Kish and that was the fact that in my opinion the character of Layla was disrespected and degraded for that story and pairing. That said, what ABC did to the KISH fans and actors was reprehensible. Blaming that one story for the ratings and slandering the actors, it was like ABC time warped back to 1950s Hollywood. I was practically looking around for Josephine Baker and Montgomery Clift.

[JaneAusten]

The thing is not only did ABC slander the actors but some of the "soap press"(take that for whats its worth) did also. To this day I can't believe one of those "journalists" was not fired for that.

[marceline]

Definitely. I hope those "journalists" realize that by playing ABC's game they helped create the atmosphere that got OLTL canceled. Not only that but people who up until then called themselves Kish fans just gave ABC a pass even as the network blamed them. "Oh that's okay be as bigoted, duplicitous and hateful as you want, I'll always be here to support you because I'm a real soap fan."

[Vee]

Who on Earth gave ABC a pass for firing Kish? As I recall, we were all livid. And I tuned OLTL out quite a bit since. I still think it was a terrible mistake. I haven't forgiven or forgotten.

[DeeeDee]

Pretty much.

OLTL had a legit diverse canvas with Kish, Cris/Layla, Destiny/Matthew, Mel, Nick, Delfina, Richard/Phylicia, Markko, Ernesto/Aurelia & Greg/Rachel/Sky.

The way ABC dumped/marginalized them & slandered Evans/Claywell was criminal.

[All My Shadows]

GOOD GOD I had so much hope for that show. I sincerely did. So many amazing things. I still weep over what they could have done with Nat/Jared and Jess/Brody. Just senseless .

[DRW50]

What was the worst was I thought they were the only strong part of the show at that time - that and Matthew's paralysis. I did complain about the material, especially when so much had to revolve around Stacy, Rex, Gigi, but Kyle, FIsh, Layla, and Cris had the potential to take the show in an entirely new direction, take it back to closer to what it used to be. Add in the great potential of Sky and of Rachel, and there was something fresh. This was not only dismissed, but viciously attacked, in favor of the status quo (Rapists R Us).

[difficultdiva]

Exactly.....I know that some of the posters on this forum may not have been under their grandma/grandpa/mother/father/aunt/uncle/older sister influence in growing up with these shows during their "glory years", but I vividly remember watching almost every soap on ABC, NBC and CBS during the late 70s/mid 80s and the soaps back then were more diverse than what we're currently left with now.

It just saddens me that all of these things have happened and nothing was done to stop it from the folks that were placed in charge of supposedly keeping this genre alive.

OLTL (and their diverse canvas) back in 2009/to early 2010 reminded me of what fictional soap opera towns/communities used to be. Not everyone was rich, white, utterly gorgeous and/or fit into a perfectly fit character role.

That's why I'm not really surprised that with each new year, another soap gets canceled.

[EricMontreal22]

AMC was still pretty diverse both class and race wise till the mid 90s--actually fairly late 90s it seemed. OLTL lost some of that (Ok a lot of that) under Rauh, even if his OLTL was a lot of fun but gained it back under Gottlieb--that's why it seems always so weird to me how since then--I guess with falling ratings, more reliance on focus groups and exec interference, that's been lost so much. But yeah OLTL did briefly regain that.

[SFK]

I think interracial divorcees Hank and (Jewish) Nora and their biracial daughter Rachel was such a rich, refreshing choice and I just wish that Hank and Rachel had the longevity Nora has had. There are some nice scenes on YouTube where Rachel deals with the matter of race in conversations with Kevin and Sheila.

[juppiter]

I think it's way overly simplistic to say that the 1990s were only about being "adult" and doing social issues storylines. Don't forget the 90s were the decade of Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, and Melrose Place. There was plenty of sensationalism in the 1990s. Just a different kind than in the 1980s because audiences didn't want another Ice Princess by the 1990s. That's not to say they didn't want sensationalism, they just wanted a different kind. The kind of sensationalism of the 1990s was more surreal, humorous, and postmodern.