Soap Opera Digest rating the openings from 1998

[soapfan770]

This is from one of those ten lists SOD use to do in the late 90s which were generally fun to read. This particular list is from April 1998. Here they gave ratings to the opening sequences of the eleven soaps at that time using a four star rating system:

AMC-*1/2--called the opening and music a "bad Maxwell House commerical"

AW-**1/2

ATWT-****-they really loved the nature theme

B&B-***-complained about still using 11-year old shots though

Days-***1/2

GH-***

GL-** they didn't like it had been cut

OLTL-**1/2

PC-**

Beach-***

Y&R-****

[MichaelGL]

I'm surprised they gave GL two stars. That 15 second opening wasn't even worth one star.

[DRW50]

I don't even remember SuBe's opening.

**** is generous to ATWT's opening. While I can see a lot of care went into it, I always thought that opening was very depressing, which unfortunately matched my mood for most of the years it ran on ATWT. I guess it was better than the toilet flushing one after it.

[beebs]

I remember the best review of that opening in SOW being "we were going to say something about GL's new opening, but we blinked and missed it". To be fair, it WAS better to just cut the thing as opposed to having that cruddy electric guitar version playing. Blech.

[dm.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX0xkrGv83s&feature=related

I thought it was great.

[Cheap21]

I loved AMC's opening. PC as well

<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9rzSiGQ_tAk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[JackPeyton]

im always amused when they would grade days' differently in different issues when it was the exact same opening.

[Khan]

Or the island-flavored one. I adore Michael Laibson as an EP, but I've no idea why that had to happen.

[SFK]

I loved SuBe's first opening, which was deemed too primetime.

GL did a similar slow, smooth jazz thing with HOTL which was also panned. What the heck is wrong with people, why can't a daytime soap have a slow, sexy theme? OLTL's Satin Sheets was also a beautiful theme, but its Loving-like visuals and the loss of Peabo was the real issue for most fans I suppose.

Do any of you remember the early days (I'm talking, like, first week or two) of AMC's White Linen opening? They did at least three versions of the theme and there were two really slow ones that were just all wrong for AMC. One even had this country twang to it.

[DRW50]

I thought the OLTL theme was just generic - the music, the visuals, everything. It was so incongruous to the vitality and diversity in Llanview at that time. Imagine hearing about the show and then seeing some big ass in your face.

[SFK]

Yeah, I mean, all of the Dirty Dancing-ness of it is one thing, and I maintain that it would have been a better opening for the generically-titled Loving, but I do think that it captured (to a degree) the attractive dark moodiness of the show at the time.

[DRW50]

For me, the Loving theme they had a bit earlier in 1991 was a better fit than the OLTL one - but I don't know, it's something silly to quibble about since most of OLTL was pretty good in 92-93.

[beebs]

I'm actually quite surprised about OLTL. Though I have to say it wasn't really suited a show about a suburb (it would've been a better fit for a show like The City, rly), but it was so much better than that cheesy Satin sheets opening, which I've always felt was more a parody of a soap opening than anything. I get why AW's opening scored so meh, considering they went to all this expense to have this cool hip and flashy opening and then when new characters were cast and they needed replacing, "oops no money to shoot two seconds on film!" so they do a cheap splicing with videotape? Tacky.

[EricMontreal22]

I loved the first SuBe opening too--and yeah it was quickly replaced because they said it was too primetime (it did have that feel of Melrose, Models Inc, etc's openings it's true--of course the whole original point of SuBe was to try to do a daytime Melrose, and it didn't really come into its own till that was partly dropped). But I know most fans seem to prefer the uptempo later opening.

Here are both A and B openings from the first fe wmonths combined

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI4AswnrAxA

I was never a huge fan of the white opening for AMC but I would definitely have rated it higher than that--I think it was a good opening, I just always prefered the other 90s (and now current) theme, music wise.

From what I remember they actually used a piano downtempo version of the theme for several full months--I kinda remember the country music one too. There was some thought that the downtempo theme could be used for the really sad episodes, but for the msot part it didn't make sense why they had changed it.

And I liked the satin sheetas OLTL opening, lol, but I get the objections. That said it probably made sense to focus more on the urban element of OLTL--yeah Llanview is meant to be a suburb but it always had a much more urban feel to it, IMHO, than AMC. (While too short, and later on not updated much--which always happens with ABC it seems, I did love The City theme and images, though I know it was canceledbefore this poll)

[BingCherry]

I remember that AMC changed their theme fully to the piano version around Maria's "death" and didn't bother changing it until Dixie came back. I remember SOW calling the variation "dour" back in '97, but I still prefer it to the overly up-tempo pseudo-disco theme that replaced it.