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Best Soap Opera Theme


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I do like the closing theme better, but I also like the opening for some reason. Just me, though :) .

This is another version from a David Foster album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-OXSEkzkpw

We agree on the toilet flush theme, though, lol. There's something oddly grand sounding about it--even with the toilet flush. lol

And I also like this theme, even if the actors themselves have somewhat depressed looking faces in the opening itself, lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgKbo1RxVD0&feature=related

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I like the opening by Sandy Dvore too. He really likes his paint as he designed the brush strokes for Y&R.

Its funny you say that about the 11th season opening. That was designed by Castle/Bryant/Johnsen who designed ATWT's main titles in 1993. They must have liked the "outdoors" take on things.

Knots Landing has quite a few main title designers who also did the main titles for daytime soaps such as Wayne Fitzgerald.

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I loved:

The Y&R opening with the drawings - so classy

Love Of Life - late 70's with the black background and the cast images - If I had my own daytime soap, that would be the opening :)

Guiding Light - Late 70's - it gives me the chills

70's Another World & ATWT - the themes were so dramatic - Why did they change them?

The first AMC opening

OLTL - the champagne opening

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Yeah, the final version of Love of Life's theme definitely gets my vote, and I wasn't even alive to see it and I know the show was pretty much a mess by that point. Ironically, I think it would have been the perfect opening for the Labine-Mayer era earlier in that decade. It doesn't seem quite appropriate for a show that revolved around a character named "Bambi."

These two get my vote for the best openings for shows that I actually watched, for much the same reason that was mentioned in reference to the GL one - they were among the first soap themes I remember and I still associate them with shows that I loved at the time, but they hold up to this day, IMO. Actually, my favorite version of this GH opening was the one circa 1995, with the slightly different intro music - I think that remains my favorite "fade" from a soap opening - and which incorporated the "action" scenes from the Puerto Rico and Luke-and-Laura return remotes. It really managed to capture several very different aspects of GH at different times over the years, and blend them seamlessly while reflecting a contemporary show for the '90s:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zrGMRtQcT-k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And as for the opening of the other show that I most loved around that time...

At the time, as an adolescent, I thought this opening was incredible, and it still gets to me on a sentimental level, but in hindsight it is pretty embarrassing. Although to be fair that final 1996 one was especially bad, with none of the charm that the earlier versions did have. The iconic shots were gone - Iris in her Snowflake Ball dress, Rachel with Mac and then later Ada and Amanda - or no longer fit JFP's "vision" of the show - Felicia with her boa, Donna voguing in her jewels, social-climbing Paulina stealing a bite of that icing with her finger, Jake with his video camera - making for a very sad production all around.

Part of the problem was that the opening didn't seem to be updatable...or sometime in the early 90s the budget for doing so appropriately was slashed, because nearly all of the ones that I mentioned were actually added a year or two after the opening debuted. By the mid-'90s, though, when we were still watching Iris's triumphant entrance at an over-the-top '80s costume party about six months or so into her jail term, it was almost a slap in the face to viewers who had an attachment to the show's "history" from even just a few years earlier. I guess it's good that JFP got her new opening before Frankie's murder...I could just see going from Frankie pleading for her life to the opening, featuring her and Cass gambling at that casino.

I do still have a special place in my heart for the music, especially the original, extended version, but even that they messed up by having completely different music for the closing theme. Which also has nostalgic value for me and I didn't think was even so bad, but has that ever happened before or since - a soap having a completely different opening and closing theme? I guess it was a good representation of how utterly inconsistent AW was toward the end.

That said, I had no love lost for the JFP opening, and oddly enough the people who worked on it seemed to have learned nothing from history as far as the difficulty in updating that "You Take Me Away to..." opening (or, more likely, JFP ignored the more veteran production staff members and/or actively went against their advice in order to insure that she would leave her "stamp" on the show long after she was gone). JFP's version was difficult/expensive to update as well, and it too was dated within a year or two of its debut. The full version of that music that they played over the closing credits was pretty good, but the visuals and the overly dramatic styling of the opening sequence killed it for me.

I actually thought the mid-show bumpers they created for AW's final week (or two?) featuring the "You Take Me Away" theme song, the classic '70s interlocking circles, and actual clips of the characters could have been the basis for a successful, appropriate AW opening for the '90s, but of course it was too late:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="

frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ahhh, Ryan's Hope. Never a bad opening, even when the show was a disaster at times later in its run. Even that opening featuring generic extras from the "Kirkland's Hope" era would have been perfect for another show. I love them all.

What a fun topic!

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Ill say it right now, GH's FoTH opening has got to be the most overated soap opening out there. The music was great but people like its the be all, end all. It didnt have great visuals and the red tint felt pretty dated by the time it was retired in 2004. I think it lasted a lot longer than it should have. The theme should have remained but the visuals should have been given an upgrade years earlier

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Exactly. And when they played the slow closing version for the opening in episodes where there was a funeral, it was very moving. I liked the early shots with David Lewis and Anna Stuart, Monica, Alan, and the boys sharing a frame, Tracy and Ned sharing frame...

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OMG! The long GH closing from the late 70s and 80s! I have been looking for it everywhere. And yes, I love it.

I also love Santa Barbara's opening, the original B&B opening, the original AMC opening (with the hand turning the pages of the book) and, of course, Nadia's Theme. Always and forever.

Nightime? Dynasty and The Colbys. Without question. Though the Dallas theme was even more iconic than those two.

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