AMC: Returns with potential

[EricMontreal22]

...I could used a little LOOOOOOVIIING.....

Loving was kinda an awkward title from the go. While more melodramatic, the original title Love Without End at least sounds a bit more like a show title to me.

When I "discovered" Loving due to the AMC cross over it felt like my own discovery (this was just before the Internet forums) SOD barely acknowledged the show--devoting about two pages an issue, if that, just to a recap. The Seattle based talk show where Cindy Rhineheart would cover the soaps never covered it even though it was on her own station. None of the Canadian affiliates carried it. And my mother's two friends who seemed to watch all of the soaps and so I'd discuss AMC and OLTL with them had never even heard of it.

[cassadine1991]

Sucks I was too young to remember Loving, how can you describe that soap, since AMC was the family one, OLTL was the grittier one while GH was the one with heart that told soulful social issues

[Vee]

Molly Malone (Melissa Dye) did end up on OLTL. She had a bit part in 2003 as a vocal mimic Mitch Laurence hired to...sigh...impersonate Viki and Dorian and lure them into a trap at an abandoned church.

Literally, she stood there onscreen holding a cellphone talking to Viki as Robin Strasser's voice was poorly dubbed over her lips like a Japanese monster movie: "Viki. Come to the church."

Good old Michael Malone (no relation).

[EricMontreal22]

Ha, I remember that!! Too funny that the character got her wish...

Cassadine--it was hard to describe because it went through so many changes. At heart when it was created (there's a Doug Marland episode from the first year on youtube that's great) it was college oriented (specifically to appeal to the huge colleg soap viewership at the time) but also a throwback to early 70s AMC, the thought seeming to be that now that even AMC, like most of the soaps had become bigger and more Dallas influenced (huge companies in these small towns, etc) there was room for a soap that went back a bit more to basics. In the 90s they brought back a lot of that focus and the college campus.

[cassadine1991]

Wait it was the SAME character of Molly from The City?? Cool..

Nice, It was like that I think I really would've enjoyed Loving

Oh Michael Malone, as crazy as his ideas were he was one of the best writers OLTL had

It would be great to know what happened to those characters and what's happening in Corinth

[Vee]

No, it was not Molly Malone from The City.

[cassadine1991]

Oh okay..

[greens_dupres]

I found GH years after AMC/OLTL toward the end of Jonathan Jackson's first run although I think I watched the classic eps on Daytime to Remember. My grandmother didn't watch it as she gave it up during Casey the Alien and weirdly refused to look back despite watching it from day 1 and watching the other 2 and Port Charles everyday until she died. For some reason, it took me like 5 extra years to question her stance on GH one snow day and try it myself which sucks because I missed all of the Labine stuff and love what I've seen of that era. And it was the one soap that would have been the easiest to watch after school- oh well, Agnes Nixon made me an expert in VCR programming at age 7. Its crazy to think of a time when if you missed an ep and your VCR failed you (those were the WORST days), that was just end of story with that ep and you were probably never going to see it.

I loved Daytime to Remember. Those Reba intros and wasn't there a song or jingle she sang? I was so mad OLTL got less weeks & GH, which I knew nothing of got the most. I think that may have been the first time I ever noticed there was not always equal love from ABC.

I would put Loving on for the theme song and then mute the tv until 1:00. I just never gave it a chance- nothing personal. But I loved that song. Now and forever is L-O-V-I-N-G. I also adored the extremely cheesy theme song on the Daytime's Greatest Weddings VHS tapes. I would rewind those tapes over and over for that annoying song. I still have those tapes- I can't bring myself to throw them away even though they're obsolete. I really should let go.

Shhhh this 90s reminsicing thread is most wonderful comfort food/walk down memory lane. No talk of shell of itself or annals of history or true faithful baby boomer fans here please. But yes you're right of course.

[EricMontreal22]

Your grandma jumped ship with Casey the Alien but not vamps on PC?

Yeah, I had recently started going to the old usenet soap boards just a bit before Daytime to Remember (which is why I remember how disappointed in early 1997 people were with directionless OLTL, some aspects of AMC like Erica and Maria's baby, and that while all other the ABC soap ratings were dropping--The City was, slowly, climbing but had already been canceled.) But yes, originally OLTL was not going to get ANY,and GH would get even more. I believe the reason to focus on GH was to hype people up for "the new GH!" PC. You lose points for never giving Loving a chance, BTW.

[greens_dupres]

I was really young the final years of Loving. And then the Loving murder promos creeped me out- I scared easily (well except for Todd terrorizing blind Nora- there I was riveted). I think I tried The City once or twice but it just didn't click with me.

I'll never really get that one except I guess age mellowed her need for realism in soaps (although she stuck with OLTL through Eterna & Wild West City so I don't know). Michael Easton showed up on OLTL right when she was dying and kind of out of it, I remember her telling me at the hospital that Caleb was now in Llanview posing as a cop & that fans weren't going to like Viki dealing with vampires. I just went with it. It was kind of a hilarious end to our times watching soaps together.

[EricMontreal22]

"I remember her telling me at the hospital that Caleb was now in Llanview posing as a cop & that fans weren't going to like Viki dealing with vampires. It was kind of a hilarious end to our times watching soaps together. "

That's a great funny/touching story

[twotrey]

And it would continue in '93 when Angie and Frankie moved to Corinth, and in '94 during that (bad) storyline that had Jeremy's life taken over by his long lost evil twin Gilbert (what a bad idea), Angie told Gilbert-as-Jeremy to call Ruth and Joe after the tornado destroyed their house and to tell Erica she was sorry about Mona's passing. The last Corinth mention on AMC before Frankie mentioned it in 2008 was sometime in '95 when Liza and Tad were having a brainstorming session about possible topics for The Cutting Edge, and Liza suggested "the Corinth serial murders." I think the main reason for the major crossovers of '91 and '92 was, of course, ratings, since Loving was the perennial cellar dweller, and AMC at that time was #2 in the ratings behind Y&R.