Comparing and contrasting "The Bold and the Beautiful" with "Santa Barbara"

[GSGfan2017]

How has The Bold and the Beautiful been similar to Santa Barbara?  How has B&B been different from Santa Barbara?

[YRfan23]

I've actually heard that Passions was more comparable to Santa Barbara..

 

but...for one they are both set In California.. haha

[Gray Bunny]

Okay, this is random. 

[juniorz1]

 

Luis & Sheridan were/are a total Cruz & Eden ripoff.   I actually was super excited when A Martinez was brought on to DAYS to play Galen Gering's dad, as I always thought he should have been cast as such on Passions.

[Sapounopera]

Both shows set in sunny California, focused on a rich scandalous family, star-crossed lovers and appealled to international audiences as they were serving a daily dose of Dynasty during the eighties.

 

Capitol, Santa Barbara, B&B, Sunset Beach belong to the same soap family as far as I am concerned.

 

B&B transformed into a silly telenovela-like show with silly characters within the years while Santa Barbara was cancelled before turning into a joke. 

[GSGfan2017]

I can't say that A Martinez was too happy during his 1999-2002 stint as Roy DiLucca on General Hospital.  Imagine if he had played Luis on Passions during that period instead.

[juniorz1]

B&B and SB are also both wildly popular in France.

[slick jones]

 

 

AM is a little long in the tooth to be Eva Tamargo's son? No?  GG was enough of a stretch....

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[Sapounopera]

Both shows were very popular in Greece. People were obsessed with B&B in the late eighties and several actors visited our country.

 

KKL did a tv perfume commercial and presented the Miss Europe Contest along with Dan McVicar who portrayed a priest on our cult 90s daytime drama The Shining. 

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[GSGfan2017]

Elsa, what did you think of Santa Barbara?

[Sapounopera]

 

As a teenager I was obsessed with the show. (1984-87 episodes)

 

After that I couldn't keep up with all the deaths, the rapes and the recasts but I always had a soft spot for the show and there eras and stories that I enjoyed. Mason and Julia were MY supercouple btw.

 

I think the show might still be around today if it had been a half-hour soap and if a capable executive producer had managed to maintain some stability. 

 

Watching again after all these years I get the outdated "NBC tries to compete with GH" eighties vibe.

[Cat]

 

This is basically my story too. IA about all the recasts and revolving door of producers and writers which made what appeared onscreen impermanent and therefore more difficult to invest in after a while. But Mason & Julia were FIRE! 

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 And tbh I thought it was better than GH at the time.

 

As far as comparing SB and B&B, both were/are products of their time. Glossy 80s soaps meant to echo the era's hugely popular nighttime soaps about obscenely wealthy, dysfunctional families and their dark secrets. A blind man could trace a direct line from Dynasty to Santa Barbara and B&B.

 

I am disappointed at how repetitive B&B has been since the mid-90s. Funny how SB was desperately crying out for long-term stability -- B&B is the opposite case, atrophying under a bored, longtime EP and HW who endlessly recycles the same plot(s), often with the same group of actors, lol. I know it's a case of being careful what you wish for (Y&R never recovered after CBS/SONY edged out the Bells), but I wish we could get different EPs and HWs for B&B without diminishing the Bell control over that show. They could promote from within, as B&B often does, to its credit. Someone who knows the history, but who has talent and freshness. Someone who is not Brad Bell, lol.

[GSGfan2017]

Well, Elsa, the current daytime soaps in the United States aren't produced like Santa Barbara was.  Just ask A Martinez, who played Cruz Castillo on SB.

 

How do you think SB tried to compete with GH, Elsa?  Also, how similar was the Kelly Capwell character on SB to the Brooke Logan character on B&B?

[Sapounopera]

 

I mean that watching SB now, I see the "NBC tries to compete with GH" aesthetics. The music, the direction, the tone. I didn't get that vibe from the CBS soaps of that era.

 

When I first saw Brooke I thought of Kelly because of the hair 

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 Robin Wright's Kelly was an old-school ingenue while early Brooke had no real direction since Bill Bell hadn't decided if she would become a heroine or his new Jill Foster. 

[GSGfan2017]

Elsa, how similar do you think Days of our Lives was to Santa Barbara during the mid-to-late '80s?  A certain Facebook friend of mine thought that Robin Wright's Kelly Capwell was boring.  To her, Robin's Kelly always seemed to be missing and always seemed to be in need of rescuing.