SORASing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[SoapDope]

I always thought it was funny that John Colenback who played Dan Stewart on As The World Turns was older than Patricia Bruder who played his mother....LOL. Dan was born in 1958 and by 1966 was a grown man married to Susan. Tom Hughes was born 1961 and was grown and back from Vietnam in 1969. 

[~bl~]

In the early years of the relationship between Ross and Blake on GL, the age difference and the past was part of the story. On one of the episodes before their 1994 wedding,  Ross acknowledged to Ed about the crazy age difference between him and Blake - to the point of mentioning that he knew her as a child, and how he never thought this would happen. The age difference stopped being mentioned with regularity sometime when Rauch was in charge (though at least in a subtext way it was part of the Ben part), but through Laibson and the Dinah/Roger/Hart triangle situation, it was not just a line or subtext. That said Blake and Alan were involved prior to Ross coming to Springfield, and Alan historically was older than Ross. 

 

Before Holly and Ross became involved, they shared scenes where Holly was skeptical about Ross due to the past, and was not thrilled about the idea of working with him platonically. Ross convinced her that he changed, and he had to have or else how could he and Ed be best friends. There was one line about how he gets along with everyone in town now except Alan, doesn't like him, which was hilariously true.

[j swift]

Question:  Who was older David Banning (Julie's son on DAYS) or Jamey Frame (Rachel's son on AW)?  And who was SORASed first?

[Franko]

David Banning, by nearly two years. According to Jason47's page, he was born in January 1968. Jamie Frame, meanwhile, was born in November 1969.

 

David also got the lead on significant SORASing (from youth to adult as opposed to baby-older kid). It sounds like he became an adult character in 1975, the year after Mike Horton's significant SORASing. Adding insult to injury, Mike was initially younger than David. Of course, when your nephew is a few months older than you ...

 

Reading the AW Homepage has me certain Jamie's significant SORASing happened in the summer of 1978.

 

ETA: Nope. I'm wrong. Apparently Jamie was old enough to be a teenager between 1973 (when Robert Doran joined the cast according to AWH) and 1975 (when Doran joined according to IMDB).

 

Reminds me of Rupert Holmes' "Soap Opera": "Here's the baby who just grew/15 years in only two ..."

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[j swift]

Also, I still wonder about these Universal Soap Laws of SORASing:  

 

1. The "Bill Lewis Jr Rule" - Little Billy, like most SORASed people, seems to have no recall of what happened to them while they were off screen.  I remember that he went to a European boarding school, but he didn't seem to have any memories of that time, he had no friends from growing up, and he didn't speak any foreign languages.

 

2. The "Lucky Spencer Rule" - Despite the notoriety of their parents in the history of the town that they live in, SORASed people seem to have no knowledge of what happened to their family while they were off screen

 

3. The "Matthew Cory Rule" - Despite the fact that most SORASed people grew up out of town, and many of them never returned for holidays,  they are immediately recognized by everyone in their city.

 

4. The "Rick Forrester Rule"  - Despite the fact that most SORASed people have grown older by more than a decade, their parents and their family home looks exactly the same as when they left.

 

5. The "Nick Newman Rule"  Despite the fact that many wealthy soap families have spent a fortune on private boarding schools, SORASed kids often attend the local public high school.

[Franko]

1. I know @Mitch has talked about what a waste it was that Sabrina Fullerton on ATWT wasn't more colorful. The same could be said for Little Billy. But would he have been a juvenile Ugly American?

 

2. For a genre so dependent on catching up and heart-to-hearts, it's interesting when you get the one person who's out of the loop. I guess Lucky's like that one cousin who stopped updating their Facebook.

 

3. Maybe Brava had a special family issue each year, with updated portraits of Mac, Rachel, Amanda and Matthew?

 

4. There's something to be said about finding a style that works, I suppose.

 

5. "I want to have a normal life, with normal kids." I don't think Nick ever said that, but surely it hung in the air for himself and other soap brats.

[Khan]

I think Pam Long got around the fifth rule by having GL's Phillip Spaulding get kicked out of prep school.

[Vee]

I don't think those rules are necessarily fair for the most part. We've often heard about those kinds of characters' past lives or school friends or whatever when it relates to new story, but not for no reason. (Victoria and Sabrina on Y&R, Kelly and Grace on OLTL, etc) As for Lucky, I don't think that he didn't know his family saved the world from the Cassadines. He certainly knew all about Frank Smith. But it was 1993 and he didn't have access to the Internet of today, or any reason to believe he'd have to google the word 'rape' re: his parents.

[j swift]

Or some of that Chamberlain DNA could have set in and he might have worn more tweed blazers and grown an appreciation for soccer...

 

That would only have led to more arguments between Mac and Rachel over whether or not to include Sandy and Jamie.  And you know Iris would have wanted her own page...

 

 "I want to have a normal life, with normal kids." I don't think Nick ever said that, but surely it hung in the air for himself and other soap brats.

 

Those soap boarding schools don't play around, one infraction and it is straight home, just ask Matt Cory.  Also, rich soap kids have never heard the song - How ya keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paris? - because they all long for small-town life after the drudgery of a European education. 

[SamandWillowFan]

I liked all of the actors they got when they aged Michael, Kristina, Morgan, and Molly on GH. Two of those actors remain in the roles to this day. I know a lot of people would have liked Drew Garrett to remain in the role of Michael, though I don’t hate Chad Duell’s version. The only thing I didn’t like about aging Molly is that it made her significantly older than Cameron who she was born a year and a half after.

[Quent]

The most ridiculous SORASing I ever saw was Bonnie McKechnie on ATWT.

[Darn]

 

It rarely bothers me when they age them according to the parents. It much easier for me to buy Alexis having grown children over Elizabeth. Kind of how they aged Billy on Y&R from 3 to 16, John and Jill are old enough for me to just hand wave it. It was the same on Days with Victor, Kate and Phillip. It bothers me when characters who shouldn't have teenage children suddenly do, it unnecessarily ages them. Lily suddenly having teenagers was such an asinine decision. Christel Khalil looks barely older than them! It's stupid.

 

One of the dumbest de-SORASing or whatever you want to call it was Daisy (or SUSAN) on GL staying 18 for like a decade. I do not understand what they were trying to accomplish there. Did Harley just need a teenage daughter? Were we supposed to just forget Brittany Snow? Dumb.

[juppiter]

The Alli Fowler/Lucy Montgomery Rule - the first SORASed actor will become a massive star despite not making much of a splash at the time s/he is on the soap. 

[Khan]

 

Amen!

[juppiter]

 

Nicholas Alamain on DAYS has the record I think. He was a hunk hooking up with Cougar Kate when he only should have been old enough for Kindergarten. It was so wrong.