Best/Worst Network Promo Campaigns

[BetterForgotten]

Nothing is worse than the DAYS promos from the 80's when they hired a bunch of ABC actors and had them talking about making "the switch." I don't know if those promos are still on YouTube...

 

None of those actors who made "the switch" lasted very long...

Edited February 12, 2019 by BetterForgotten

[Khan]

Honestly, those promos in particular came off like cheap dating service videos.

[Franko]

The lone success story would be Robin Mattson. Such awful puns.

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Edited February 13, 2019 by Franko

[j swift]

I find those spots to be equally cheeky and charming (even if they made no sense with the characters and their respective plotlines).  Lenore Kasdorf and Kristen Meadows were so great on their prior shows that it might have induced me to tune in. 

[Franko]

Yes, I scrolled back and realized you were a fan.

(Meanwhile, I'm waging a tireless search for the Men of Another World gettin' down.)

[DRW50]

 

I figure it's supposed to be showing them romance.

 

I'm still not sure how Rachel and Steve having a staring contest got in there.

[Franko]

I like to think it's studio footage of VW having a "can you believe this guy?" moment with GR.

[j swift]

It's odd that 30 years later promos were directed at a totally different audience.  However, the 1974 promos are appropriate for their time.  Heck, there was a show called How to Survive a Marriage, soaps were all about "contemporary drama" and navel-gazing seemed sophisticated.

 

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Edited February 13, 2019 by j swift

[SoapDope]

I love that promo even though the horn is annoying. I wonder why they just listed those 3 soaps as a triple feature and excluded Y&R and Search For Tomorrow ?

 

The only 70's Y&R promos I have seen are: The 1973 debut with the voice over during the opening credits talking about an exciting new soap by William J. Bell the head writer for Days Of Our Lives and the 1979 promo of Nikki killing her father and Casey comforting her.

 

Is it just me, or does GL Peggy Fletcher look like Brett Butler of Grace Under Fire fame ? 

[SoapDope]

Brett Butler............................................................Fran Myers

 

 

[Paul Raven]

ATWT, GL and EON all aired in a P&G block 1.30 - 3.00 pm 

 

LOL, Y&R and SFT aired 11.30 am - 1.00pm.

 

With that half hour of local time in between I guess CBS saw them as 2 different time periods.

[Khan]

Yeah, what IS with that horn?  What was it supposed to signify?  Because, it certainly would not compel me to think GL was a soap filled to bursting with dramatic tension and high stakes drama.

 

The editing makes you think OLTL's Brody is getting a b.j. in the shower.

[~bl~]

The scene from The Doctors in that 1974 clip was romantic, the problem was without dialogue it made no sense. So unless you saw that day, you would be very confused. 

 

I didn't mind the airhorn on the TGL ad. I think it was supposed to make people look away from what they were doing (they thought everyone was ironing I guess...) and look at the television, as since you couldn't hear any dialogue the only way you knew what was going on was watching the screen. (I'm only partly joking.)

[SoapDope]

1978 promo for the premiere of Dallas. It's pretty good, but the thing about "exposing the secrets that they had hoped to hide forever" was kind of odd. Little did CBS know that the 5 episodes that aired as a mid season replacement would turn into the blockbuster it would become by 1980.  I have still yet to see a 1979 promo for the debut of Knots Landing. 

 

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[DramatistDreamer]

Does anyone remember CBS Daytime had a promo that used Patti Austin's The Heat of Heat song? 

I think it ran in 1986, which I think was the same year they used the Robert Palmer Addicted to Love song. 

Maybe each ran in different seasons? 

Both promos had virtually the same theme of ocean waves lapping up on the beach then retreating, revealing the name of the soap written in the sand.

 

EDT:  I found one example.  I wish we could find the extended promos where he hear the actual song, no the reverb echo. 

 

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