The Story of Soaps Primetime Special

[Soapsuds]

This was discussed in the ATWT thread with Hillary Bailey Smith podcast how she and Robert Calhoun had chosen Bryan Cranston to replace Gregg Marx as Tom Hughes after he left. After seeing him on the Living clip he would've made the perfect Tom. Instead after they went with Bryan they saw Scott Holmes in NY and went with him.

 

Who did Bryan play on Loving and for how long?

[DRW50]

 

He was Doug Donovan from about 83-85, I think. 

[reallyhateskateonlost]

I will forever hate the comparson of soaps with OJ. and with who shot JR. 

I always wanted to know who shot Peter Campbell on SOAP, which  they left out of  primetime soaps. SOAP is never mentioned because of Dallas. And Dynasty was better.

 

[Soapsuds]

Wrong...Dallas was better than Dynasty. No mention of Laura Wright on GL..lol

 

Writer Chris Van Etten is adorable.

[Vee]

Stamos was ready and willing to do the GH anniversary in 2013, but said he wanted a bit of substantive material for Blackie. They tried to offer him a walk-on gag Ron had come up with for him and Demi Moore, then trashed him with the soap bloggers for speaking up. He was talking about this seven years ago.

[Soapsuds]

I dislike him too but at least he trashed Luke and Laura.

Thanks!

[GLATWT88]

 

I'm not sure if this is it, but it was so long ago that I don't really remember much. I believe it may have been later in the 90s and it was a daytime special or aired during daytime. Perhaps, a special for ABC soaps. All I remember was mention of Luke and Laura, their wedding, and they played the ambulance intro to GH. I also believe they mentioned lots of soap weddings. I was fascinated by it as a kid and I remember there being lots of clips from soaps...not poor blurry ones like we had on this Story of Soaps. I tried searching for it online some years later, but there's so much more uploaded online these days I'm sure it may be up somewhere or it may actually be this. I'm positive this special was on during daytime, because my mom and sister were home and I was either home for a holiday or summer vacation. 

 

P.S. I recognize your name from another forum I used to be on some time ago. 

This was a cute moment. I love when celebrities share their love for soaps and this made me smile, because it was hilarious. I also enjoyed Kristian Alfonso's story about the male soap fan. I feel like the special would have done better having random moments like that and showing clips from major moments in soap history rather than trying to fit in so much in so little time and essentially not covering much at all because it was too much for the allotted time. 

Yes, I was really surprised by that. Even on the acting credits listed next to her name they only mentioned General Hospital. I thought it was shady and really weird. She was on GL for a very long time it wasn't just a blip in her resume. Some of the commentators had credits of stints that didn't even last a year to tie them to the soap world. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by GLATWT88

[antmunoz]

Yup. Like LOVING and THE CITY weren’t on ABC?  LOL

[Soapsuds]

Ratings..

0.3 demo

2.03 viewers

 

a big flop!

[victoria foxton]

 

  

[AbcNbc247]

THIS!!!!

 

That was what annoyed me the most

Edited May 20, 2020 by AbcNbc247

[GLATWT88]

Do you know how the lead in performed?

[Soapsuds]

After the dance..

0.4 demo

2.63 viewers

 

the story of soaps did lower in demos than reruns on the other networks. That's bad..

[GLATWT88]

Yikes! I guess the story of soaps is that no one's watching anymore. 

[Gray Bunny]

 

Just catching up on this thread, and I *hate* that.... but this soap special isn't the only guilty party. Nowadays, any of these retrospective shows seem to pull clips from YouTube, with blurred, fuzzy video and muffled or exaggerated audio. It's lazy. Go to the original source and get something of quality. 

 

 

 

In the early 2000's or whenever Y&R was still averaging 5-6 million viewers daily, the overall male demographic was just over 1 million. I'd say that's pretty awesome to think 17-20% of their audience was men. 

 

But we're sure getting a lot of Victoria Wyndham shots! 

 

So much of the vintage clips of soaps in the early 80's and the soap fan craze was lifted from that PBS special on soaps they did in like 1981. It's on YouTube somewhere. Hell, that's probably where ABC got it 

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I like that too, BUT.... for as much as his remarks contributed to the flow of this two hour special, it would've been nicer had they used a soap veteran who had lasted longer than a year or two on their show. 

 

Agreed. It was running though my mind after watching, what they SHOULD HAVE done. I mean, yeah, it's awesome they devoted a two-hour primetime special to this. But, it was very frenetic and ADHD in its delivery, much like what ABC does with all their specials nowadays (their annual Year In Reviews, the return of Roseanne special etc.). 

 

And we get it. This Is Us is like a soap. That montage at the end featured This Is Us in literally every other clip.