Soap Opera Theme Definitions

[Marco Dane]

I found this from an old website about OLTL that is very interesting....

 

https://www.oocities.org/historypg/marg.html?20205#c

 

OLTL has used five different opening themes since its inception in 1968:

1. July 1968 - April 1975: Theme composed by Charles Paul. I'm told that, thanks to ABC taping over the first 11 years of OLTL, no copies of the original opening exist. The earliest opening has been described simply as the OLTL logo imposed over a scene of a crackling fireplace. The second accompanying visual, the "classic" OLTL sunrise (the sun coming up over a field) was the opening shown during the first of the "Daytime to Remember" series.
 

• "The first OLTL theme, which accompanied both the short-lived "fireplace" visuals and the early version of the sunrise, was composed by the late, great soap music composer Charles Paul. The piece was played by a chamber orchestra in the A-major key and was included in the 1977 album "Original Themes from the Great Soap Operas," put out by Columbia House on Realm Records. That Charles Paul theme was nearly as grandiose as the long-running Jack Urbont composed theme that ran from April 1975 to December 14, 1984."
  [David Jackson, to RATSA, 1997/09/20]

2. April 1975 - December 1984: Theme composed by Jack Urbont. The accompanying visual, I'm told, featured typical "romantic" scenes, such as shots of the sun in a partly cloudy sky, birds fluttering, clouds passing over mountaintops, etc.

3. December 1984 - December 1991: Theme composed by Dave Grusin, with lyrics sung by Peabo Bryson. This was the theme that ran during the years of executive producer Paul Rauch. I'm told it was the visual opening most similar to today's - still frames of the cast imposed over scenes of Llanview. The music was upbeat, with lyrics as follows:
 

• Here's what you do when you don't find the rainbow's end
  This time
  Here's where you go when it looks like the rain won't end
  Don't cry
  I'll give you tomorrow
  Let me be the one you share it with
  And each day that follows
  'Cause we only have one life to live.



 

4. January 1992 - November 1995: Theme composed by Lee Holdridge. This opening is known by OLTL fans as the the "Gottlieb" opening (in reference to former executive producer Linda Gottlieb), or the "champagne commercial". The music was a very pretty haunting, nostalgic tune. The accompanying visuals pictured the many facets of life such as birth, love, marriage, and death.

5. November 1995 - present: Theme composed by Lee Holdridge. The current opening debuted for the 7000th episode of OLTL on November 20, 1995, during the regime of former executive producer Susan Bedsow Horgan. The music has a rather busy, bustling, "big-city" sound. The accompanying visuals (two variants shown on alternate days) depict still shots of the cast over views of Llanview. Sandy tells me that the music improves when it's heard with "Surround Sound"; there are a lot of instruments (violins, etc.) that you can't discern on a normal TV set.

 

 

 

What do you think the other soaps theme song mean?

[Paul Raven]

Not quite sure by what you mean with this question?

All of the OLTL openings are onine.

[mikelyons]

All My Children's theme always centered on the family photo album for its entire history. They dropped the original Charles Paul theme in 1990 in favor of the jazz theme which was retained until cancelation. AMC was about family, the community...the Brotherhood of Man...and by retaining that vis-a-vis the photo album for over 40 years helped everyone know what the show was about.

The Young and the Restless has retained "Nadia's Theme" (back when it was "Cotton's Dream"!) since Day One. They've always retained the moodiness and character dependent themes which people have always loved. I will say that when Jill Farren Phelps re-did the opening with those meaningless character shots (diamonds/champagne falling for the women, nothing for the men), was just bad.

As the World Turns always relied on the globe to illustrate "our world" for over half a century!

Emmerdale has always shown the Yorkshire countryside... EastEnders, the East End of London... Coronation Street, a street in Manchester... These shows have retained their identity through their theme songs as have Neighbors and Home and Away (both of which I ate lunch to while residing in London)...

 

[BoldRestless]

 

Hah, it never dawned on me until now that Nadia won in 1976, which is after Y&R's debut. So it should really be said that Nadia became associated with the Y&R theme, not that Y&R uses Nadia's theme.

[DynamiteKiddo]

As a soap fan, the openings fascinate me.  But when it's not daytime, I have HIGH standards for opening title sequences and 99% of them are categorically bad or fall short of their concept.  This is your chance to really set the stage for your show and even say some stuff you may not even really be hitting on in the content.  Setting is obviously a great option for an opening, but themes, period, etc. are great.

 

My fav. soap opening is OLTL's 1995-2004 "Tour of Llanview"... I love the music, the city shots, and the actors' shots were really easy to adjust.  Even though none of the exteriors necessarily correlated to locations on the show, it gave me a feel of Llanview and that this was where everything was happening--a midsize city with really diverse neighborhoods and alternating shots of lush palatial, compact urban, and desolate industrial.  I don't feel like this opening gets much love lol.  The opening after this was terrible, as were all the Frons openings that debuted in '04 to unify the lineup (and they were a nightmare to adjust with cast changes).

 

And it's shocking because the show was such hot garbage, but I'd argue that "Passions," by far, had the best opening in design, quality, and execution (even though OLTL's was my personal fav.).  B&B's fashion show opening from a few years ago was a great concept, but it didn't quite reach its potential and it didn't adjust well to cast changes.  And a simple title card like Frank Valentini's first GH opening totally works, too.  It's probably best when you can't pull off something good (like Frank's successive train wreck GH openings OMFGH).

[Marco Dane]

The sad thing is I can hire someone on Fiverr to make a better opening for GH than ABC can...

[GLATWT88]

Ugh that opening is so tragic. Why would they even replace what they had if they were going to use something so cheap and amateurish looking. It's actually embarrassing.