Onscreen all the time and we liked it

[te.]

I've often wanted to start a discussion on that very subject, but I've never been sure how to put it down without sounding like a right tit. But it's a thing I've always wondered about - how many of those great stories we hear about in oral history of soaps actually happened? But English isn't my first language so I have no idea how to put down a proper discussion about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[titan1978]

Especially back in the day when it just aired once, no one had VCR’s, and they wiped the tapes.  Look at AMC’s early years- lots written about it, but it’s also lost, so we will never know.  And memory is tricky.  When you have the same characters for decades, it can get harder to place when something happened.  The Y&R transition to the Abbott’s was pretty recent as far as soaps go- but it’s not like we have a daily record we can actually see if every moment.  It’s not that I don’t think soap fans have fantastic recall- it’s just human nature to have lapses of actual memory that your brain fills in.  Not everyone is Marilou Henner!

 

When thinking about this topic, I also liked seeing the minor characters all the time too.  When a main character lived or worked at Kelly’s we saw Ruby several times a week.  Same with Dr. Hardy and Jessie if the hospital was hopping.  I liked seeing those folks all the time too!

[amybrickwallace]

Yes! On The Doctors, the same group of extras played background nurses and orderlies for years. They often took center stage...as the closing credits rolled. Sometimes they'd actually get a line. They were collectively known as "The Silent People". They became as well loved and recognized as the stars to many of us who have watched on Retro TV.

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[Pine Charles]

Kate Collins in the early ‘90s on AMC.

[te.]

Yeah, exactly. If I had seen DS during the original run - ie no way to rewatch, possibly missing episodes because there was no real way to record them and if you missed them, you just missed them, I'd probably just have assumed that David befriending Adam happened on an episode I missed. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if I eventually would've *remembered* it happening since out memories are so malleable and your memory can fill stuff in. I know for ages it sounded like we actually saw Addie push Hope's baby carriage out from harms way on DOOL, but apparently the actual scene was her going outside and everything happening off screen as an example. But the way people talk about it you'd easily believe it happened on screen.

[Fevuh]

I loved every second of the Coopers on GL, and I know that's an unpopular opinion given that they focused on them rather than the Bauers.  But I loved Frank, Buzz, Nadine, and Harley...Lucy not so much because I felt it was a swap for Harley when Beth Ehlers left.  And I didn't feel like they hogged the show.  I also never tired of Reva - another unpopular opinion.  I still never felt like she was a one-woman show...other characters were involved most of the time through the years, whether it be Sonni/Solita, Josh, Billy, HB, Vanessa, her Mom and Dad, Cassie and Roxie, Kyle, Buzz, her kids and others.  I never felt like 1 person ate the show.  On the other hand, I turned off Y&R from the second they had nu-nu-Adam eat the show...every time you turned it on it was Grossman's Adam all over the place and it felt like 24/7.  I have never gone back.  I just didn't care about Victor hating him, Victor now loving him, Adam hates his Dad, now Adam loves his Dad, and on and on and on.  I saw people calling it the Adam and the RestofThem - for good reason.  No thanks.

[Planet Soap]

 

Agreed!