Trademarks of Different Creators/EPs/Writers

[Forever8]

When it comes to this opening, it felt like JFP thought Bay City was really a borough in NYC instead of a Chicago suburb. Poor Stephen Schnetzer, Alice Barrett and Matt Crane were only in that opening once, but how many times did Grayson McCouch pop up in that opening? Smh! 

[Planet Soap]

Trademarks of Ron Carlivati/Frank Valentini soap: random and messy uses of established history, dark and edgy crime stories and youth charachters.

[Paul Raven]

John Conboy's trademark as a producer were lush visuals with detailed sets, specific lighting, fancy gatherings etc  but not such a good grip on story. It worked with Bill Bell as writer on Y&R but his stints on Cap, SB and GL showed he needed to be paired with a strong writer.

[DRW50]

Don't forget rape is sexy and it's great fun seeing camp gay men sexually harassing/assaulting other men.

Makes you wonder even more what happened to make him vanish from the show so abruptly. I guess he just quit at the last minute to try fame elsewhere.

[All My Shadows]

Irna Phillips’s style was home to office to hospital, periodt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode of an Irna-penned soap that spent much time outside of those settings (along with maybe a courtroom). That’s partly because of the budget they were working with but also because her entire worlds were centered on characters’ home and work lives. Hospitals and courtrooms were the perfect overlap.

 

Also - the wise, all-knowing elder who advised the characters who were mired in drama. She created that archetype with her very first radio soap.

[Paul Raven]

Was there an Irna show that didn't deal with illegitimate children/adoption?

This goes back to TGL's radio days when Rose Kransky gave up her child and it was adopted by the biological father and his new wife.

Then you had Meta Bauer giving up her son and the drama that followed.

ATWT had Ellen Lowell and later Sara Fuller/Amanda Holmes along with the Peter Burton story in the early 70's and Amy Hughes also.

AW had Missy as the illegitimate child.

Bill Bell stole the formula with Julie on Days.

[Soaplovers]

And agnes Nixon employed that template to AMC with the wise all knowing elder (Kate Martin), the hospital, homes, and courtrooms... though she did take advantage of Pine Valley being not too far from NYC by having the boutique...that led to buying trips to NYC for Erica, etc.

 

I noticed OLTL had that same type of opening in the later 90s like AW.  However, on OLTL, it fit because of it's history as a more urban edgy show (pre 1984's Rauch era)...while AW was never that type of show (it always read as a more Masterpiece theater type of show in the 60s,70s, and 80s.).

[Forever8]

Not to mention casting for white male himbo characters and not learning their lesson when it comes to ill-fated plots of the past. 

[Vee]

I think dark crime/serial killer stories were more a trademark of Brian Frons, who wanted to rebrand and mold all the ABC soaps into the model of specific primetime dramas. He felt OLTL should become a vehicle for Michael Easton solving murder mysteries, and this was aided by Dena Higley pitching multiple serial killer stories on top of each other, some running at the same time.

That being said, FV and RC (under Frons) absolutely did indulge the same need and/or mandate in a series of very bad stories. I don't think shitty slasher mysteries were Ron Carlivati's big yen when he started, but he's definitely done more than a few since.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Vee

[Faulkner]

Yeah, OLTL’s theme/opening also felt reminiscent of the classic ‘80s theme in a subtle way. It felt very in keeping with the show and its identity.

[Vee]

The mid-'90s OLTL update also showcased the urban world and the Banner newspaper backdrop via shots of the paper, ending on a shot of a newsstand IIRC, etc. Those were great identity markers.

I loved that opening, but I do wish that at some point they'd fused elements of it with an update of the Peabo Bryson song. Something like that is still what I'd go with today. The terrible 2004-2011 opening was just a tossed-off, cheap rehash of similar material being done by Frons' ABCD at AMC and GH around the same time, only much more low-effort and with less of an individual identity than either one - AMC got the photo album and classic theme, while GH got its OTT high-budget Guza revamp. At OLTL the cast was simply expected to vamp for the network-wide black backdrop commercial bumpers, and while all the soaps did those bumpers only OLTL's opening sequence was done in the same format and clearly as part of the same shoot. It seems ABC felt they didn't merit more time or effort than that.

The only thing visible that had any identifiable markers in the OLTL 2004 update was vague background shots of the college campus they shot at on location briefly in early '04 as part of the Music Box Killer story. It was clearly intended to showcase Llanview University, which Brian Frons was pushing as a major focus of the show with the latest round of failed twentysomething characters (the Love Crew). No sign of the Banner, nothing else. OLTL was simply never a priority for Frons. People mock the goofy Snoop Dogg opening in 2013, but at least it had a personality lol.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Vee

[Faulkner]

“I try to do RIGHT, I TRY to do RIGHT. Because I only got, only got, only got, only got…”

[Vee]

It's the Téa Delgado sexy hand jive for me!

[Planet Soap]

OLTL always felt like the middle child of ABC Daytime. GH and AMC were greater priority. I don't know if people off the street (of a particular age) could name an OLTL storyline off the dome. They just know the name however.

That 90s urban opening with end credit shots of basketball courts and Amtrak trains really cemented the show's urban feel. The dialogue between characters on one life to live, especially the Christian/Natalie/Jess youth scene felt more down to earth and every day life than the more glamorous Y&R. 

A lot of the soaps transition between a big city or small town atmosphere whenever it's convenient for them. Guiding Light felt big cityish in the 90s only to seem very small and suburban during the new production model around 2008. 

Repeated names I keep seing across shows: Shelly Altman, Jean Passanante, Pat Falken Smith, Megan McTavish, Lorraine Broderick. Do/did they have any defining features to their writting?

 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by ironlion

[dragonflies]

and rapemances