After reading some comments about the amount of families Guiding Light introduced between 1977-1987, it made me think about   a who’s who of new families that successfully were integrated into the show. On the flip side, I can easily think of the number of families that arrived into a show’s town already DOA. 
 

Some successful new families I can think of include:

ATWT: Snyders, Carly/Rosanna/Molly/Gwen

AW: Love/Hudson

B&B: Spectras

Days: Bradys, Reeds/Roberts

GL: Spauldings, Lewises

Y&R: Abbotts, Barber/Winters

Unsuccessful families include:

ATWT: Kasnoffs (except for Mike)

B&B: Ramirez family

Days: Scofield family

GL: Santos family 

Y&R: Rayburn family, Rosales 

Successful:

GH -- Quartermaines; Bobbie, Luke & Ruby

OLTL -- Buchanans

 

Unsuccessful

DOOL -- Chandlers

GH -- Eckerts

 

I think the key is that a good new family should come gradually, 1-2 members at a time if possible.

Successful 

GH: Quartermaines, Cassadines

Unsuccessful

DAYS: Hernandez family(even though Rafe/Gabi survived)

OLTL: Rappaports

Y&R: Dennisons

 

Are the ATWT McCalls considered successful or unsuccessful? Nobody hated them (except perhaps the father), but they were gone within a few years.

Y&R really tried it with the new families in the early 80s, but only the Abbotts sticked around. Was the Williams family a success? Steve left really soon, Patty stayed for a few years, Todd never showed up and Carl vanished. 

B&B also tried it with the Marrones, but I wouldn't call them a success. Then there was a time where Lorenzo Lamas and Sydney Penny showed up as a new family unit. Linda Gray was part of the mix.

 

Successful

AW: The Frames

Days: The Bradys really do own the successful part of this thread, if you think about it.

GH: The Webbers

Unsuccessful

AW: The Sheas, The Gregorys

OLTL: The Fords

Successful:

AMC: Santos, Cambias, Montgomery to name a few lol

B&B: Avants, Spectras & Finnegan's

Unsucessful:

GH: Eckert's 
OLTL: Ford's

Although not technically introduced as a family, Y&R Newmans would be considered successful I think. 

Unsuccessful

SB The Perkins -John, Joe, Marissa, Jade, Amy

Y&R Laurences - Robert, Claire, Angela

5 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Unsuccessful

SB The Perkins -John, Joe, Marissa, Jade, Amy

Y&R Laurences - Robert, Claire, Angela

Perkins had potential...but only Amy was accepted.

I always saw Bell realizing the Laurences were a bust and fixed his mistake by replacing them with the Fenmores.

Successful

GL: Coopers

Failure:

GL: shaynes (only Reva had long time potential)

Y&R

Success- Prentiss family - Vanessa, Lance and Lucas and Leslie/Lorie as in laws.

Flop- Bill Bell tried with the Stevens-April, Dorothy and Wayne and then  twin sister Barbara but then quickly dumped them all.

SFT

Kendalls -flop? Lloyd, Steve, Michael, Estelle,Chase, Alec,TR

So many recasts, story changes meant that family never really took off. They were never on the canvas at the same time.

AW Holloways -flop Taylor,Miranda,Amy, Rick,Kit .The show dropped many more familiar and long running characters to focus on this clan but they were soon dropped.

7 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

SB The Perkins -John, Joe, Marissa, Jade, Amy

And the same could be said for the Andrade family.

Unsuccessful: Rosales family Y&R

Successfully: The Buchannans OLTL in 1979. 

We're OLTL's Rapparports considered successful?

5 minutes ago, ironlion said:

We're OLTL's Rapparports considered successful?

No. They were despised. Lindsay only survived based on Cat Hickland's performances.

On 1/28/2023 at 8:42 AM, Sapounopera said:

 

Y&R really tried it with the new families in the early 80s, but only the Abbotts sticked around. Was the Williams family a success? Steve left really soon, Patty stayed for a few years, Todd never showed up and Carl vanished. 

The Williams family kinda "morphed" into the Detective Agency Family.  

In one of his reviews during the 1980s, John Kelly Genovese remarked (wisely) that Y&R had basically three structural components -- the Jabot/Abbott storyline, the Victor/Nikki/Kevin/Kay storyline, and the Young Detectives storyline (which was comprised of Paul, Andy, Amy, Jazz, and Kong).  Paul Williams still had parents of course, and he still had a sister until about 1984, but his storyline was most often centered around his "work crew" with Andy, Amy, Jazz, Tyrone, and Nathan.  

Days: The Johnson Family was successful. Steve and Adrienne - and Jack, tied to them as a biological Billy Johnson but raised by a corrupt wealthy politician in Harper Deveraux.

The Reeds reminded me of a bargain-basement version of the Johnsons: Lucas, the child of wealth/privilege, despising his half siblings (for a long time) in Austin/Billie. Kate losing Austin/Billie just as Jo gave up Steve/Billy (Jack).

And Earl Johnson and Curtis Reed terrorized their wives and sexually molested their daughters.

Edited January 30, 20232 yr by Wendy