New families that took off and families that didn’t

[Taoboi]

Yeah...OLTL's Buchanans came to mind for me as well. 

 

Recently...besides the Rosales on Y&R, I would say the Benedicts as well and they came in with potential. 

Exactly! This.

 

It's funny that so many writers will introduce families, but not take the time to do it in a way where the audiences like them as much as the writers apparently seem to. 

You know I love you, but does it count if characters from said family are still around vs just...gone?

 

And I felt like the Dennisons were introduced gradually enough that they were successful versus a family introduced one year and then the next...gone. I felt like their dad was around for a while. Tricia was kinda major, but I remember they did Megan the old school way of gradually showing her before she got major story and eventually the audience cared about her. And goodness knows Tricia's madness was over YEARS. I vaguely remember some hate at first, but did it stay around the first introductions?

[DynamiteKiddo]

I think both families were very successfully integrated into the show.  On the flip side, the next iteration of the Johnson prototype was the Walker family… who didn’t take off. However, we never could’ve known then that Nicole would, many years later, become one of the show’s more successful female leads.

[Darn]

I'd say Megan and Tricia were both very successfully, especially my mad baby Tricia. It was their father who never clicked and frankly I think it came down to the actor not being terribly attractive. This was the man Jill was supposed to fall for? Doubt it.

[Taoboi]

I would say the same.  I remember not caring for Megan myself, but by the time she left, I was invested...a sign of great writing. Either could have come back under other writing regimes and still had some connection to the canvas I felt and the audience would have liked to see them.

 

But yeah...their dad was the weak link. And even I was like...Jill...really?? I didn't even realize he had died during Tricia's madness storyline until a year or so ago. And I felt nothing for him outside of Tricia's reaction and feelings. 

 

 

[Paul Raven]

OLTL 

Vernons Hit - Will, Samantha and Brad were on for years and the children were front burner.

O'Neills Miss - Harry then Pete. Connie, Joy.Didi. They were pushed at the start but then petered out

 

[Faulkner]

Most of the Hernandezes were failed characters IMO, which is mostly why I included them. They’re down to two siblings who could easily disappear without leaving much of a void, even though Gabi has a daughter who is a Horton.

I guess when I think of a family that’s successful like the Quartermaines or the Buchanans, I think of families who managed to get into the DNA of the show and change it. I feel like characters like Tricia and Gabi are successful individually. Their families? Meh.

[Taoboi]

Okay.  I see what you mean. 

[Vee]

Wasn't it the creepy dude who played psychic spy DV on Port Charles? That psychic spy storyline with him, Scott and Kevin's dad (where DV turned out to be Scott's bio-dad) still doesn't make any sense to me.

[Franko]

MISS:

RH -- The Kirklands (to the point that even cast members joked about it)

SB -- The Walkers (in terms of fan reaction; they were still around when the show ended)

[Paul Raven]

The Doctors

The Dancys  Hit -Barney, Virginia, Joan, Luke. Sara, Nola,Jerry. I'd have to say hit in that even though 3 of them died they were still a presence on the show till the end.

GL

Spauldings Hit - Alan, Elizabeth, Phillip .Alex etc From their intro in 1977 on they maintained a presence despite all the changes around them.

[j swift]

Poor Harry and Didi both died from wig-anopsia.  A genetic disorder in which one is unable to discern that their lover is in disguise.  They were literally blindly in love.

AW flopped establishing families around the character of Clarice.  First, we the McGowans (Gil, Tim, Nancy and Burt), then the Hobsons (Leigh and Denny), and finally her the Ewings: Fred, Jeannie, Blaine and Catlin popped and then fizzled, until eventually she just disappeared.

But, I guess we could call the Harrisons a success.  They survived recasts, death, and doppelgangers and were there until the final episode.

To me, the hallmark of a family that "took off" is not just their longevity, but also if they persist beyond the writing staff that introduced them into the show.

Edited January 30, 2023 by j swift

[Darn]

He played someone named David Bordisso on PC so probably. He looked like a Founding Father.

There's been a lot of talk about the show never finding a man who could toe to toe with Eileen's Ashley but Jill has never had a suitable love interest. John doesn't count because that was hardly a passionate love affair or marriage and Colin sure as hell doesn't count because that story sucked and they write Jill as stupid when she's in "love".

ANYway back to the topic, has anyone mentioned the Ford (modeling agency) brothers from OLTL? What even was that? It was so transparent and lazy.

How do we count the many, many forced familial units on GH? Obrecht gained a son and daughter in two established characters, a niece in Nina and thereby great-nieces in Willow and Nelle and a lover in Faison. How do we count those? Where it's revealed multiple disparate characters are all related.

 

[BetterForgotten]

An interesting topic by itself - characters that were able to thrive for the betterment of the shows without much of a family around them, or being tired to historical/legacy families or core characters. 

[Paul Raven]

Days did that in the early 80's when Gwen Davies, Oliver Martin and Woody King were revealed to be siblings and Dorothy Kingston and Orby Jensen were their parents. 

[Vee]

A very transparent attempt to add white str8 hunks (Jessica Leccia, their mother, was Latino but was added later and all the Ford studs were just white dudes) to the show to get it back on the Fronsian track after they purged a ton of minorities and LGBT people.

And yeah, Bordisso went by "DV". Don't ask us why.

Don't forget Donna Mills as Madeline, Obrecht's sister and Nina's mom who swapped all the babies.