ALL: What are your lost soap media "holy grails" for 2025?

[Paul Raven]

More for February

1966 Search for Tomorrow

[SoapAnon]

I really wouldn't expect much 70's stuff to come out. It's always possible, but they were wiping stuff until the late 70's and it's likely gone. I'd expect mostly everything from 1980 on to exist in a studio vault though.

I find it interesting how poorly soaps are preserved for the most part. I'm from the wrestling world. Soaps were like 20x more popular than wrestling yet the preservation is so much worse. The NFL is maybe similar to soaps popularity wise and was also preserved much better. I think it would make for some good research to figure out why it is. My guess is because there were so many soaps that people just took them for granted and I think the male and female audiences are just different when it comes to that. Almost every guy collects something.

I'll never understand why soaps haven't been re-run as much or why they aren't on the big VOD services. You'd think they would be able to bring in some cash and would provide content.

Edited February 23 by SoapAnon

[DRW50]

Soaps aired five days a week and were looked down on (and still are), so there was never the care or effort to keep them. And some of the moments that were kept were destroyed in fires. 

They aren't usually that successful when repeated, although Dark Shadows did well, probably due to only being on about five years and being seen as more of a horror/fantasy show. 

[Contessa Donatella]

What comes up is unusual. I'm aware of several that began with the Rosemary Prinz. What we hope is kinescopes & one-off video tapes now in attics will see the light of day.

The reason daytime is not streaming is that the cost is prohibitive.

[Khan]

I agree.  IIRC, too, they even discovered (or RE-discovered) taped footage of Super Bowl I, decades after all the footage had been deemed "lost."

[Marco Dane]

One Life to Live Pilot Episode.

[Paul Raven]

March gifts.

Mitch S has added some snippets from ATWT 79 and SFT 79/77 including a brief scene with Stephanie and husband Walter Pace (Jennifer's father) who I have never seen before.

Also a grainy B/W BTS of GL 1980

And Tom Lisanti's book on Texas has been released.

Edited Sunday at 11:46 PM by Paul Raven