Daytime TV and DVD (1 Viewer)

[bretmaverick2]

It recently has come to my attention that DARK SHADOWS is the only daytime serial / soap opera which was long ago cancelled that is available and complete (I guess except for one episode) on DVD. GREAT! I will begin collecting this soon as some of my tapes have gone bad.


BUT - are there any other daytime serials that you would like to see released, either in total or by storyline arcs??????

 

[HenryDuBrow]

A release of One Life To Live concentrating on Judith Light's famed housewife/hooker character of Karen Wolek (1977-83), well, I can dream. Other such best of actors could be, the late Paul Burke's mid-late 80s stint on Santa Barbara and Joseph Campanella's senator with a twist on Days of Our Lives.

 

[Neil Brock]

Never Too Young, teen soap opera from the mid-60s that starred Tony Dow and Tommy Rettig. It also featured a ton of popular music acts guest starring and performing. Not sure if all 195 shows still exist as I've heard conflicting reports. I know that there are 5 that circulate.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Just game shows for me, sorry.

Well, maybe I'd try out Edge of Night.

However, aren't most of the serialized shows and soaps of the 50s and 60s lost or destroyed?

 

[MattPeriolat]

Well, much as I may want soaps, a lot of the classic stuff simply doesn't exist anymore. But whatever does exist, I wouldn't mind seeing.

Game shows I've been begging for, both the prime time and the daytime. Truly, daytime TV is an untapped TV on DVD market save for Dark Shadows. Same with talk shows.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

I want the Luke and Laura years from General Hospital, especially the Ice Princess storyline.

You might be interested to know that there is another soap opera besides Dark Shadows that has been released on DVD in its entirety.
Its called Prisoner: Cell Block H. It ran from 1979-1986 in Australia, and briefly aired in syndication in the United States in the early 1980s 5 nights a week. I don't think it aired in the daytime, though, because it was considered violent for its times, and had adult subject matter, and mature themes.
There are 692 episodes on 40 volumes. I have them all. But it is PAL format.
If you like campy women in prison films, than chances are you'll love Prisoner. It has every prison cliché imaginable: Beatings, stabbings, hangings, corrupt wardens, riots, lesbians, drug trafficking, daring escapes, etc.

 

[Jack Cleveland]

Guiding Light... I watched the show off an on for 25 years... Like an old friend, it's hard to believe it is no longer on. I DVR'ed the last week, then never watched it. Two weeks ago I discovered it had been deleted. I was ready to watch and it was gone.

I have about a half years worth on tape from 1998, I believe. But I would love to see the Philip, Beth, Rick and Mindy stuff, Lujack and the original Allan and Nola... Sorry, I'm rambling.

This thread took me down memory lane.

 

[DeWilson]

I wonder what Soap Operas (pre-1980) have large blocks of episodes existing. (Besdies "Dark Shadows", "PP" and "Strange Paradise")

Did P&G Productions and Columbia Television retain episodes for the series they prodcued for overseas sales/syndication?

Are any of the RYAN'S HOPE episodes missing? SoapNET still runs them in the early morning hours.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Ryan's Hope didn't begin until '75, so odds are the entire run is intact.

Here's the "take it with a grain of salt" wikipedia entry for Tape Wiping with regards to soap operas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiping#Soap_operas

If this article is any indication, things don't look too good for anything before 1975, at least, not for large chunks of shows.

And game shows got shafted the hardest.

Well, Game Shows and the entire DuMont library.

 

[vnisanian2001]

This part about the ABC run of the Pyramid game show is wrong:

"Apparently no episodes of the ABC $10,000 Pyramid exist on videotape, all of which are apparently $20,000 Pyramid episodes."

Actually, all ABC daytime episodes that aired from May 6, 1974-January 16, 1976, were The $10,000 Pyramid. The $20,000 Pyramid began the following Monday on January 19, 1976.

Also, the first 6 weeks of the ABC Daytime Pyramid taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater. The 7th ABC Daytime week, with June Lockhart & William Shatner, was when they finally moved into the now-defunct Elysee Theater. It would be the shows' permanent home, until production on the $50,000 version ceased in the spring of 1981.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

This is why I always include a disclaimer about wiki articles.

But, it's a decent enough starting point for showing how disposable daytime TV was until about 1980. It also shows how wonderful ABC treated their shows, especially if the "ABC dumped DuMont in the east river" thing is anywhere near true.

 

[Charles Ellis]

However both Days of our Lives (1965-present) and The Young & The Restless (1973- present) are all safely archived from their first episodes, as Sony owns those shows. Ryan's Hope (1975-1989) is also believed to be preserved.

 

[MattPeriolat]

If I had to pick one show that I wish a complete record existed, it would be Guiding Light. That archive would be huge given it would include both the radio and television broadcasts.

What about another ABC show like All My Children? What's it's status as far as being complete?

 

[smithb]

Originally Posted by Ron Lee Green

I want the Luke and Laura years from General Hospital, especially the Ice Princess storyline.

Funny thing about Soap Opera's. I was watching General Hospital at times while in college (early 80's). The whole Luke and Laura thing with that story line was big time back then. Well after college I never watched it again. Then back in the late 90's I was home sick from work and flipping channels and came across GH. I had heard Luke and Laura were back so I thought I would check it out. So the scene has Luke in some warehouse with his son hiding from somebody and his son asks to know the truth about how he was conceived. Then they go into flashback mode of Luke dancing with Laura and the Herb Alpert song playing in the background. I'm thinking "it's true you can watch these things at anytime and never feel you missed anything". Kind of like in the movie "Crocodile Dundee" when he flips on the TV in New York and see the intro for "I Love Lucy" and remarks "Yup, that's what I saw".

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by The Obsolete Man

This is why I always include a disclaimer about wiki articles.

But, it's a decent enough starting point for showing how disposable daytime TV was until about 1980. It also shows how wonderful ABC treated their shows, especially if the "ABC dumped DuMont in the east river" thing is anywhere near true.

That is so wrong - ABC never had the DuMont kinescopes (Heck, they did a piss-poor Job preserving their own shows!) - it was Metromedia which evolved from / was the successor to DuMont that did the dumping. Not sure if was in the East River,either - but the order was given to destroy shows.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Once again, don't trust Wiki, ask questions.

Whoever did the DuMont dumping, they were idiots who weren't thinking about anything past yesterday.

 

[MattPeriolat]

I'm just curious: were the DuMont network records litterally dumped in a river or just wiped? I would think wiping would be preferable since you can just reuse the tape.

 

[LeoA]

DuMont was gone a bit before the videotape era, doubt there were any tapes to erase.

 

[Charles Ellis]

All DuMont had were kinescopes and possibly high-quality Electronicam prints, like those from the filmed 1955-56 Honeymooners.

As to the ABC situation, General Hospital is preserved on kinescopes from its 1963 debut to roughly 1970/71, when ABC stopped making kinescopes- these are in the UCLA archives. The network didn't really begin to archive its color tapes until 1978/79, so it's miraculous that I've seen home-taped episodes from 1977 on You Tube and other sites. A few color shows from the first few years of All My Children exist, but like GH and One Life to Live, it's hit-and-miss until roughly 1978, and even that year has problems. ABC one reran about a decade ago the 1978 episode where Erica Kane married Tom Cudahy, but the master tape was damaged in one scene. I wonder if the 1978 GH episode where Laura Webber kills David Hamilton still exists! Thank goodness all of 1979 for all three ABC shows is archived as it was a landmark year: the start of Luke & Laura on GH, the unforgettable Karen Wolek saga on OLTL along with the passing of Joe Riley and the arrival of the Buchanans, and the debut of the Cliff & Nina saga on AMC and the passing of original romantic male lead character Phil Brent. Whew! I think I need a drink (non-alcoholic) after that!

 

[Neil Brock]

Well, you can't really blame them for not keeping these things. 2-inch tape, which was the format used until the early 80s, was very expensive. At least $200 a reel. Times 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. And for shows that would never re-air. I'm not in favor of erasing anything but you could see their point. No one has mentioned NBC but when it came to erasing, they were the worst. That's why shows like Match Game (60s version), Concentration and the original Jeopardy barely exist with a handful of episodes.