Do you think Bold And The Beautiful and others will see the light of..DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Demis G]

The Bold and the Beautiful
Passions
Santa Barbara


the list is endless.. what is going on with these? does anyone plan on releasing them on DVD? I realize is a big project each and everyone of them but some1 has to make a start..

 

[Daniel-M]

if they recut the episodes and amde them storyline-specific then yes, but a season set would be to expensive

 

[Andrew Radke]

I'd love to see DVD releases for "The Young And The Restless". I didn't start watching the show until 1991 I believe, so I'd love to see the older stuff. Every Christmas Eve, Global Television (here in Canada) used to air classic episodes. It eventually became something I really looked forward to, but they stopped doing it a few years ago.

I'm not sure how you could release a show like that. Season sets are out of the question for obvious reasons. I wouldn't want themed releases such as 'weddings', etc. I'd prefer them to be more storyline-specific. Perhaps a year-by-year account covering all storylines from the beginning could work. They could make each release a 4 disc set, with each disc covering a specific year. For example:

"The Young And The Restless: 1973 - 1977". Each disc of the 4-disc set could cover a year of the show by examining all the storylines which took place. I imagine they could elaborately explain a year's worth of storylines within a 2-3 hour stint. Of course, it would be a documentary-style recollection, complete with narrator. I think something like that could really work. Also, for special features, each set could include a notable episode in its entirety, such as the very first Y&R episode on the first set. They could also include cast bios for each year, photo galleries, etc.

"The Young And The Restless" has been the #1 rated soap for many, many years and deserves some sort of release. I think my idea above could work extremely well.

 

[Josh_HI]

Yup I'd love to see anything from Y&R or B&B... I'd especially love the Sheila stuff!

And I wouldn't mind the early 90's stuff from ATWT or GL either.

 

[Elena S]

I would kill to have "Guiding Light" in any form on DVD, especially anything from the 70s, 80s or 90s time period.

 

[Amy Mormino]

The almost total absence of any soap-related DVDs (I think ABC released a soap wedding compilation a few years back) remains a mystery to me. Sure, the audience isn't huge, but you can't tell me that with all the obscure shows that have been released that some company wouldn't snatch at the rights. I'm betting that the rights holders for the soaps are holding releases back.

While not my personal favorite (Days of Our Lives is), the lack of Bold and the Beautiful DVDs is a particular mystery as it is one of the most popular shows in the world.

 

[Jeffrey*C]

Same here!

They should do a set based on the episodes & stories she has been part of. That would still be a lot of show time, so maybe just the better stories ...

I'd buy it anyway

 

[EricSchulz]

I'm REALLY surprised that more isn't available on DVD... I am a HUGE Y&R fan and would LOVE to see "compilation" season sets available. I started watching almost twenty years ago and would love to re-visit the storylines that Y&R is so famous for running for DECADES! It's a show with a very rich history (that rarely, if ever, "re-invents" the past to satisfy current storylines) and pretty stable cast, phenomenal acting (god, I miss Heather Tom!) and currently has been the #1 show in daytime for many YEARS. Surely there's an audience for this on DVD! (OK, and let's also throw in "Another World", which I still miss...)

 

[Charles Ellis]

Amy, obviously you've never watched Dark Shadows on DVD!!! As to Y&R, DAYS, and B&B, there is good news in that Sony has a complete tape library for all of those shows (with DAYS being the largest, dating from its November 1965 debut), so DVD compilations of old storylines from each show's start is feasible. Not so with the older P&G soaps (GL, ATWT, or ABC shows created prior to the mid-70s (GH, OLTL, AMC)

The problem is that soap production began to use videotape in the 60s, it was considered expensive to get new tape and the idea of saving old episodes seemed unnecessary (what outlet would there be for old soaps?), so after a few weeks the network would reuse the videotape of an old episode, usually for a new episode or use by the news division. This is one big reason why soap episodes (especially on videotape) from circa 1965-75 are so hard to come by.

There are exceptions- if a show was done by an independent company other than Procter & Gamble and it had a good run of a number of years, the odds are the tapes were saved by the producers for either domestic syndication or foreign sales. This is how Dark Shadows, Ryan's Hope, and the Sony-owned shows were saved from erasure. I do know that Sony (the Columbia Pictures TV) was showing DAYS in Hong Kong in the early 70s, while Dark Shadows was in Latin America before it became syndicated domestically in 1975.

As to the P&G shows and the ABC-owned series? Well, it depends on the show:

Guiding Light apparently has a good archive of shows from the mid-70s onward (as shown in their 1990s OOP compilation tape on legendary villain Roger Thorpe), and a lot of kinescopes from the 50s and 60s. As The World Turns was live until 1975, and didn't start saving its tapes until the late 70s, although some mid-70s tapes have been found.

General Hospital has its first couple of years preserved on kinescope, but there's a serious gap. The show went to color in 1967, but ABC stopped making kinescopes in the early 70s. The oldest known color tapes from GH still in existence date from 1978, so there's nearly a decade of the show's history missing. From 1978 onwards the show is archived. One Life To Live is luckier is that some color tapes from its first decade (including from its first two years) are still in existence, but like GH, archiving began in 1978. The same with All My Children- only a few color tapes and kinescopes exist prior to 1978.

Supposedly Another World still had gaps in its 1980s tapes, which is one reason why the SoapNet run began with 1988.

 

[Bob_S.]

Charles, how about The Edge of Night? I remember my mom watching this when I was a kid.

 

[Jay_B!]

Considering Passions is getting cancelled, and has only run about eight years, I could see a Dark Shadows type of deal with that one

 

[Charles Ellis]

Well, Edge is complete from April 1978 to its last show in December 1984. That's what's available for syndication. Other cancelled soaps that could come on DVD include the short-lived Sunset Beach and Capitol- both shows were independently produced although Paramount now owns the Spelling holdings. Since Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place are out, it would be interesting if the Spelling-produced Sunset Beach (751 hours) is also put out on home video.

Disney-Touchstone owns the ABC shows, and Warner has vast nightime soaps in its library: Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, while Fox has all 514 half-hours of Peyton Place and may still have the tapes to its 1972-74 daytime sequel Return To Peyton Place.

 

[Elena S]

For those who want to watch older eps of soaps, Proctor & Gamble has a site up where they show Edge of Night, Secret Storm & Search for Tomorrow. I haven't watch any of these so don't know how old the episodes are. They're available on AOL's Classic Soap Channel.

 

[Tory]

soap Net began its run in 1987 at a point that pretty much set up the status quo for the show until its demise. I think it is now available online starting from 1980.

One of the problems with Soaps on DVD is the increasing want to get out of the soap business. I believe they are intentionally trying to kill these shows slowly, rather than outright cancel them. NBC has pretty much ruined Days of Our Lives, ABC is doing the same to its shows and Y&R seems the only one halfway watchable right now. Those that own these hate them and the TV stations want to get rid of them just to show more talkshows, judge shows and daytime news about their primetime programs.

I would like Another World, especially the early days of Cass, Felicia and Wally. As for Days, I want it from the begininng but more importantly the introduction of Marlena and then later Roman, the whole tale of the Dimera conflict, and most of all the Eugene (John de Lancie, Q of Star Trek) and Calliope (Arleen Sorkin Harley Quinn of Batman TAS) from the Bradford seal to the ghosts and holograms, the time traveling machine with parts from a Newlywed Game camera and the android Calliope. This was fun sci-fi adventure comedy TV.