Guiding Light -- at last!!

The ATWT set is great and GL was the other soap I was raised on so this makes it easy.  SOLD!

Hallelujer ! Let there be light. I was hoping that GL would be next and now it has come to pass. Still no word on the exact lineup of eps but Nola & Quint's wedding and Roger Thorpe's "death" have been confirmed.

Based on some of the hints that Soap Classics have dropped in their description, I'm guessing we're going to also see an Annie Dutton episode on the "Villans" disc. I'm also expecting Gus & Harley's wedding to be included since they are shown on the possibly-preliminary cover artwork.

As far as weddings go, I would also expect to see Beth & Philip's and the first (of many) of the weddings of Reva & Josh. The one where Reva had the nerve to wear white. Perhaps also Billy & Vanessa.

With regard to villans, I'm guessing Brent/Marian & Alan Spaulding might make appearances.

The "Through The Years" disc will likely consist of anniversary eps and possibly a Christmas ep since this was also hinted at in the promo material.

Wonderful news for GL fans for a good sign that other P&G soaps will soon follow.

ATWT fans should be aware that a New Year's ep is currently streaming on the Soap Classics site.
Edited by David Rain - 12/31/11 at 10:10pm

I wonder if there's any chance of some glimpses into the Diane Ballard/ Joe Bradley murder mystery.  Still, IMO the best plotted murder mystery in daytime and written by my favorite daytime writer Doug Marland.  I really loved it as a kid, with everyone firing on full cylinders.  It was the first time I ever wanted to know who wrote a daytime story and it made me realize that there was a real art to it.  He successfully repeated aspects of it on ATWT via the Tad Channing murder (Marland LOVED people running around in thunderstorms!) but the original is still tops, not the least reason being that Diane had been embedded into the lives of the other characters for years while Tad was created just to be an eventual murder victim.

 

She was a great villainess and I'd loved to see the episode included where she gets her comeuppance and winds up dead in front of the fireplace wearing that great one shoulder black dress!

If Olivia Spencer is in this set I will definately buy it she was my fave character

I'm definitely hoping to see Olivia included on the Villans & Vixens disc.

Realistically, anything that aired before 1978/79 will probably never be included on any set since those eps likely don't exist in any usable form, if at all. As an example, it was recently mentioned in Soap Opera Digest that the first 10 years of One Life To Live were erased.

You can't even find much for GL on YouTube from the 70s. There's a lot of stuff from the 60s (Hope's birth, Ed and Leslie, various complete episodes) with bad picture in some cases but decent audio. I have never seen a clip of Lynn Deerfield as Holly (stared watching just after Maureen Garrett took over the roll) and just for historical sake would love to see it. My great fear with any GL release is it will be too much Reva and Josh and not enough of anyone else.

The VHS release Roger Thorpe- The Scandal Years shows that there is a good deal of vintage tapes in the P&G vault from the mid-late 70s. So cheer up, GL fans.

Now, I'm still waiting for a DVD set for The Edge of Night.........

I really don't think that's going to be a problem. The ATWT set was quite varied with regard to characters and storylines that were featured. I expect the GL set to be the same. I'm guessing that the only Josh & Reva episode will be their first wedding. Also perhaps an episode featuring Reva's storyline with Annie Dutton. GL has a wealth of material to draw on so I expect quite a wide variety of it to be included on its set. I'm also hoping that all of these sets sell well enough so that we get a "Volume Two" for each of them in the future.

The episode list for the GL set should be announced soon as Soap Classics is currently updating that section of their website. We should be able to order the whole thing soon.

Here it is, kids! Guiding Light is now officially available for purchase from Soap Classics:

http://www.soapclassics.com/index.php/gl-main.html

The episode lineup is diverse and well-chosen. Obviously, everyone will have a few favorites that are missing. But that's what a "Volume Two" would take care of, if we get one. One of the most glaring omissions for me is the absence of Philip & Beth's wedding. Not sure how that got left off. I'm hoping that GL & ATWT will each get a Valentine's Day-themed release that will include more weddings. One interesting note about the "Great Weddings" disc is that it includes Billy & Vanessa's last wedding (before the series finale) and not their first.

Overall, I think the cover art for the release is beautiful. However, I think the photo selections seem rather haphazard. The only official promo photo is of Gus & Harley. The other pics seem to be taken from actual episodes. The picture of Philip looks to be from his last stint where he wore the same red jacket for about 6 months. The photo of Reva also seems to be from a later era. Over GL's history they've had some beautiful promo photos of the cast members. Could they really not have used any of those ? The GL Anniversary book was full of them. Surely P&G had these in their archive somewhere.

If you're a soap fan (or know one) then you'll want to get this set. Otherwise we aren't likely to see any more of them in the future. Right now is a great time to be a classic soap fan. Soap Classics is promoting the GL release with a free episode featuring Philip from 1983:

http://www.soapclassics.com/index.php/free-online-episode.html

David this is the info I received via email on GL. Soap Fans you can receieve alerts by signing up on the site. I signed up because I want The Edge Of Night.

It features 20 of the program's most memorable episodes, digitally remastered and without commercials. It has episodes featuring some of the greatest characters in the series, including Kim Zimmer, Robert Newman, Grant Aleksander, Lisa Brown, Beverlee McKinsey, Michael Zaslow and Joan Collins.

It'll be interesting to see all three Alexandra Spauldings (Beverlee McKinsey, Joan Collins, and Marj Dusay, who played the role the longest) in this collection. Three legendary soap divas who also made their mark in other characters. On the other hand, it's a pity the set begins in 1979, though there are color episodes from earlier years (circa 1976-78) in the P&G archives. To this day I'm amazed how P&G had little foresight regarding its place in TV history and should've archived their tapes much sooner. By the mid-70s the price of tape was coming down and the era of live broadcasts had ended. Columbia/Sony had the foresight to archive both Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless from their debuts. By 1968 all of the P&G shows were in color and were videotaped except As The World Turns and The Edge of Night, which went live until mid 1975 as ATWT was about to expand to one hour and Edge was moving to ABC. And yet there is only a handful of tapes in existence of P&G shows from that 1968-75 time period, which included some of the most celebrated soap storylines ever. What were those executives in Cincinatti thinking? An entire era of daytime TV pratically lost from the production company that more or less invented the TV soap, and at a time of great artistic achievement!

I noticed in the lineup that they've misdated the (wonderful) episode where Lisa Brown's Nola gets her comeuppance.  They've dated it 1983 when it was actually 1981 (there was a similar gaffe on the ATWT collection in the John Dixon villains episode where it's dated 1984 and it was also 1981)

 

Can't wait to get this but I'm going to hold off a week or so to see if there is an amazing sale like there was on the ATWT set,

 

SO HAPPY FOR THIS!!

Yes, I'll agree that it's a shame that so much soap history has been lost due to the wiping or destroying of the network tapes. However, in defense of the networks you're talking about shows that aired decades ago. At the time there was no cable or satellite TV, no DVD or internet or video on demand and soaps were never rerun. The networks & companies like P&G had no reason to think that those episodes would ever serve any purpose or be reusable. There was simply no other venue to reair them. At the very least, let's be thankful that we have over 30 years of classics soaps that we can now enjoy.

Actually, some soaps were already being exported in the early 70s: Days of our Lives was being seen in places like Hong Kong and Dark Shadows caused a sensation in South American countries- in fact, Jonathan Frid did publicity tours where he was swamped by new fans. This was in between the show's cancellation in 1971 and its U.S. syndication debut four years later. So both Columbia Pictures' TV division and Worldvision Enterprises (formerly ABC Films) saw the potential in archiving their soaps for foreign sales, and yet the soaps' 'industry leader' Procter & Gamble failed to do so. Talk about a missed opportunity! By 1981 Worldvision was syndicating the entire ABC soap lineup to Europe- for example, All My Children was called Valle dei Pini in Italy (Italian for "Pine Valley", the show's fictional locale). I remember seeing a Worldvision ad in Variety in 1981 about the sale of the shows to foreign markets and was thrilled that soon the whole world would fall in love with Luke & Laura and gasp at Erica Kane's antics. Maybe it was the somewhat conservative nature of the P&G productions (not willing to start new trends in storytelling or production methods like the ABC-owned shows and the Bell family's offerings) with their 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' attitude regarding their production methods that led to their not even consider either archiving tapes or syndication. Eventually it caught up with them, leading the networks to start cancelling the P&G shows one by one. In fact, it's been said that it was P&G, and not ABC, that actually ceased production of The Edge of Night, seeing the show as no longer profitable despite ABC willing to let it stay on the air longer.

As I said in the As the World Turns thread, P&G shows prior to 1978 seem to be largely at the mercy of how they were made and the networks who made them (CBS has a good track record of peserving their tapes/kiniscopes, where as NBC does not).

I'll ask this question again. Does anyone know who actually owns the rights to the kinescopes of the old P&G soaps ? Does P&G still own them ? Or the original networks where the shows first aired ? Or the TV museums they might have been donated to ? It would be great if those could be digitized and streamed online.

Pretty sure its the later.

Soap Classics has announced they are releasing a 5 episode Reva Shane collection:

http://www.soapclassics.com/index.php/reva-d1.html

It includes the "Slut of Springfield" episode, along with her first appearance. There is also a bonus free on-line show up for viewing right now:

http://www.soapclassics.com/index.php/free-online-episode.html

For the next week they are offering 15% off with the code WINTER15. However there is no free shipping & handling.

I received the Reva collection last week and it's very well done. I think they could easily have done a multi episosde box set for this character but I'm sure they are just testing the waters. I have email Soap Classics customer service to suggest that they do more of these themed releases of characters and families. As for GL, I'd love to see sets dedicated to the Spauldings, Coopers, Reardons, Lewises, etc. As well as themed sets for couples.

So far, Soap Classics has released something every month for the past four months. Not sure if that will continue for March but they seem to have some sort of schedule. I'm sure lots of fans are waiting for the next show box set. I'm guessing Another World will be the next one released.

With the discount, that brings it down to $38.16. You can get it on ebay for $27.95 total. They really rob you on shipping on their website.

I forgot all about Amazon. I haven't bought yet in the hopes that someone in my family gets it for me for my birthday in June.

Hey Guys,

Yes I am afraid World will be next. I want The Edge Of Night however!! Keep buying guys that is all i can say. I should buy just so i can get Edge. I too was emailed the discount which was very nice of them. I just have to watch my money like all of us. I woud spend though if it were Edge.

If each release does well enough then they'll put out more. They've made that very clear.

For any ATWT fans, you'll want to know that Soap Classics has started a new site for streaming eps:

http://www.worldturns.nl/

They're streaming eps from 2005 and 2007 since the series was cut off early in some parts of the world such as South Africa and the Netherlands. They are also streaming some classics eps that are also featured on the DVD set. If there's enough interest, I assume there will be more eps from all the P&G soaps. For whatever reason, they're starting with just ATWT. I'm hoping they'll eventually launch sites for each of the other shows.

Also, for anyone who used to watch the P&G soaps when they were featured at AOL Video, Soap Classics is the same company that did the digitizing for those eps. So they've had a long time connection to the P&G archive which will hopefully continue for a long time to come. Soap Classics has said they have 12,000 episodes.

I asked the Museum that has all of the Another World scripts if they were planning on digitizing them and making them available online, and they replied that they could not do so due to the copyright implications.

I would assume that the same is true of the recordings themselves. P&G would have to give permission, and there might be artist clearances involved, although there seemed to be a lot of music in those 1980 Another World's that were on AOL a couple of years back, so either the rights were all signed away when the shows were recorded or someone was very lax about clearing music for the AOL deal.

Soap Classics have stated that there are some episodes that will have to have music either removed or changed before they can be streamed or released on DVD. They did not say which episodes or which shows they meant.

I also came across an earlier article that said they have no current plans to release Search For Tomorrow, Edge of Night or Texas on DVD. Perhaps that might change if the other box sets sell well enough. For now, their intention is to make the older soaps available for online streaming. Since some of these shows have been off the air for 25 years it's understandable that they are afraid of the potential audience being limited. But even just having these shows available at all is a real blessing for soap fans.

Hi David,

I wrote them an email about The Edge of NIght coming out on DVD. I was told they were very much interested in Edge but wished to see how the GL and ATWT dvds would sell first. I also looked on the website. I found an early list of Soaps they wanted for DVD and there were 3 others listed. Another World Search and The Edge of Night. So EON fans do not give up yet!
Edited by Mark Collins - 2/29/12 at 4:30pm