Soap operas (1 Viewer)

[bmasters9]

In general though, a Full DVD release wouldn't be practical right? I mean in the case of One life to Live there were 45 Seasons and Over 11,000 Episodes. who would have time to watch all that?

Only the most devoted fans-- and even then it'd take more than 50 lifetimes!

 

[John*Wells]

Only the most devoted fans-- and even then it'd take more than 50 lifetimes!

One thing I could see though, release of Particular popular Story lines... My mother would deny it, but, she was a fan of General Hospital, Luke and Laura LOL

 

[bmasters9]

One thing I could see though, release of Particular popular Story lines... My mother would deny it, but, she was a fan of General Hospital, Luke and Laura LOL

That is true-- releases of popular storylines would be far more feasible.

 

[tlc38tlc38]

It actually doesn’t take too long to watch a complete year. Each year has approximately 240 episodes. If you watch 4-5 episodes a day, you can polish off a solid year in about 2 months.

I’ve watched years 1995, 1996, 1997, & 1998 of “Days of our Lives” in about 2 years time. I’m currently midway through 1999.

 

[Ron Lee Green]

I started recording The Doctors in Nov 2017, when Retro had just begun the year 1975. They show 2 half hour episodes a day. Now they are currently on April 1977, so in a little over a year they have shown 2 years and 4 months worth of episodes. I think there were about 6 episodes MIA because of damaged tape.

 

[Lord Dalek]

In the early years, AW never had copyright(note: it'a a kinesocpe)

No Proctor & Gamble serial had a copyright notice until 1980 and it appears that the classic "A Presentation of..." logo didn't show up until 1973 at the earliest (footage from this era is scarce).

 

[seanrt]

It actually doesn’t take too long to watch a complete year. Each year has approximately 240 episodes. If you watch 4-5 episodes a day, you can polish off a solid year in about 2 months.

I’ve watched years 1995, 1996, 1997, & 1998 of “Days of our Lives” in about 2 years time. I’m currently midway through 1999.

Nice. Those were my favorite years of Days. Princess Gina was such an amazing character. Plus the young Jensen Ackles of Supernatural as Eric Brady.

 

[justarandomstan]

It actually doesn’t take too long to watch a complete year. Each year has approximately 240 episodes. If you watch 4-5 episodes a day, you can polish off a solid year in about 2 months.

I’ve watched years 1995, 1996, 1997, & 1998 of “Days of our Lives” in about 2 years time. I’m currently midway through 1999.

That's still 3 and a half hours a day for a soap. To me that's a long time investment when there are so many other shows to watch. If the show had 20 minute episodes like B&B, sure, but 40 - 45 minutes per episode sounds like too much to me.

 

[bmasters9]

That's still 3 and a half hours a day for a soap. To me that's a long time investment when there are so many other shows to watch. If the show had 20 minute episodes like B&B, sure, but 40 - 45 minutes per episode sounds like too much to me.

What about Dark Shadows (that 1966-71 ABC daytime serial still being the only one to be out on DVD in full)?

 

[danielanderson6500]

And here's a closing from Another World from 1985, with that classic ending announcement of his, "Join us each weekday at this time for the continuing story of Another World."



And here's the AW title from that closing w/Procter and Gamble copyright from 1985 (captured from that clip from user bmuz):

View attachment 53927

I just recently wrote a essay about him and original AW organist Clarke Morgan. Here is what i wrote on YouTube:

When i first listened to the audio snippets of AW, I almost immediately noticed that Clarke Morgan really did such a good job "scoring" AW. And i became aware that each note he played was an inherent component of the temperament, personality, and current mind-set of each character. His absolutely exquisite theme for Melissa captured her fragile nature and her inherent, almost saintly goodness. The nagging, frenetic theme for meddlesome Aunt Liz provided a fabulous soundtrack for her as she swirled about in her path of tornadic destruction. Lenore’s mellifluous tune reflected this high society character’s grace, poise and breeding. Mary Matthews’ benevolence, Rachael’s self-centered flightiness, Alice’s light-heartedness (in the early days) and Pat Randolph’s dignified serenity (despite all her turmoil) were all encapsulated musically with astonishing brilliance. Clarke used the Hammond organ as a canvas onto which he projected each character’s personality traits with musical notes in the same manner as a portrait painter replicated a person’s facial characteristics in oils. My grandma never really noticed the way Clarke "scored" each ep, but that's my opinion. . And then we must consider the matter of his fade-out chords. Here his talent radiated even more brilliantly, if that is possible. I am so glad that Dan Ahern([email protected]) has preserved this music, as well as the voice of announcer Bill Wolff, who i am about to mention, for the most part, it is all that remains of either Wolff's or Morgan's work during this era, since the powers-that-be inexplicably decided to erase all of the tapes of the show. Another important part of AW, was the announcer, Bill Wolff. I believe that(and maybe some people might disagree with me on this and say that Johnny Olsen was the best announcer of all time, or even Jay Stewart....that's for another post, anyway.) But Wolff was one of the best. His announcements for example like "And now, in color, Another World." over the words "Another World" within a circle of overlapping mini circles, or his "We'll return to our story in just a moment," over black before a commercial, or whenever an actor was sick, "Due to the illness of [regular actor], the role of [character] is being played by [actor]," or his "Join us again for Another World" over the logo were some of the best work i've heard in daytime. And don't forget his plugs for P&G products like Ivory soap, Cheer laundry detergent, Ivory Snow, and any product that P&G made were really good too. It is a utterly astonishing to me that so few people recognized that he was of the best announcers, bar none in the soap opera genre, much like Dan McCullough was on As The World Turns. Another part of the job back then was that Wolff would then tell the audience to stay tuned to the program immediately following AW. The game show You Don't Say was one of these shows that he plugged, as well as the soaps Bright Promise, Return To Peyton Place and How to Survive a Marriage. In short, Bill Wolff and Clarke Morgan made AW "sound good" on the announcing and music parts of the show. While the actors on AW were really good, it was the work of Wolff and Morgan that made the show quite good in the announce booth and at the organ.

Of course this was when AW had live organ music in the 1960s. I will add to the fact that the era of the announcer is pretty much over in daytime, expect for George Gray or Jonathan Magnum these days.

 

[danielanderson6500]

To me, it is a crime that P&G wiped most AW shows from the 1960s.

 

[John*Wells]

To me, it is a crime that P&G wiped most AW shows from the 1960s.

ABC Did the same thing with One Life to Live ...not sure about All My children or General Hospital

 

[Lord Dalek]

To me, it is a crime that P&G wiped most AW shows from the 1960s.

P&G didn't wipe em, NBC did. Their archiving was godawful in general back in the day thanks to lack of storage space from RCA. You have to remember these shows were produced five a week on 2" quadroplex video tape which came in very large boxes that took up a lot of space in the vaults. Obviously film was a cheaper way to archive these shows as 16mm took up a lot less in space on a shelf. The problem is film deteriorates quickly and is highly flammable. Hence what allegedly happened to the Agnes Nixon archive.

 

[danielanderson6500]

It is a crime that NBC wiped so much from their daytime shows of the 1960s. And the voices that came along with them, like Bill Wolff, Mel Brandt, Kenny Willams, Don Pardo, Bill Wendell, Wayne Howell, Jay Stewart, etc.

 

[danielanderson6500]

P&G didn't wipe em, NBC did. Their archiving was godawful in general back in the day thanks to lack of storage space from RCA. You have to remember these shows were produced five a week on 2" quadroplex video tape which came in very large boxes that took up a lot of space in the vaults. Obviously film was a cheaper way to archive these shows as 16mm took up a lot less in space on a shelf. The problem is film deteriorates quickly and is highly flammable. Hence what allegedly happened to the Agnes Nixon archive.

Not just soaps, but some of the AFC games, like the Dolphins-Chiefs game from 71 or the Patriots-Raiders game in 76 were wiped too.

 

[danielanderson6500]

There are some holy grail moments that are wiped such as

Rachel tells Alice that Steve is her baby's father.

The wedding of Missy and Bill

The debut episode of Another World in Somerset

Pat shoots Tom Baxter.

Walter, driving in his car on his way to John's office hallucinates and has an imaginary conversation with Lenore. Then his conscience itemizes all of his transgressions before his car plunges off the road and bursts into flames.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Not just soaps, but some of the AFC games, like the Dolphins-Chiefs game from 71 or the Patriots-Raiders game in 76 were wiped too.

Yeah, Ghost to the Post, the Sea of Hands and the Heidi Bowl (save for the last few minutes thanks to Vanderbilt University) are gone too.

 

[danielanderson6500]

I think a lot of people today would find the organ music to be corny or even dated.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Obviously film was a cheaper way to archive these shows as 16mm took up a lot less in space on a shelf. The problem is film deteriorates quickly and is highly flammable.

The only "highly flammable" film was nitrate film, which wasn't used after 1952 (and never for 16mm as far as I know). And once polyester stock became the norm in the 80s, along with LPP color, deterioration isn't much a concern.

 

[danielanderson6500]

My favorite AW themes by the way



and this one, which i grew up with, and was my favorite(although my grandmom might disagree with me, because she liked the orignal Charles Paul theme as played on the organ by Clarke Morgan better...)