Classic Soaps The Edge of Night

[Daniel Avery]

There was a large chunk of EON episodes that were "semi-lost" (out there, just not readily available on YT) from the period of approximately June-October 1981. Apparently Mark Arnold (the actor who played Gavin Wylie in that period) had kept recordings of the episodes and gave them to a Youtuber to upload. So I've been having a ball, since there are a lot of cool plots/events I'd always wanted to see, but had only heard about.

I won't spoil any of the plot details, but there was a two-episode plot point that I think we all find amusing here in 2023. Raven was trying to dig up some info on a plane crash that had occurred three years before. She invited Nancy Karr to lunch for advice on how to do such research. Nancy is of course the town's investigative reporter. She says the only way to find out anything would be to go to the office and go through old copies of the paper from the time period of the crash to read the stories. The reporters may have done some cross-referencing on the names of the people on board the plane, so their notes might also be in the boxes. Raven is happy and of course asks Nancy to do it for her (that's so Raven). Sure enough, Nancy calls her the next episode to tell her the info she needed, though I think it was the next day (not an afternoon). So I'm sitting there thinking Man, if 1981 Nancy had 2023 Google, all she would have to do is type in the date, "plane crash" and the names of the two men Raven asked about to get all the plot information she needed in two seconds rather than two days.

Or better still, she could have gotten Raven to do her own dirty work.

 

[tommie]

Another example how technology has ruined soap opera suspense.

 

[Daniel Avery]

There was also a scene where the villain shoved the young heroine into the back of a limousine. On that platform behind the back seat was a desk phone with light-up buttons for multiple lines, which must have been an early effort at a car phone. In mid-kidnapping there was a buzz (not a ring) from the phone, which distracted the villain long enough for the heroine to escape. I'm still not sure if this was what rich people had in their 1981 limos, or if the set designers had no idea what they were doing and it's actually a goof. It's kind of charming, since EON ran on a lowest-of-the-low budget yet managed to crank out fascinating and addictive stories.

 

[cijimccashin]

I like what I have seen of Edge of Night thus far. I need to join in on this viewing party.

 

[Daniel Avery]

It's not as organized as a "viewing party," unfortunately. it's more of a miniature admiration society!

@Carrie Fairchild is watching the 1979-80 period involving the villainy of faded movie star, Nola Madison. Some "lost" episodes from the summer/fall of 1981 were recently posted on YT so I've been watching those---but watching out of order due to wanting to see favored characters rather than follow the linear plotlines. I have a working knowledge of how the plots played out, but it's still fun to see how they laid it all out so well. I enjoy how Henry Slesar wrote plots and "unwound" them so well as much as I enjoy the actors' performances.

Carrie appears to be watching for the first time unspoiled, so I'm trying to avoid spoiler-y chat in that 1979-80 era. EON is the last show you want to have spoiled, since it is so unpredictable compared to most soaps. CF also appears to have a large dance card when it comes to good TV shows, so there is no "schedule".

 

[cijimccashin]

I started with the episode on August 3rd, 1979.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

the 1979-80 period involving the villainy of faded movie star, Nola Madison

@cijimccashin this has actually been quite a good point of the show to jump in on although there have been mentions made of previous storylines (gun running for dictators and Elliott as a cult leader) that I’ll probably go back and watch at some point. But yes, the Nola arc is a great starting point and you don’t feel lost at all in the midst of already ongoing action.

CF also appears to have a large dance card when it comes to good TV shows, so there is no "schedule".

I love EON but you are correct, there is no schedule as I’ve dived headlong back into Sons and Daughters, so that it taking precedence at the moment.

 

[Daniel Avery]

In the period I'm watching (Summer/Fall of 1981), there is a short-term character named Sharkey (a slimy creep) who becomes the key to blowing open two major plotlines. He's played by Christopher Goutman, who ends up moving from acting to directing soaps (mostly at other P&G soaps), ultimately becoming the Executive Producer of Another World when it was cancelled, who then moved to As the World Turns until it got cancelled. He was a good director, but a lousy EP from the look of things. All I can say right now is that he'd better quit being mean to Nancy!

Speaking of Nancy (and Mike), I find it sweet but sort of hilarious that the couple (a holdover from the 1960s style of soap operas) still have twin beds on the bedroom set at the Karr house. Across town we have Raven rolling around in bed with....well, fill in the blank, and couples like the Scotts and the Cavanaughs having the sort of "pillow talk" scenes that we see all the time with soap couples. It's so rare that they write a scene for Mike and Nancy talking (and certainly not doing anything else) in their bedroom that the show apparently hasn't updated the set to include a full-sized bed. It'll be well into 1983 before Nancy suggests that perhaps it's time they redecorate the house...and they broach the subject of finally buying a full-sized bed. I remember they made it a humorous sub-plot amid all the serious drama going on at the time. It made them seem like senior citizens, when in fact Forrest Compton was not even 60 and Ann Flood was around 50.

 

[cijimccashin]

I can't wait to see Christopher Goutman. I never seen his acting.

 

[AndyB2008]

In the period I'm watching (Summer/Fall of 1981), there is a short-term character named Sharkey (a slimy creep) who becomes the key to blowing open two major plotlines. He's played by Christopher Goutman, who ends up moving from acting to directing soaps (mostly at other P&G soaps), ultimately becoming the Executive Producer of Another World when it was cancelled, who then moved to As the World Turns until it got cancelled. He was a good director, but a lousy EP from the look of things. All I can say right now is that he'd better quit being mean to Nancy!

Speaking of Nancy (and Mike), I find it sweet but sort of hilarious that the couple (a holdover from the 1960s style of soap operas) still have twin beds on the bedroom set at the Karr house. Across town we have Raven rolling around in bed with....well, fill in the blank, and couples like the Scotts and the Cavanaughs having the sort of "pillow talk" scenes that we see all the time with soap couples. It's so rare that they write a scene for Mike and Nancy talking (and certainly not doing anything else) in their bedroom that the show apparently hasn't updated the set to include a full-sized bed. It'll be well into 1983 before Nancy suggests that perhaps it's time they redecorate the house...and they broach the subject of finally buying a full-sized bed. I remember they made it a humorous sub-plot amid all the serious drama going on at the time. It made them seem like senior citizens, when in fact Forrest Compton was not even 60 and Ann Flood was around 50.

With Another World, it did better than Sunset Beach ratings wise at the time Goutman was Executive Producer, but NBC I believe had part ownership of the latter.

This was at the time they were deciding which soap to axe to make room for Passions.

(Interestingly Ann Flood was on Search for Tomorrow, another P&G soap, in their final days - I think around the storyline where they did location shooting in Ireland.

That was at the time when Search underwent revamps to boost flagging ratings - the town was hit by a flood, new opening credits and a new logo came in and the theme tune was replaced by a instrumental of Billy Chinnock's Somewhere In The Night).

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

With Another World, it did better than Sunset Beach ratings wise at the time Goutman was Executive Producer, but NBC I believe had part ownership of the latter.

This was at the time they were deciding which soap to axe to make room for Passions.

(Interestingly Ann Flood was on Search for Tomorrow, another P&G soap, in their final days - I think around the storyline where they did location shooting in Ireland.

That was at the time when Search underwent revamps to boost flagging ratings - the town was hit by a flood, new opening credits and a new logo came in and the theme tune was replaced by a instrumental of Billy Chinnock's Somewhere In The Night).

I did not know that they did location shooting in Ireland. Interestingly (to me anyway) the show wouldn’t actually air in Ireland until a few years after it ended on US TV, when it was paired with EON in a soap double bill on small satellite channel Lifestyle.

 

[AndyB2008]

I did not know that they did location shooting in Ireland. Interestingly (to me anyway) the show wouldn’t actually air in Ireland until a few years after it ended on US TV, when it was paired with EON in a soap double bill on small satellite channel Lifestyle.

Yep, towards the end they did location shoots in Ireland.

This at the time the McCleary family dominated the storylines, which I believe annoyed Mary Stuart because of less emphasis on her character.

Mary I'm sure had issues with Search at times - Joanne's baby son Duncan Eric (played by her real life son) was killed off, and when Mary Ellis-Bunim was Executive Producer, she put Joanne on the back-burner to focus on a youthful direction.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I did not know that they did location shooting in Ireland. Interestingly (to me anyway) the show wouldn’t actually air in Ireland until a few years after it ended on US TV, when it was paired with EON in a soap double bill on small satellite channel Lifestyle.

The same deal (EON paired with SFT as a package) was sold to the USA Network, a small, struggling cable network at the time (mid-1980s). Their airings between 11pm and 1am or so, depending on various factors was how I discovered The Edge of Night.

SFT was chock-full of recognizable faces, whether "coming" (new actors in their first soap role who went on to other things) or "going" (already known from other soaps). The McCleary clan you mention featured three hunky brothers (David Forsyth, Jeffrey Meek and Matthew Ashford) and later, their mother (Maeve McGuire). Forsyth moved to Another World to play John Hudson for a decade; Meek went on to ATWT as one of the many Craig Montgomerys; and of course Ashford became a star as Jack Devereaux on Days. Maeve McGuire had made her name as Nicole Drake on The Edge of Night in the mid-1970s, the same character we later see married to Miles Cavanaugh. When EON decided to recast Nicole, they hired an actress who was twenty years younger than McGuire and made her into a young heroine again.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

This at the time the McCleary family dominated the storylines, which I believe annoyed Mary Stuart because of less emphasis on her character.

I kind of get Noele Gordon “grand dame of the show” vibes from Mary Stuart in the latter part of her SFT reign. I can’t remember which actress it was but on one of those Locher Room reunions, she mentioned joining SFT and coming to set without makeup and in her sweats (or something to that effect) and Mary Stuart asking “so this is supposed to be the show’s great sex symbol?” upon seeing her. There’s a run of episodes from 1982-83 online, so I’ll give them a look at some stage, if just to get a taster of what the show was like.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Unlike most soaps, Search for Tomorrow was created to be centered around a single character--Mary Stuart's character of Joanne. It was quite a feat to have both Joanne AND Mary Stuart remain with the show until the final scene 35 years later. Joanne (Jo) was not front and center every day (no one could have endured that) but she was a sort of touchstone for the series and Stuart was one of the most well-known actresses in soaps not only because of her longevity, but because Jo was a very root-able character. There were plenty of other characters worthy of note over the decades, so if for some reason you had no use for Jo, there were plenty of other actors and characters to tune in to see. If I had to characterize this soap using the POV of a modern viewer, I'd call it "gentle" and "quiet" for the most part, while some might call that "boring" due to ever-decreasing attention spans. It was more Ryan's Hope than The Edge of Night. After SFT moved to NBC in 1982 they tried to "juice it up" a bit but even then it wasn't ridiculously out-of-character. They had a very well-received plot where Jo was kidnapped and held hostage by a nutcase named Vargas (played by John Glover, an actor who is no stranger to playing creepy villains), and the aforementioned flood that wiped out most of the town and allowed them to build a lot of new sets and do a soft reboot of the show. Frankly I was glad they stuck mostly to their signature style and went down with their heads held high---rather than becoming something they weren't in an effort to grab attention.

 

[tommie]

With Another World, it did better than Sunset Beach ratings wise at the time Goutman was Executive Producer, but NBC I believe had part ownership of the latter.

This was at the time they were deciding which soap to axe to make room for Passions.

I think there were other factors - such as I assume they had already more or less promised the post-DAYS slot to James E. Reilly (hence why Sunset Beach went to noon, despite being from high profile producer Spelling, whose shows in the 90s very much appealed to the 18-49 demographic that would've been more likely to tune in later in the afternoon, as Passions was being developed at the time); so the option was probably to either cancel Another World or cancel Sunset Beach AND move Another World to Sunset's slot. I also think they might've feared that they would've had some renegade affiliates on their hands that just wouldn't have moved Another World and lessened the chances of Passions + Another World would've probably improved the ratings of anemic Sunset Beach's time slot and they probably already had plans to get rid of it anyway and hand the slot back to affiliates.

 

[Daniel Avery]

NBC had been the weakest when it came to "enforcing" timeslots, mostly because they'd had so much trouble producing decent shows for the affiliates to air. We've discussed the AW/SuBe/Passions thing in other threads, so I will only add that NBC was so lax in this area by 1999 (when AW went off the air) that it was basically understood that all three networks could play around with their dayparts as much as they wanted. But it had been that way for a while.

When ABC took on The Edge of Night in 1975 from CBS, they had intended for its affiliates to air it at 3:30 or 4pm, which was where EON had been successful when it was on CBS. Most stations did this, but some wanted to keep the 4pm slot for their own programs, so over time (by 1980-81) more stations were airing it at weird times, like morning (where I lived, EON aired at 10am in its last few years) or late night. The batch of 1981 episodes I've been watching were actually not even aired on an ABC affiliate--that ABC station in Philadelphia made some sort of side-deal to sell the series to an independent station, who aired it about three weeks behind. This "do whatever you want" mentality was what killed EON, since the show would have been just as successful as all of ABC's other soaps had it remained in the post-General Hospital slot nation-wide.

 

[Jason73]

I'm happy to see an EON thread and enjoying reading everyone's thoughts. I've been making my way through 1980. I'm up to May now. Raven returned about a month ago and I am having a blast watching hurricane Raven whirl through town causing problems everywhere. Sharon Gabet is fantastic. I just found out why Raven is so desperate to get her baby back. Hint: It's not because she's a loving, caring mother who loves her son. I love what an unapologetically bad mom she is.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I especially love the fascinated, yet exasperated and suspicious way Derek Mallory deals with her every time they interact. It's obvious he knows she's trouble, but he likes trouble.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I'm happy to see an EON thread and enjoying reading everyone's thoughts. I've been making my way through 1980. I'm up to May now. Raven returned about a month ago and I am having a blast watching hurricane Raven whirl through town causing problems everywhere. Sharon Gabet is fantastic. I just found out why Raven is so desperate to get her baby back. Hint: It's not because she's a loving, caring mother who loves her son. I love what an unapologetically bad mom she is.

She’s currently in London in the episodes I’m watching but her presence is there in the background, so I’m looking forward to her return. An Instagram account I follow often posts gems from old soaps and just this weekend, they posted an epic sequence of scenes involving Raven barging into the penthouse and letting rip at all of the “conspirators” that are plotting to keep her away from her baby. You may have seen it in the episodes you’re watching but if not, you’re in for a treat. She’s every bit the hurricane you’ve described her as. As an aside, Sharon Gabet herself commented on the video as she follows the same account. She also commented on a previous video they posted of Kim Hunter during her Nola Patterson stint. It’s great to read the little nuggets of info and insights she shares.