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THE COMPLETE LIST: 25 Biggest Blunders In Daytime Soap Opera History (September 2011)
World's biggest champion of scripted, serialized storytelling on TV & The Web.
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They undid some mistakes, like making Jill Katherine's daughter, which was a big mistake, I agree. And Genie Francis is back full-time on GH and it's great. Whenever she's on a break I miss her. It's so great to have Laura back!
About cancelling One Life To Live.... I'm still happy ABC kept General Hosptial instead of OLTL. They wanted to cancel two soaps and I think it was the right decision to keep GH. OLTL had little momentum back then but Ron C has proven on GH and Days that he can't keep it, so OLTL would have been awful in the mid10's.
About cancelling One Life To Live.... I'm still happy ABC kept General Hosptial instead of OLTL. They wanted to cancel two soaps and I think it was the right decision to keep GH. OLTL had little momentum back then but Ron C has proven on GH and Days that he can't keep it, so OLTL would have been awful in the mid10's.
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I agree with most of the list. At the time though I was probably one of the few that really enjoyed Katherine Chancellor becoming Jill’s mother. To me it was a real shocker that came out of nowhere and it took both characters in a whole new direction. But looking back on it almost 18 years later I can see why most had a problem with it. The storyline ran its course pretty quickly and it just wasn’t the same not having those two at each others’ throats all the time. The show kind of lost something then
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Yeah, they undid the Katherine and Jill thing quickly. But making Jill and Lauren half-sisters was nuts. Another thing that should be on the list is the debacle with the recast and killing of Sheila on YandR - yet she has her old face and is alive and well on B&B! And characters from B&B know Lauren and have never told her!
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I recall being a regular reader of the site this article appeared on. The article was published several years ago but there is very little I would change in the interim. A good mix of onscreen mistakes and behind-the-scenes mistakes.
The owners of the site seemed to abandon it (or at least quit updating it) several years ago. Is it still 'dead'?
The owners of the site seemed to abandon it (or at least quit updating it) several years ago. Is it still 'dead'?
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The Archers just celebrated it's....70th anniversary:
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I'm sure the reason such mass cancellations are cited in this list is because as late as 1960, many people still relied on radio as their chief source of entertainment. The cancellations were the death-knell for radio soaps in the US, and obviously there are still a small sector of people internationally who enjoy that format and continue to support it.
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Hard for me to imagine listening to a soap as opposed to watching it. I guess without seeing the characters you really have to use ur mind more. You can’t see what anyone looks like, you can’t see the characters’ expressions, you can’t see the reactions in their eyes to each others’ lines, etc. For people that listened on radio before they had a tv I wonder what it was like to finally see the show you could only listen to previously?
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Bill Bell dug in his heels for years, openly resisting CBS's pleas to expand Y&R to an hour. He spoke often of how the half-hour format was ideal for soaps. They eventually wore him down, obviously (the show expanded to an hour in 1980), but I believe that if CBS had not been so adamant about the expansion, he would have stuck with the half-hour format. He made sure B&B debuted as a half-hour soap and never even entertained the idea of expanding it; after he stepped back and eventually died) his family kept it that length out of respect for his wishes.
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I never knew about Y&R going to an hour show in 1980. I always assumed that it was always an hour show. I also never knew about AW going to 90 minutes for awhile. That just seems like such a huge task for the writers to come up with fresh material every day.
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The AW experiment was a fiasco. The show had been #1 or #2 in the ratings for several years (due mostly to the writing and its theatrical style) but in 1977-78 the new, shiny thing was General Hospital, with its emphasis on youth and energetic style. AW was about to experience a ratings downturn, though they of course did not know it at the time. When NBC decided to expand it to 90 minutes, GH (and to a lesser extent, All My Children) were taking away viewers. The production team and writers had been working on AW for years and were likely overworked--so now they were saddled with producing another 2 1/2 hours of the show per week!
The big stars of the show could not appear every day, nor could they memorize 90 minutes of dialogue on a regular basis. The Mac/Rachel/Iris triangle that had carried the show for so many years had to be back-burnered because they could not get the actors to 'overlap' in their workdays. They could schedule one or perhaps two of them to appear, but rarely could all three appear at the same time. They had to ration out the appearances of those three, and the balance of the time had to be filled up with new character additions. Viewers felt cheated if none of the favorites were appearing that day, and of course no one likes to see a bunch of newbies "taking over their show". Both the Executive Producer (who was responsible for the theatrical style and "look") and the Head Writer departed due mostly to burnout. The second-stringers who took the reins were not up to the challenge, so the stories they came up with were pretty bad. The decision was made to create a spin-off series starring Beverlee McKinsey (who played Iris) and to reduce AW back to 60 minutes. This allowed AW to write out a lot of the characters who were not working out, and focus more on Mac/Rachel once Iris was out of their hair. Texas only lasted two years, and AW fell into a cycle of hiring and firing writers and producers that caused their ratings to go down and never recover. The 90-minute experiment seriously wounded AW, and the obvious problems of trying to put on a 90-minute soap warned everyone else off of trying it.
The big stars of the show could not appear every day, nor could they memorize 90 minutes of dialogue on a regular basis. The Mac/Rachel/Iris triangle that had carried the show for so many years had to be back-burnered because they could not get the actors to 'overlap' in their workdays. They could schedule one or perhaps two of them to appear, but rarely could all three appear at the same time. They had to ration out the appearances of those three, and the balance of the time had to be filled up with new character additions. Viewers felt cheated if none of the favorites were appearing that day, and of course no one likes to see a bunch of newbies "taking over their show". Both the Executive Producer (who was responsible for the theatrical style and "look") and the Head Writer departed due mostly to burnout. The second-stringers who took the reins were not up to the challenge, so the stories they came up with were pretty bad. The decision was made to create a spin-off series starring Beverlee McKinsey (who played Iris) and to reduce AW back to 60 minutes. This allowed AW to write out a lot of the characters who were not working out, and focus more on Mac/Rachel once Iris was out of their hair. Texas only lasted two years, and AW fell into a cycle of hiring and firing writers and producers that caused their ratings to go down and never recover. The 90-minute experiment seriously wounded AW, and the obvious problems of trying to put on a 90-minute soap warned everyone else off of trying it.
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I’ve almost finished Harding Lemay’s “Eight Years in Another World”.
Damn, Virginia Dwyer, George Reinholt, and Jaqueline Courtney were @ssholes!!!!!!! Robert S. Woods said that JC was one of the meanest and most vicious actresses that he ever worked with (when they starred on “One Life to Live”).
Damn, Virginia Dwyer, George Reinholt, and Jaqueline Courtney were @ssholes!!!!!!! Robert S. Woods said that JC was one of the meanest and most vicious actresses that he ever worked with (when they starred on “One Life to Live”).
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That is one eye-opening book, even after 40 years of changes in the soap business. I recall Lemay commenting on how both Dwyer and Courtney could not memorize their lines properly, so when they expanded to an hour, he and Paul Rauch got Virginia Dwyer fired, arguing that if she could not memorize her lines for a half-hour show, she certainly would not be able to do it for an hour-long show! As for Courtney, the stories of her writing her lines on props and on her shirt-cuffs still make me picture her like Carol Burnett's character in the As The Stomach Turns sketches. She and Reinholt may have been immensely popular, but Lemay and Rauch were right to give them their walking papers.
I wish others in the soap biz would have the guts to write such tell-alls, if not just to set the record(s) straight.
I wish others in the soap biz would have the guts to write such tell-alls, if not just to set the record(s) straight.
Susan Flannery quit DOOL when they went to 60 minutes. She didn’t want to work in that environment - she felt it would be detrimental to the show. She agreed to stay for six weeks when they went to an hour and then she was done. She agreed to do B&B because it was 30 min.
Steffy will forever be nothing more than a stalker who got her man.