Not too many of them left, and the few attempts to revive them online have failed…but there are still a handful left, and great memories of all the rest. I remember when the Chandlers were introduced on All My Children, Luke and Laura and The Ice Princess on General Hospital, all the various murderous shenanigans of James Stenbeck on As The World Turns(in my opinion, best soap villain ever), and so much more. Of those that are still on, and those that aren’t any more, which one is your favorite and why?
I’ve been watching Young and the Restless on and off ever since junior high. The great thing about Y&R is that I can not watch for years at a time and still figure what’s going on within one episode. It helps that they have a core cast who have been there for 20+ years.
I also watched Days of Our Lives for a while, but it got too ridiculous. I stopped watching after the whole “Marlena is possessed by the devil” story.
When I was in college (40+ years ago) we had to follow a soap for a few weeks and analyze plot, characters, storylines and so on. I chose Days of Our Lives. To give you an idea of how long ago it was, Marlena wasn’t even a character at that point.
Occasionally I’ll run across DOOL on a random afternoon and there will be a cameo by an old character – I’ve seen Doug, Julie and Maggie in 2014.
For me, it was General Hospital. It seemed like for years it left mere soap opera plot lines behind for tales of mobsters, superspies, mad scientists, aliens from other galaxies, and at one point even having one of the major characters being the reincarnation of Alexander the Great! Sure, it still had a “You slept with my sister!” plot line thrown in once in a while…but it usually it turned out the errant deed was masterminded by an evil hypnotist whose goal was to drive someone mad and steal some fortune. For a period of about 20 years there wasn’t a character on that show that didn’t get involved in at least one over-the-top scheme. It wasn’t slow soap-It was fast paced daytime adventure, and I loved it.
Another World was my favorite. It had some characters that I really liked and some acting talent among the cast. I was so mad when they cancelled it in favor of that Aaron Spelling drivel that didn’t last more than a year and a half.
I was a big fan of The Edge of Night. It never took itself too seriously (at least while I was watching it) and I enjoyed the characters, like Raven, Sky, and Preacher.
When I used to work seasonal part time in retail dept stores, the electronics dept would always have TVs on the soaps. I don’t remember any names f shows because I only saw snippets of anything, but I do remember one character.
Stefano
I don’t know if the character crossed soaps or not (did they do that?), but he seemed to be everywhere.
When I was a kid, I used to watch Guiding Light with my mom every single day. I could probably have told you entire plotlines, characters, who was related to who, everything.
Nothing will ever top “Prisoner: Cell Block H.” Technically it was on at 11PM in Detroit in the late seventies but I think it was a daytime thing in Australia.
I was all CBS all the time as far as soaps go. I even watched Capitol. When I was very young and didn’t quite watch, but played near my mom while she did Another World was in the rotation.
Of all of them Guiding Light was my hands down favorite. Between Young and the Restless an Bold and the Beautiful I prefer Y&R. I haven’t watched regularly in years.
I do have a TV at work, which I mainly use to stream movies. A week or so ago I had switched it to broadcast TV to watch a baseball game (Go Os!). The next day when I turned the TV on it was still on CBS and I watched (in a sidelong way while I worked) partial episodes of Y&R and B&B. I was flabbergasted at how many people I recognized, both characters and actors I recognized from previous roles. I switched it off before the episode ended because it was clear to me I could very easily get sucked back in to either show or both, and I really don’t need that.
