Like newspapers, like soaps

My grandmother used to watch Days of our Lives, the one that used to come on after DOOL that got canceled in the early 2000s and some other soap on ABC every damn day.

I was forced to watch them, especially during the summer/other breaks from school when I helped her babysit. I'm surprised DOOL and Y&R are still around.

 

I'm shocked to hear that GL is gone after more than 70 years. I figured Days, at or near the bottom of the ratings, would be getting the axe at some point. I was a huge fan of Days for a long, long time, but I haven't paid attention to it in a few years.

As for the current show "The Doctors," I can remember when there was a half-hour soap by that same name back in the '70s and early '80s. There are so many of them that have fallen by the wayside over the years - "Another World," "The Edge of Night," "Search for Tomorrow," "Ryan's Hope," the list goes on and on and on.

 

OK.. DOOL basically got rid of its entire veteran cast to cut expenses... the problem with soaps is advertising dollars.. they're vanishing.. I never watched GL because I am a GH girl since 1979 and you can have GH when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands dammit, but not before... anyway, I'd say that we're within five years, probably less, of all afternoon soap operas being on and produced by the Soap Channel, which needs far fewer viewers to break even. I see Young and Restless, maybe Days, GH and one, or both of the ABC soaps making the leap. The networks will get out of the soap business all the way. And GL is opposite GH, they're the 3 p.m. soaps, last of the day.

 

I've been watching Days for as long as I've been alive. My grandma on my dad's side watched it, my mom watched it, so I ended up watching it. I think my grandma on my mom's sided watched everything but days. I still tivo it now, but it only takes me about 15-20 minutes to watch the whole thing, because I fast forward through the stuff that drags on forever, which is really pretty much the whole show. Now that they've added Raif's character, there's no way I'm going to stop watching. He's the new hotness.

 

HISTORIC, not historical.

Historic = "having significance in history"
Historical = "having occurred in the past"

Sorry, pet peeve.

 

I had a stay-at-home mom, and pretty much grew up with "Guiding Light" and "As The Worlds Turns" -- which I used to just think of as the shows that came on after cartoons were over. My mom watched them because her mom watched them. Another little piece of Americana bites the dust.

Thank god, now we can clear the way for more syndicated "People's Court" ripoffs.

 

I foresee a combination Kids Show/Springer series taking its spot.

 

I watched GL for 20 years, there was a girl I tried to date in HS and we used to talk about the show during study hall.
This was Beth-Phillip glory days of 1983-84, ahh, good times.
Oh my God, I'm listening to XM's 80s channel, and Naked Eyes' "Always Something There to Remind Me" just started. That was one of our favorite songs.
Wow, that is an eerie coincidence.

 

Let's not forget Secret Storm and Passions on the death list. And, oh yes, Santa Barbara. One of the many soaps graced by Jed Allen. Was edgy for a while when Lane Davies was Mason Capwell. Then they started having a new Mason Capwell seemingly every other week, and the show became a conventional, failed soap. And Lane Davies' post-SB career bombed (Whoops, anyone?)

 

Mason and Julia. Best soap couple ever.

 

I never really watched other soaps so I can't say for sure, but I'm thinking Days had the largest number of super soap couples, starting with the very first ones to fit the description of a super couple - Doug and Julie.

Followed by Roman and Marlena, Bo and Hope, Patch and Kayla, Jack and Jennifer, John and Marlena, etc. I guess I shouldn't forget Tom and Alice.

 

Capwell Industries had to be the most dysfunctional major corporation this side of AIG