Tuesday, September 22, 2009

CLASSIC CLIPS: Daytime Soap Opera Finales

With the passing of GUIDING LIGHT on Friday, it brought to mind the ending of many a classic soap. Here are some of the memorable daytime soap opera finales.

A WORLD APART: June 25, 1971 (Producer: Tom Donovan; Head Writers: Richard and Suzanne Holland)

TEXAS: December 31, 1982 (Executive Producer: Gail Kobe; Head Writer: Pamela Long Hammer)

SEARCH FOR TOMORROW: December 26, 1986 (Executive Producer: David Lawrence; Head Writer: Pamela K. Long)

SANTA BARBARA: January 15, 1993 (Executive Producer: Paul Rauch; Head Writer: Pamela K. Long)




EDGE OF NIGHT: December 28, 1984 (Executive Producer: Erwin Nicholson; Head Writer: Lee Sheldon)

CAPITOL: March 20, 1987 (Executive Producer: Charlotte Savitz; Head Writer: James Lipton)

RYAN'S HOPE: January 13, 1989 (Executive Producer: Felicia Minei Behr; Head Writers: Claire Labine, Matthew Labine and Eleanor Labine)

GENERATIONS: January 25, 1991 (Executive Producer: Sally Sussman; Head Writer: Sally Sussman)

LOVING: November 10, 1995 (Executive Producer: Jean Dadario Burke; Head Writers: Barbara Esensten and James Harmon Brown)

ANOTHER WORLD: June 25, 1999 (Executive Producer: Christopher Goutman; Head Writers: Leah Laiman and Jean Passanante) - Audio has been removed from this clip, is there another on YouTube?

PORT CHARLES: October 3, 2003 (Executive Producer: Julie Hanan Carruthers; Head Writers: Barbara Esensten and James Harmon Brown)

GUIDING LIGHT: September 18, 2009 (Executive Producer: Ellen Wheeler; Head Writers: Jill Lorie Hurst, Christopher Dunn, Lloyd Gold and David Kreizman)




14 comments:

  1. That EON clip brings back so many memories. I especially loved Joel Crothers. Was lucky enough to have met him in the 80s. A lovely guy. Warma nd friendly, and even better-looking in person.

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  2. It's so sad he died so young. I really enjoyed him on EDGE.

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  3. So if ATWT hires Pamela K Long in the next few months, we know that would be the final nail in the coffin, right?

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  4. Despite her horrible stint on SANTA BARBARA, I loved Pam Long's work on TEXAS and GUIDING LIGHT.

    ATWT did hire David Kreizman who wrote from SPYDER GAMES and GUIDING LIGHT.

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  5. Texas was the first soap I watched that was ever canceled. And it's finale was so amazing, it's become the standard against which I judge all over soap final episodes. Show was at its creative height right when it was canceled and the finale wrapped up things so nicely.

    Even more amazing when you consider they only had about a few weeks from the time the cancelation was announced to wrap up everything. I believe the canellation was announced in mid November 1982 and the final show aired on Dec. 31, 1982. Plus head writer Pam Long was out on maternity leave when it was announcced.

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  6. James, I feel the same way about TEXAS. I mentioned this on one of our recent podcasts. The show had hit its stride and I really wish they had given it more time. But so many people then moved to GL I wonder what would have happened with GL had TEXAS stayed on the air.

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  7. If Pamela Long had not gone to GL, there would be no Reva Shayne...

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  8. Why'd the "Edge Of Night" finale clip get bumped in favor of "A World Apart"? :-(

    I loathe the fact that ATWT hired David Kreizman. Surprised? No. Disappointed, yes. A perfect opportunity to find strong talent to shore up ATWT and they pull the weakest link from GL? Dumb. Heck, ATWT would be better off with Pam Long than with David Kreizman. Blah.

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  9. (And for the record, I liked Pam Long's work on GL and heard she did a great job with Texas.)

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  10. Watching that AW finale brought back some memories. I think I watched only the last few months of the show and didn't even know it ended until it just wasn't on anymore.

    I vaguely remember some storylines from those final months and remember it was beginning to SORAS some characters I was starting to crush on (I was a teenager back then) Sean McKinnon.

    Sigh. Young love. LoL.

    Sidenote: After doing some quick research, it dawned on me the guy who played Sean is now a lead on the CW show 'The Vampire Diaries'... I thought that guy looked familiar...

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  11. Good thing we had good memories of him. At least he shared what he had to us.



    ~~ True love of Filipino love ~~

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  12. Dan, EDGE is still there, I just kept adding more and had to move some to the second page for easy loading. If there are my final soap segments on YouTube, please link them here and I will add.

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  13. What a wonderful collection of classic clips. It's striking to see that Pamela Long was involved with three finales. Texas was my all-time favorite as the show had gelled in so many ways by the time of its last episode. Long was featured recently in an audio interview on another site and it is a must-listen feature for fans of all the soaps she worked on. She has retained a healthy humble nature of all her work which is refreshing these days.

    The sound on the Another World clip was removed due to copyright issues on the Bette Midler song which was played. Procter & Gamble kindly reposted the final scene with Victoria Wyndham and Charles Keating earlier this year when the company launched the Another World Today initiative. The final clip from the original Another World can be found in episode 1 of Another World Today at:

    http://www.anotherworldtoday.com/2009_1.html

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  14. Pam Long is a goddess. She was the only reason I ever watched Texas. Okay. Harley Kozak was the other reason. But Pam should have been brought back to run GL two years ago. I just know that she would have been able to pull the show up to such a level of excellence in story and characters that any talk of cancellation would have been about GH instead.

    I've watched the final episode of every soap since Dark Shadows with the exception of For Richer For Poorer and How To Survive A Marriage. I can honestly say that the greatest ending of all was The Edge Of Night with Capitol a close second and Search For Tomorrow virtually tied with them both.

    My vote for the worst-ever finale, and I know you all will agree, was Santa Barbara. I felt like as a viewer my goodwill and loyalty to the show was being stomped on.

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