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| 1980: Larkin Malloy made his Edge of Night debut. 1980: GH's Laura didn't leave after saying goodbye to Luke. 1985: OLTL's Tina figured out Viki was Niki Smith. 2001: Degrassi: The Next Generation premiered. |
― Maya Angelou
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1970: On Another World, after being jilted by the man she loved, Wayne Addison (Robert Milli), Liz (Nancy Wickwire) was convinced she had no life. "I have nothing," she told her daughter, Susan (Lisa Cameron). "Nothing that matters."
1980: Larkin Malloy made his first appearance on The Edge of Night as "Schuyler Whitney."
1980: On General Hospital, Jennifer Smith (Lisa Marie) was thrown a surprise birthday party, while Hutch (Rick Moses) pulled a gun on Laura (Genie Francis).
1985: On One Life to Live, Tina (Andrea Evans) figured out Viki was really Niki Smith. Niki (Erika Slezak) gave Tina a check for $5,000 to show her appreciation for Tina's silence.
1985: On Another World, Fayez Sedrack stole Nancy McGowan's (Jane Cameron) Egyptian ring, then gave it to Carl Hutchins (Charles Keating).
1986: Actor Keenan Wynn, who played the second Digger Barnes in CBS' original Dallas, died at age 70.
1991: Frank Runyeon aired for the final time as Michael Donnelly in Santa Barbara.
1999: Laura Bell Bundy debuted in Guiding Light as Marah Lewis. After Marah and Shane arrived home from their trip, Reva (Kim Zimmer) wasn't thrill with the new and improved Marah, who got mad when Reva mentioned Richard and Jonathan.
2001: Degrassi: The Next Generation premiered on CTV.
2002: On Guiding Light, Marina Cooper (Aubrey Dollar) managed to hit redial on her phone which called Ben Reade (Matt Bomer), who followed Harley (Beth Ehlers), Gus and Eden after they left to go rescue Marina at Laurel Falls.
2008: CBS aired the 9,000th episode of The Young and the Restless.
2008: On General Hospital: Night Shift, Robert (Tristan Rogers) came out of his coma.
2010: Actor Simon MacCorkindale died at age 58. He played Greg Reardon in Falcon Crest from 1984-1986.
2011: Soap Classics released its first As the World Turns DVD. The set featured 20 episodes spanning the years 1979 to 2010.
Celebrating a birthday today are:
Lee Lawson (ex-Bea, Guiding Light; ex-Wanda, One Life to Live; ex-Barbara, Love of Life) - 74
Greg Evigan (ex-Dan, Melrose Place; ex-Robert, Pacific Palisades; ex-Charles, Desperate Housewives) - 62
Arleen Sorkin (ex-Calliope, Days of our Lives) - 59
Usher Raymond (Raymond, The Bold and the Beautiful) - 37
Jon Seda (ex-Dino, Oz; ex-Nelson, Treme) - 35
Shelley Bennett (ex-Vivian, As the World Turns) - 34
Teresa Castillo (Sabrina, General Hospital) - 32
Daniel Clark (ex-Sean, Degrassi) - 30
MacKenzie Mauzy (ex-Phoebe, The Bold and the Beautiful; ex-Lizzie, Guiding Light) - 27
Max Thieriot (Dylan, Bates Motel) - 27
Mia Wasikowska (ex-Sophie, In Treatment) - 26
Shona McGarty (Whitney, EastEnders) - 24
Alisyn Griffith (ex-Lulu, General Hospital) - 21
Kelli Griffith (ex-Lulu, General Hospital) - 21
Jaden Harmon (ex-Andre, One Tree Hill) - 15
EDITOR'S NOTE: If you would like to submit a soap history entry for this date or a future date, email [email protected].
Man, I wished that SoapClassics were able to pump out a few more boxed sets before folding!
ReplyDeleteSteve & Betsy and Craig & Sierra wouldn't have taken that long, I think, because those couples only spanned a few years when you think about it. I would've loved to buy those!
There were a few issues that took a while to address:
Delete* There are no records with episode #s, description and airdate in existence. Stuff from the past 15 years has been documented somewhat online (although not episode #, which is what we needed).
* When the tapes were brought out of storage, they were not organized in any way so it was sometimes hard to find one, even if we nailed down the episode # (and sometimes that episode had previously been marked as special--stuff like Steve & Betsy's wedding--so it was occasionally even harder to find.
* By the time ATWT got to Craig & Sierra, soaps were using pop music so frequently, which they claimed they purchased for one-time use. Due to he technology of the time, SO many classic Craig and Sierra moments had Billy Ocean's "Suddenly" playing in the background and it couldn't be removed. Since it's too expensive to license songs today, we had to skip many, many episodes I wanted to release. I think this is what ultimately did the project in because sales were terrific, and the demand was greater than even anticipated.
Just wishful thinking on my part ;) Although I love my classic ATWT, I know that most P&G soaps, in terms of the production side and how they archived and (didn't) preserve their Masters, is a friggin' mess (LOL).
DeleteWell, at least we fans have some YT episodes to watch. Some of my favorite episodes may still be missing but it's better than nothing :)
Have you watched The Doctors on Retro TV at all? They started with Dec. 1967 and are currently airing Feb. 1970. It has been wonderful to see these episodes for the first time, and made me appreciate the great Liz Hubbard even more. It took SFM Entertainment several years to digitize all those episodes, and more years to find a home for them but it was worth the wait. I worked on a project earlier this summer that involved digitizing a small portion of the P&G archive. I hope someday the entire catalog is digitized (at least 1979 forward which is mostly what's available). It would take years to do, but once it's digitized the archive could be made available on Netflix, Hulu or a place like Retro TV easily. I'm not sure how they handle the episodes with music that can't be erased but we're still talking about thousands of episodes I'm sure a lot of people would love to see again, or for the first time.
DeleteSadly, I no longer get Retro TV but I did watch some episodes online, courtesy of a generous uploader but I lost track. For the time I did watch however, I was surprised and elated at how quickly I become engrossed in the stories. Just well timed, methodical storytelling that was allowed to unfold in a timely fashion, using gradual build and character revelation. Today's network soaps seem to lack this type of consideration. I don't know why I stopped watching, other than the fact that there is sooo much great TV, I don't know how to make the time to watch all of it!
DeleteWow, Roger, I hope that those digitized archives that you worked on can be made available soon. Is it painstaking work? I remember once, while in Grad school wanting to intern for PGP/ATWT but it seemed that the show was cutting back at that time, if only they had started back then in '01 but perhaps the technology wasn't quite there yet?
Anyway, I'm going to check back in and try to catch up with The Doctors and I love La Liz Hubbard!
Love the fact that you lend so much of your expertise and talents in service of the soaps! Hopefully, those P&G folks will have the sense to listen to your advice!