Written by Erin
It’s a beautiful day in Salem. The sun is shining and Vivian is plotting Melanie’s murder while Sami looks for her baby who’s been kidnapped by EJ (the baby daddy).
Meanwhile in Genoa City, Chancellor Mansion was invaded and Patty the psych patient is stuffing meds in her mattress. In Port Charles Sonny’s jumping bail and Lucky’s slipping back into alcoholism and in Pine Valley Greenlee plans to take the city, marry David and bring Erica to her knees.
Yep, the stories are outrageous. The plots are unbelievable but every weekday millions spend their afternoons watching the drama unfold. I don’t care who you are or what you do for a living. I’m willing to bet that most women, no matter how prestigious their current position in life is (Admit it, Nancy Pelosi) have watched a Soap Opera at some point. I bet you have (yes, you!).
Soap Operas are criticized as being “stupid” and “predictable.” So what? People love the characters. They have memories associated with story lines. Who can forget the feeling you had when you watched your favorite Soap couple get married or the anger you felt when they broke up a few months later? Haven’t you ever wished a weekend away because the Friday cliffhanger left you on pins and needles?
So fess up! Who’s watching a Soap? Who has a Soap memory? Let the truth out, ladies!
Tags: All my Children, General Hospital, Soap fans, Soap Opera, Soap Stars, Young and The Restless
I use to watch All My Children regularly when I was in my 20′ and 30’s. My mother actually started me watching a show. I can’t remember the name, but the girl had an abortion and this was how I learned about it. It actually led to a nice mother daughter discussion that I still remember. My grandma used to watch the two 15 minute shows that were on at lunch time. “The Guiding Light” and “The Secret Storm” TGL was on for a long time and my grandma watched it till she passed.
I love The Young and the Restless. 4 generations of women in my family have watched. I know the characters better than I know some of my friends. Soaps are so unique in that they are never ending- like a movie that evolves but never stops. It allows you to form such an attachment to the characters you see every day. I can’t imagine not inviting Genoa City into my home ona regular basis- and I’m not even ashamed about it!
My mom was dedicated to “All My Children” for decades, so I knew the characters growing up and watched when school was out for the summer. Really, even then (the 70’s) some of the story lines were inapropriate for children! I imagine it’s not much better now.
As a teen, I caught “General Hospital” after school with my sisters. Luke & Laura, Scotty, the Carradines (I think), even Richard Simmons- aerobics guru, were a staple throughout my teens.
When I stopped working (for pay) to raise my children, I watched “All My Children” during naptime (the kids called it “Mommy’s Show”) until something even more intriguing came on: The OJ SImpson trial on Court TV. I believe I watched Greta Van Sustren of Fox News explain the finer (and ridiculous) points of the trial every day. I never went back to soaps.
Does anyone else notice the similarity of soaps to reality tv?
I don’t watch any soaps now, but General Hospital and the Luke and Laura storyline were the talk of my dorm back in the late 70’s, early 80’s. There was always a crowd in the t.v. lounge during the show, and I’m sure a few arranged their class schedules around it.
I literally have childhood memories of Anna and Robert Scorpio on General Hospital.
I’ll end up like my sister, addicted to Soap net! LOL!
I grew up watching ABC soaps. It’s amazing to me how you can not watch a show for YEARS, come back and be able to get caught up and it seems like you never stopped watching.
I stopped watching Soaps about 8 years ago and then I started watching Days of our Lives. I’m so torn though. I don’t want to let myself get back into them all the way
I’ve met a woman who learned to speak Spanish watching Spanish soaps. She said soaps are great for beginners in any language because they are simplistic and the actors speak more slowly for dramatic effect.
Does Lost count as a soap? We started watching it (downloading on Netflix) recently and it seems suspiciously soap-like.
I seem to have a knack for watching soaps that end up getting cancelled but I’m still watching Days which happened to be my first soap. I miss Passions because it was so out there because it can be tiring having the same storylines used over and over. Kidnapping has been beaten to death with Sydney kidnapped not once but twice. But I do amuse myself at least by poking fun at hair and some horrible outfits that are worn in Salem. Hair sickness has hit Salem and of course I rename people too.
http://soapgirl.weebly.com
I haven’t watched soaps in years but from ages 12-20something, I probably watched every soap on at one time or another. My default favorite was As the World Turns, but seriously, if it was on ABC, CBS or NBC between around 1980 to 1995, I watched it at one point or another. I think the first soap I got into was The Edge of Night, though that was canceled a few years after I started watching. I’m pretty sure that was my early favorite because this was pre-VCRs (never mind DVRs!), and it came on at 3 pm, so it was the only one I could catch after school.
As a result of my many years of soap-watching, I have many opinions on a variety of shows and characters (some probably unpopular). I remember how for years it was such a big deal that Susan Lucci always got nominated for a daytime Emmy but never won, but IMO, she wasn’t a very good actress. Never liked her or her character. Another unpopular opinion: though I watched it at times, I never got why The Young and the Restless was such a critic and fan favorite. I always thought it was fairly boring.
Though they fell out of favor, it seems to me that sometimes it was the half-hour soaps that were the most compelling – I really liked Ryan’s Hope, right up until its cancellation.
I guess Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman doesn’t count? I never could get into Soaps. My mom never watched them when I was growing up so they were foreign to me. I remember some of the neighboring mom’s watching them and when I was in high school I wanted to like All My Children as much as some of my friends, but I was too hyper to sit down for that type of story. Dark Shadows is one that I kind of remember. My mom didn’t watch that one either, but I would stop on the channel to see the vampire. I see DVDs of it at the library all the time and think about picking it up to watch. I remember being fascinated by Barnabas Collins.
I never got why The Young and the Restless was such a critic and fan favorite. I always thought it was fairly boring.
Jennie,
Politics is one thing, but now this? You wound me!
Lily@IW — Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman — that brings back memories! I was a little young for it, but I remember my mom and aunt being gaga over it. My mom never watched TV, but she made an exception for MH MH.
Ann@IW, I see the resemblance between soaps and reality TV too. Both depend on outrageous characters, heroes and villains, and suspending belief.
I have watched many of the ones you all have mentioned at one time or another. I was kind of a fickle fan – there were usually one or two stories I was interested in and I would fast forward the VCR tape past the stories that didn’t interest me. I still remember being excited or bummed if the character/storyline that I was most interested in was or wasn’t featured on a particular day.
I read recently that As the World Turns is due to be cancelled in September. That makes me sad. There is so much history there. I haven’t watched in years, but I still remember newcomers like Meg Ryan and Julianne Moore before they made it big. Yep, I am old!
Along with the daytime soaps, I was very invested in the nightime soaps that were big back in the day — Knots Landing and Falcon Crest being my favorites. I remember another star – Alec Baldwin – who got his start on Knots….
Soaps have always gotten a bad rap because they’re associated with housewives. Most of the popular nighttime dramas are essentially soap operas. It’s sad to see the genre going away. I think they could save it, but they cost too much to produce. If they would just go back to basic relationship stories, instead of back-from-the-dead, when did I have that baby?, who owns Jabot this week? stories, they could keep more of their audience.
I watch the CBS shows from time to time. I had given up on Guiding Light long before they took it off, but I had to watch the last Bauer Fourth of July picnic, as well as the last week or so. One of the things I like about soaps is the continuity of seeing the same people who were there when I was a kid. Helen Wagner, who plays Nancy Hughes on As The World Turns, was onscreen when Walter Cronkite broke in to tell us President Kennedy was dead. Now, even Walter is gone, but Helen (at 91!) still shows up sometimes. I’m always happy when she’s there on a day I watch.
Y&R will always be that “new soap” to me. My older sister entered a Jamie Lyn Bauer (what was her character’s name? she was one of those sisters from one of the original main families- I know she almost married a guy who turned out to be her half-brother) look-alike contest. She lost.
Politics is one thing, but now this? You wound me!
And I like mayonnaise! Pretend we’re on a soap and I’m your evil twin, opposite in every way.
I used to watch most of them. My Mom got me started, she used to watch As The World Turns (she had gone to grade school with the actress that played one of the Bauers). I watched All My Children from the very first episode and just stopped watching a few years ago, I traded soap operas in for twenty-four hour news shows and home-improvement shows. But in between I watched almost all the soaps, I watched Ryan’s Hope from the first episode until it went off the air (I loved the early story lines!), and I watched General Hospital from when it was in black and white! And I’m dating myself but I also watched The Guiding Light and The Secret Storm! And I loved Dark Shadows! Yes, I was a big soap opera buff, then real-life became a soap opera and I didn’t need them anymore.
Oh, forgive me if this was mentioned, but remember when Demi Moore played Jackie on General Hospital (I think she was an investigative reporter, right?), I remember my Mom saying, “That girl has a smokers voice!”
I do remember her on GH! Wasn’t she someone’s sister? Maybe Felicia’s? (Of Frisco and Felicia fame.) I can’t quite remember.
Jennie,
If you were my evil twin you would have to kidnap me and hold me captive in a cave or mine or abandoned warehouse. Then you would assume my identity and convince my signifigant other that you were me. Ultimately I would escape, and there would be a showdown where each of us would try to convince my man that we were “me”. Are you up for it?
I remember Demi on GH. Wow, when was that?
When I was I believe in high school or middle school I loved Dark Shadows. I don’t think it was on for that long.
In college, our whole dorm floor would schedule classes around Ryan’s Hope and The Young and The Restless. It started in the spring of 1973 and I was a freshman in the fall of 1973 so it was a brand new soap opera. We only had one TV in the lounge. That brings back great memories.
Ryan’s Hope was also a new soap in I think 1975. Both were geared towards the younger crowd although I did love All My Children and General Hospital.
Oh my goodness, when I was in elementary school my Great- Grandma & Grandma watched me after school. We used to watch General Hospital & Golden Girls. I don’t watch soaps anymore but I still catch every re-run of Golden Girls I can!