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Post by Jayman on Feb 18, 2017 4:12:06 GMT
This show was awesome. The longest running of them all. If you count radio. Not sure why Y&R lasted but this didn't.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Apr 17, 2017 20:26:20 GMT
Pointless reply to a legitimate discussion topic?
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 18:06:56 GMT
This show was awesome. The longest running of them all. If you count radio. Not sure why Y&R lasted but this didn't. Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Apr 18, 2017 20:21:09 GMT
This show was awesome. The longest running of them all. If you count radio. Not sure why Y&R lasted but this didn't. Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak. Never got bigtime into the P&G shows save for ATWT when it was briefly the "it" show of the early 2000s. Sadly when I started watching soaps GL was already well past its prime.
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Post by Jayman on Apr 18, 2017 20:37:50 GMT
This show was awesome. The longest running of them all. If you count radio. Not sure why Y&R lasted but this didn't. Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak. I had stopped watching in the mid 90's but before that it was awesome. Y&R I felt was always the weak link in the lineup but that always got the most ratings which I could never figure out. I guess it was more simplistic and easier to follow since there was never much of anything happening.
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Post by Jayman on Apr 18, 2017 20:38:38 GMT
Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak. Never got bigtime into the P&G shows save for ATWT when it was briefly the "it" show of the early 2000s. Sadly when I started watching soaps GL was already well past its prime. ATWT kicked ass in the 80's and 90's.
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 22:54:22 GMT
Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak. I had stopped watching in the mid 90's but before that it was awesome. Y&R I felt was always the weak link in the lineup but that always got the most ratings which I could never figure out. I guess it was more simplistic and easier to follow since there was never much of anything happening. I've watched most of the soaps since the late 70's and GL has always been my favorite soap. The early 80's was fantastic (Nola, Quint, Carrie), the mid-80's were good but then it rebounded in the late 80's/early 90's into spectacular, must-see television. At the same time ATWT was also earning kudos, so those two back to back were an unbeatable duo in terms of quality. Y&R has been good, sometimes great but I think one of the reasons for its #1 status in the ratings is due to its timeslot.
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 22:55:08 GMT
Never got bigtime into the P&G shows save for ATWT when it was briefly the "it" show of the early 2000s. Sadly when I started watching soaps GL was already well past its prime. ATWT kicked ass in the 80's and 90's. Absolutely, ATWT was fantastic under Douglas Marland in the 80's and well into the 90's!
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 22:56:29 GMT
Y&R had the ratings, GL didn't. Also, the quality of the show was reduced to the point that they changed the way it was filmed and the sets made it look cheap. But it was the best show ever when it was at its peak. Never got bigtime into the P&G shows save for ATWT when it was briefly the "it" show of the early 2000s. Sadly when I started watching soaps GL was already well past its prime. By the 2000's all of the soaps ratings had declined as did the quality. General Hospital kept winning best show at the Emmy's but I can't remember it being all that great.
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Post by Jayman on Apr 18, 2017 23:01:29 GMT
I had stopped watching in the mid 90's but before that it was awesome. Y&R I felt was always the weak link in the lineup but that always got the most ratings which I could never figure out. I guess it was more simplistic and easier to follow since there was never much of anything happening. I've watched most of the soaps since the late 70's and GL has always been my favorite soap. The early 80's was fantastic (Nola, Quint, Carrie), the mid-80's were good but then it rebounded in the late 80's/early 90's into spectacular, must-see television. At the same time ATWT was also earning kudos, so those two back to back were an unbeatable duo in terms of quality. Y&R has been good, sometimes great but I think one of the reasons for its #1 status in the ratings is due to its timeslot. That's awesome you saw the earlier stuff in the 70's. All the Roger Thorpe and Alan Spaulding stuff. I started with Y&R in the 80's, but then got into the other two. Being I couldn't watch 3.5 hours of the stuff every day, I made the choice of ditching Y&R for just GL and ATWT.
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Post by Jayman on Apr 18, 2017 23:03:49 GMT
ATWT kicked ass in the 80's and 90's. Absolutely, ATWT was fantastic under Douglas Marland in the 80's and well into the 90's! The thing that was great about that was you had all characters interacting with each other. Everything interweaved and flowed.
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 23:19:54 GMT
I've watched most of the soaps since the late 70's and GL has always been my favorite soap. The early 80's was fantastic (Nola, Quint, Carrie), the mid-80's were good but then it rebounded in the late 80's/early 90's into spectacular, must-see television. At the same time ATWT was also earning kudos, so those two back to back were an unbeatable duo in terms of quality. Y&R has been good, sometimes great but I think one of the reasons for its #1 status in the ratings is due to its timeslot. That's awesome you saw the earlier stuff in the 70's. All the Roger Thorpe and Alan Spaulding stuff. I started with Y&R in the 80's, but then got into the other two. Being I couldn't watch 3.5 hours of the stuff every day, I made the choice of ditching Y&R for just GL and ATWT. Yes, Roger and Holly, Alan and Hope, Nola and Quint, boy those were the days! Yes, after a while it becomes too much to watch all of them. I would watch a few minutes of Y&R and then switch to DOOL during commercials and vice-versa, lol that's how I kept up with those soaps. But with GL and ATWT I would tape those two and watch in their entirety. The good old days!
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 18, 2017 23:21:27 GMT
Absolutely, ATWT was fantastic under Douglas Marland in the 80's and well into the 90's! The thing that was great about that was you had all characters interacting with each other. Everything interweaved and flowed. Absolutely! And they were smart about it too - the older characters had front-burner storylines too! It was awesome!
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Post by Jayman on Apr 18, 2017 23:44:12 GMT
THat's the truth Mike. I never thought any of these shows would be gone because they all had over a half century of history. I used to buy the soap opera weekly and soap opera digest and if I knew something big was happening I'd check out AMC or GH or Days, but those 2 CBS shows were must see tv every day. But I guess it all goes in cycles either way.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Apr 19, 2017 2:25:37 GMT
Never got bigtime into the P&G shows save for ATWT when it was briefly the "it" show of the early 2000s. Sadly when I started watching soaps GL was already well past its prime. By the 2000's all of the soaps ratings had declined as did the quality. General Hospital kept winning best show at the Emmy's but I can't remember it being all that great. I never understood how they ripped off so many in a row. Or how they have so many overall.
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Post by jarrodmcdonald on Apr 19, 2017 15:55:49 GMT
THat's the truth Mike. I never thought any of these shows would be gone because they all had over a half century of history. I used to buy the soap opera weekly and soap opera digest and if I knew something big was happening I'd check out AMC or GH or Days, but those 2 CBS shows were must see tv every day. But I guess it all goes in cycles either way. I think this is definitely the WRONG reason for a soap to stay on the air. And we're seeing that with Days right now. It's kind of like expecting a dog to live 100 years. These things have certain, limited life cycles. A show should not stay on the air because of history. It should stay on the air because a lot of people are still watching and it is good television. I loved Guiding Light and watched it from 1979 till it went off in 2009. But it was dreadful during most of Ellen Wheeler's reign as executive producer and really should have been cancelled in 2007. Switching to a new production model after its 70th anniversary killed it. It was not allowed to go out with dignity.
A friend of mine worked on GL from 1990 to 2002 and he's biased and thinks those years are the best. Even during those years, there were several regime changes and basically every three years it was reinventing itself. The Guiding Light of 1990 is several versions removed from what it was at the end in 2009. A show shouldn't have to change so much just to keep up. Personally I think 1997 to 2002 under producer Paul Rauch was the last renaissance period. It goes downhill quickly from 2002 to 2005, then with Wheeler for those last few years it was nearly unwatchable.
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rsc
Freshman
@rsc
Posts: 72
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Post by rsc on Apr 19, 2017 16:08:18 GMT
I watched Guiding Light my whole life and I taped it every day. I watched it in its entirety, no FF'd and I couldn't wait to watch it every evening. When Wheeler was hired and they changed the production model I hated it, but still watched.
Now, I FF'd most of Days and am now getting into Y&R because I started watching Days after GL was gone but just can't stand most of it anymore. I realize the genre is waning but the crap they are producing right now is an insult to the legitimate soap actors and the glory days of soap opera.
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Post by Jayman on Apr 19, 2017 22:07:50 GMT
THat's the truth Mike. I never thought any of these shows would be gone because they all had over a half century of history. I used to buy the soap opera weekly and soap opera digest and if I knew something big was happening I'd check out AMC or GH or Days, but those 2 CBS shows were must see tv every day. But I guess it all goes in cycles either way. I think this is definitely the WRONG reason for a soap to stay on the air. And we're seeing that with Days right now. It's kind of like expecting a dog to live 100 years. These things have certain, limited life cycles. A show should not stay on the air because of history. It should stay on the air because a lot of people are still watching and it is good television. I loved Guiding Light and watched it from 1979 till it went off in 2009. But it was dreadful during most of Ellen Wheeler's reign as executive producer and really should have been cancelled in 2007. Switching to a new production model after its 70th anniversary killed it. It was not allowed to go out with dignity.
A friend of mine worked on GL from 1990 to 2002 and he's biased and thinks those years are the best. Even during those years, there were several regime changes and basically every three years it was reinventing itself. The Guiding Light of 1990 is several versions removed from what it was at the end in 2009. A show shouldn't have to change so much just to keep up. Personally I think 1997 to 2002 under producer Paul Rauch was the last renaissance period. It goes downhill quickly from 2002 to 2005, then with Wheeler for those last few years it was nearly unwatchable. I'm not saying it should've stayed on the air because of history, I was just surprised it would tank like that to the point of being cancelled since it lasted for so many decades.
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Post by jarrodmcdonald on Apr 20, 2017 14:01:18 GMT
I think this is definitely the WRONG reason for a soap to stay on the air. And we're seeing that with Days right now. It's kind of like expecting a dog to live 100 years. These things have certain, limited life cycles. A show should not stay on the air because of history. It should stay on the air because a lot of people are still watching and it is good television. I loved Guiding Light and watched it from 1979 till it went off in 2009. But it was dreadful during most of Ellen Wheeler's reign as executive producer and really should have been cancelled in 2007. Switching to a new production model after its 70th anniversary killed it. It was not allowed to go out with dignity.
A friend of mine worked on GL from 1990 to 2002 and he's biased and thinks those years are the best. Even during those years, there were several regime changes and basically every three years it was reinventing itself. The Guiding Light of 1990 is several versions removed from what it was at the end in 2009. A show shouldn't have to change so much just to keep up. Personally I think 1997 to 2002 under producer Paul Rauch was the last renaissance period. It goes downhill quickly from 2002 to 2005, then with Wheeler for those last few years it was nearly unwatchable. I'm not saying it should've stayed on the air because of history, I was just surprised it would tank like that to the point of being cancelled since it lasted for so many decades. Mismanagement. That's what it was. After Paul Rauch left at the end of 2002, they hired John Conboy who had never helmed a P&G show, and he did not understand the program's rich history. He was fired a year later, and then they promoted Ellen Wheeler who had been an actress on Another World and All My Children (she was an Emmy winner), and she had been directing for awhile at As the World Turns. And she was okay the first year, but then when her contract was renewed the power went to her head and she decided the show needed to be completely reformatted. Kim Zimmer (ex-Reva) talks about it in her autobiography....Kim details the explosive fights she had with Wheeler because she knew Wheeler was running everything into the ground.
At one point, according to Zimmer, Wheeler wanted to rename the show 'The New Guiding Light' which shows how wacky some of Wheeler's ideas were. Like after 70 years, why would you try to call it 'new.' Zimmer also talks about how Wheeler took over the editing booth and was recutting scenes that had already been filmed and normally wouldn't have been tampered with. The reason for this was because Wheeler's new production model, where they filmed extensively in New Jersey, had such low-budget sound that much of the actors' dialogue was not getting picked up by the cheap boom mics.
Kim says there was a scene where Reva (it was Reva's last pregnancy) was supposed to have an emotional confession and then go into labor. But she says the dialogue was so inaudible that Wheeler re-edited it and threw acoustic music over it to cover up the traffic noises that the mics were picking up instead of the actors. So when the scene aired Reva is having an emotional breakdown and going into labor but you can't even hear what she's saying, you just hear strange guitar music over it. All the preparation Kim had done to make that scene memorable for viewers was lost.
The other performers were not happy with Wheeler but they either didn't have the clout Kim had or the guts to say anything. Kim seems to imply she had at least one fight a week with Wheeler and that Wheeler would turn on the tears (since she was an actress) to get Kim to back down. It only infuriated Kim and left her with the impression that Wheeler was bipolar and going to wreck the show and not take any valid criticism to heart and fix what was wrong. So things only got worse and worse. Kim says her contract was up the last summer the show was on the air, but the cancellation had been announced in April. If it had been renewed another year, her husband told her she needed to quit, because the program no longer had any real integrity and it was reaching a point where it would hurt her career to continue being associated with it.
In Kim's words, the show was "a hot mess" at the end. She says she was glad it was canceled when it could still bow out gracefully, but by that point Wheeler had alienated fans and the cast considerably. There's a reason ratings go down and stay down, and a reason why soaps get cancelled regardless of how much broadcast history they have.
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Post by MiketheMechanic on Apr 21, 2017 3:51:06 GMT
THat's the truth Mike. I never thought any of these shows would be gone because they all had over a half century of history. I used to buy the soap opera weekly and soap opera digest and if I knew something big was happening I'd check out AMC or GH or Days, but those 2 CBS shows were must see tv every day. But I guess it all goes in cycles either way. Me too, I used to buy SOW as soon as it hit the stands and my favorite SOD was the annual best and worst lists! Oh boy, those were the days! Now everything is online and it's not the same.
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