I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I did used to regularly keep up with "The Young and the Restless" until about two or three years ago. The glacial plot movement, bad acting, and constant changing cast made me think to myself "surely I have better things to do with my time!" Turns out, I was right. I did. As a young kid, my mom watched (so, by extension my brother and I did too) "Days of Our Lives" and "Another World".
Watched a ton of 90210 and Melrose Place if those are considered soap operas. A lot of favourite current shows might be considered soap operas for men.
I used to watch Young and Restless and Days of Our Lives 10 years ago. I've met 4 of the actors from Y&R.
As a child of the 80's, I used to watch "Days Of Our Lives", "Santa Barbara", "Another World", and occasionally "General Hospital." In the late-90's, I watched "Port Charles" (GH spinoff), because it was on at 3am, when I came home from work. Since that time, I can't be bothered with any of them.
The only one I really remember watching was Santa Barbara because it was on late at night. Not sure why that was, maybe just my local affiliate or whatever. And because Robin Wright (later Penn) was on it and I just thought she was so beautiful. Mostly though I find soap operas annoying. I especially hate the way they always whisper
My mother has watched this every day since it first came on in 1965. No exaggeration. Well slight exaggeration I guess, I'm sure she has missed a day here and there...but still. A dedicated viewer for 54 years. It's incredible to me.
My mom was hooked on Young & The Restless and the other CBS soaps that followed so I watched a lot of them in the summer. When General Hospital had its big run in the early 80's with Luke & Laura, of course I watched that too. No desire to watch any these days, but my wife keeps up with The Bold & The Beautiful on one of the cable channels.
My grandmom watched "Another World" and it had the organ music(yep...) and bad acting, and the somber-voiced announcer(Bill Wolff, who was AW's announcer then, and a NBC staff guy, much like Don Pardo of Price is Right and SNL). But Robin Strasser as Rachel!(before she was on "One Life to Live"). It seemed to my grandmom that Rachel had a lot to cry about then too. "The Doctors" also had the announcer then, Mel Brandt? He was an NBC staffer, known for doing the peacock opening for years.
The first one I remember watching was "The Edge of Night"- probably around the time it switched networks. I was still in elementary school and my mind was blown when Nicole came back from being missing and presumed dead. It was most likely I started watching when my mother or grandmother had their "stories" on. I also watched "Another World" through the late 70's and early '80's. Lots of actors and actresses from these shows would move from one show to another. Faces moved on to prime-time and feature films. Names like Lois Kibbee, Dixie Carter, Ray Liotta and Morgan Freeman come to mind. "Tootsie" featured a few familiar faces and touched upon the volume of work these shows pumped out - 2 1/2 to 5 hours a week, every week - and in the early days it was live. I watched a bit of "General Hospital" from 82-84 but was never really hooked. Starting in the mid 80's we also lost some great talent to AIDS - a mention to David Oliver - an early crush. I started watching "Y&R" after work in the late 90's. In Ontario it is on from 4:30-5:30 pm. Like others, I grew tired of the plot lines - I would hate to see the insurance bills for these families what with all the fires, plane crashes, car crashes etc. I also started thinking that Victor and Jack should just admit that their hate for each other was actually a secret lust. I weened myself off "Y&R" and on to "Gilmore Girls" which was in re-runs daily at the same time. There were others that would watch from time to time -"Texas" (an Another World spin-off) and "All My Children" come to mind.
Dark Shadows Prisoner Cell Block H General Hospital (Only because I made an appearance in an episode & wanted to record the episode.)
Prisoner: Cell Block H. I used to love kicking back, late at night, with a big plate of toast, and watching this show. I even saw the live stage show around 1989/1990.
Dark Shadows when it first aired. As a teen (mainly during the summer), the ABC lineup: Ryan’s Hope All My Children One Life to Live General Hospital. I also recall a stint of The Guiding Light in CBS.
My wife used to watch One Life To Live. She started telling me who all the characters were and I got sucked in. I watched the last 4 years of that show. I ain't proud. I now recognize actors when I see them in other shows. I just said the other day "hey that woman was on OLTL."
I've only ever followed one U.S. soap (not counting Dark Shadows very retroactively)... Santa Barbara. It was the early '80s at a time when I was out of school yet not working at that time of day either. I followed it for quite awhile and thought at first it was really good, but it started getting cheaper and some lead roles were recast with actors I liked less. After all this time I just remember the name of one main character... Cruz Castillo. I dropped it. Never tried another of the U.S. soaps, there was something about the acting, casting or even production that I usually disliked. My mother was hooked on something titled The Edge Of Night when I was little. I tried General Hospital during that Luke and Laura time but couldn't get into it/them, and to be honest I did not really like Luke (although a good actor). I was probably more interested in following a sort of cartoon soap after school about a WWII battleship turned into a spaceship that had to get the other end of the galaxy and back before life on Earth was destroyed. I have followed British soaps off and on depending on availability and after spates of terrible writing would exhaust themselves. I guess Coronation Street (made in Manchester for ITV) is the longest from somewhere in the '80s, but when it's bad it is bloody unwatchable, and this has been it's problem for ages. A bit of comedy is great, too much destroys it, and then the torn for the headlines shocking story line, especially serial killer #7 (and we're talking on one short block), can sink the ship. And yet i will still check back in after as long as a year away... must be the theme music I miss! I liked rural soap Emmerdale (made in Yorkshire for ITV) better than Corrie but it's been carried sporadically in Canada. It's had some poor runs but usually shorter and not as deeply bad. Some of the greatest and most memorable moments though. Brookside was set in a suburb cul-de-sac and strip of shops area near Liverpool was pretty good too, gone now, but availability was the biggest problem for me. It ran on Channel 4 in England which was the 'minority interests' channel. As for BBC's long-running EastEnders... not for me, it always just seemed dire, yet it's usually been available to me. I watched an Aussie soap Home And Away for the first couple years, it was aimed at teens and young adults which i was then. The Bobbie (tomboy tearaway) and Frank (pin-up poster boy) show, plus a surfer with a brain aneurysm that could blow at any moment. The location was a draw, plus surfing! There was also a Venezuelan soap The Lady Of The Rose (going on memory, it was something like that) with a main innocent victim character Gabrielle who went to a Venezuelan prison at the hands of a businessman love/hate romance at some point.
First year away at college (mid-‘60s): my roommates and I would get back to the apartment and turn on “General Hospital”. Live back then, there was an operating room scene where the surgeon said, “Scalpel....sponge....hypodeemic nurdle”. We laughed for days.
I forgot to mention Coronation Street. The show actually began in the early sixties. Wife and I have been devoted "Corries" for about ten years now. We save them on PVR through the week and binge watch six episodes on the weekend. Yes sometimes some of the story lines drag on but overall the cast grew on us and we usually enjoy the British colloquialisms.
Never watched but I have memories of the damn shows interfering with Godzilla week on the 4 o clock movie. Series knock down drag out battles over it and then when there was Hammer Horror week the weapons came out.
