So, after 40 some odd years, my soap operas are being yanked from the air.
Boo hoo...sort of.
Let's begin by saying I have been a lifelong soap opera fan. From the time I was little, and I mean pretty little (was that even appropriate, Mom?!) I watched Ryan's Hope, Loving, The City, Port Charles, All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Santa Barbara. I've watched 5 of the 8 of those get cancelled.
I remember going to Eastland as a little girl and meeting Alan Quartermaine and Karen Wolleck. Yes, those are their character names because I don't know their real names and don't care enough to look them up, lol. I went to Sears at Universal Mall to meet Kelly Ripa (the teeny tiny skinniest woman I have EVER seen in my life) and Steve Burton (I was wearing a Cross Colors jacket...embarrassing).
I owe my very first trip to Los Angeles to Cord from One Life to Live. Ryan, Michelle, and I went to Mackinac to a soap opera festival and he drew our raffle ticket to win the grand prize...the choice of a trip to New York or LA. I remember giving him a huge hug and telling him I had never been on a plane before.
I have wonderful memories of Soap Opera Weekends at Disney:
Bobby from All My Children stopped his autograph line and made the ENTIRE crowd sing 'Happy Birthday' to Natazha.
Tad from All My Children got on the phone with my mom and talked to her while she was at Molly's wedding shower.
Zack from All My Children talked Wayne State with me (he's went there too!).
Bob the Bachelor (who, ok, isn't really a Soap Star at all, but was there because he was married to one) talked Detroit with me (he's from there).
Oh, and the best one...one year we randomly ran into one of the guys from Rascal Flatts and got our picture with him!
But as for the ACTUAL shows...well...WTF guys?
While I always watched them when I had time, there were VERY FEW times I watched obsessively (these times include when Eden and Cruz's baby Audriana was kidnapped...only because my Barbie and Ken, aptly renamed Eden and Cruz, were playing along and the whole Hayley/Brian love story on AMC...because I wanted to be Hayley and have a love story with Brian lol). That was what I kind of loved about them. If I missed a few days, it wasn't too hard to jump back in and figure it out.
The last few years though, they've gotten steadily more ridiculous. While they were NEVER truly believable, they have gotten downright insane. I get the whole 'back from the dead' storyline, but for God's sake, how many times can the SAME person die and come back from the dead? Hello, Dixie from All My Children...I am convinced she has a vacation home in Heaven, as she has come and gone from there about 4 times. I'm not even exaggerating. Gay/Lesbian storylines are NOT that big of a deal anymore...but the dumbass music and lame camera angles utilized during those love scenes are pretty amusing. If you have a baby on a soap opera, I guarantee at least 2 out of the next three things:
1) Your baby is getting kidnapped by your husband or boyfriend's deranged ex...and I don't mean recent ex...I mean someone he dated 26 years ago that has been obsessed with him all that time.
2) Your baby was switched at the hospital and when it comes down with a made-up disease, it will be discovered that-GASP-junior is NOT REALLY your baby!
3)On Monday you will have a 2 year old, but by Friday he or she will be 16...because there aren't too many exciting story lines involving 2 year olds.
Soaps have lost the daily escape from reality feeling they used to have and turned into something that makes me just shake my head from the stupidity and absurdity of it all. Or maybe I've just gotten too old to buy into it. After all, I have a button still in the drawer at my parent's that says "Luke Laura Together Now"...and Luke and Laura, a rapist and his victim, were the biggest love story ever on General Hospital. How did anyone ever think that was ok? If you put that on ANY other tv show, people would go nuts.
Eh, so anyways soaps, thanks for the memories. You were great while you lasted, and sometimes I'll probably miss you.
Unless this whole shift to the internet happens, and you are, like so many of your characters before you, brought back from the dead ;)
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