Name your all-time favorite daytime soap opera

[MoneySpider]

Out of Days of Our Lives, Another World and Santa Barbara (all of which I used to watch because my mother watched them), I'd have to say Santa Barbara, only because of the music they used in the show, and I think the majority of soap opera actresses I had crushes on were on that show. I also enjoyed Santa Barbara's opening and closing themes.

[MoneySpider]

Days of Our Lives it was awesome in the 80's.

It definitely was. My entire immediate family used to watch it back then. The DiMeras vs. the Bradys, the Salem Strangler, the original Roman, etc. etc. And I used to have the biggest crush on Anna DiMera back then (Leann Hunley).

[CliffHanger2]

Dynasty. I remember one of my aunt's screamed when Dex got shot at that wedding lol. Oh wait Dynasty wasn't daytime..oh well.

[a moment closer]

Days Of Our Lives is my number one fave

Sunset Beach was another fave when I was a teen
Passions came out when I was a teen

I grew up watching these three with my Mom and they were really good. I remember being so upset when they canceled Another World.

Another World
Days Of Our Lives
Santa Barbara

I have to say I miss the theme songs most from a lot of the Daytime Soaps and Dynasty. What happened to good theme music for television programs?

[williamtheday]

I started to really get into Dark Shadows around 1970--Judah Zachary's my favorite villain. I'd watch some Days of Our Lives and All My Children later on (are there still desert island storylines? the heroines were quite fetching in ragged clothes). I've heard 'Crossroads' was an infamous UK soap; anyone ever seen it?

[caj]

1. As The World Turns
2. The Guiding Light
3. General Hospital
4. The Young And The Restless
5. Santa Barbara

[Phoenixx9]

Days Of Our Lives is my number one fave

Sunset Beach was another fave when I was a teen
Passions came out when I was a teen

I grew up watching these three with my Mom and they were really good. I remember being so upset when they canceled Another World.

Another World
Days Of Our Lives
Santa Barbara

Another World ended somewhere around July 02, 1999. A VERY SAD day indeed!!

[Nate Grey]

I forgot Guiding Light. Roger Thorpe made that show. And it featured a young Frank Grillo as his son, Hart Jessup.

[TheBlackTerror]

The "Luke and Laura" Saga on General Hospital in the 1980s

So popular it had a (terrible) top 40 song about it

[Jim Kelly]

An interesting factoid about ONE LIFE TO LIVE and DARK SHADOWS is that Jim Storm played Dr. Larry Wolek on OLTL (he was actually the second Larry) but left and got the role of Gerard on DARK SHADOWS, then his brother, Michael Storm, replaced him and would play the character for the next 35 years.

It seems to me that some soaps completely flipped their cast of characters. When Y&R began it was all about the Brooks family then it flipped to the Abbot family and the Brooks sisters vanished. GH was about the Hardy and Baldwin families and then it switched to the Webbers and the Quartermaines. The Buchanan family eased out a lot of the old characters that had been on OLTL from the beginning. AMC stuck with the Martin family to a degree but Adam Chandler's relations took over a lot of the screen time. For some of the original characters, the only way for them to survive was to marry into the invading clan.

Even DARK SHADOWS flipped the script toward the end, switching to a parallel universe. Although they held onto many of the same actors. That wasn't the first time they flipped the script. It started out as a gothic romance and switched to a gothic horror (shades of SINISTER HOUSE). The great thing about DS was that they could always find a new part for their actors--doppelgangers being as ubiquitous as I Ching wands.

[Lonewolf36]

My top 4 didn't really watch any of the others.
General Hospital
Days of Our Lives
General Hospital: Night Shift
Santa Barbara

In the 80's era though it would be hard to beat Days of our Lives.

[Phoenixx9]

The "Luke and Laura" Saga on General Hospital in the 1980s

So popular it had a (terrible) top 40 song about it

Yeah, I remember "General Hospi-Tale", lol.

There is another song, "Think of Laura", which is quite lovely.

[caj]

Yeah, I remember "General Hospi-Tale", lol.

There is another song, "Think of Laura", which is quite lovely.

Loved 'Think of Laura' by Christopher Cross.

GH had a lot of music on the show. I remember 'Baby Come To Me', which I believe was Luke and Holly's song. 'All I Need' by Jack Wagner (who played Frisco Jones, Maxie's bio dad) was also played on the show.

And 'Rise' by Herb Albert was playing when Luke raped Laura on the disco floor in 1979.

[Phoenixx9]

Loved 'Think of Laura' by Christopher Cross.

GH had a lot of music on the show. I remember 'Baby Come To Me', which I believe was Luke and Holly's song. 'All I Need' by Jack Wagner (who played Frisco Jones, Maxie's bio dad) was also played on the show.

And 'Rise' by Herb Albert was playing when Luke raped Laura on the disco floor in 1979.

I must have watched a lot more of GH than I admit because I remember all of those, lol!

[Comic-Reader Lad]

For me, the only soap I really watched religiously was Guiding Light. I may have more later to say about GL in a post I've been thinking of creating. I began watching it some time in late 1980 or early 1981.

Then, in the 80s some new soaps were created, so I would watch them because I thought it would be cool to see a soap from day one and see how it all begins instead of coming in 30 years later.

So, I started watching Capitol and Loving. There were periods where I would drop them for a bit, but I think I saw most of each series including when Loving became The City. I really didn't bother with the other new 80s soaps like Texas (because it premiered before I started watching soaps), Santa Barbara, and B&B.

I generally stayed away from the ABC soaps and Days of Our Lives as they looked really campy to me, and even the campier plots on GL were not my favorites. However, I did have the pleasure of doing an interview with Agnes Nixon (creator of One Live to Live, All My Children, and Loving) after the cancellation of Guiding Light (Nixon was GL's head writer after creator Irna Phillips stepped down), so I did respect her accomplishments in the industry even if I couldn't get into OLTL and AMC.

However, when Dark Shadows came out on DVD years ago from MPI Home Video, I bought all the sets, and campy as it could get, I still liked it a lot because the tone fit the material. My favorite storylines were "1795" and "1897," but I'd guess those would be everyone's favorites. I also liked the pre-Barnabas plot of "Laura Collins: The Phoenix" a lot. I'd guess Chris Claremont was a DS fan given that he appropriated the name "Sebastian Shaw," and I wouldn't be surprised if Phoenix stuck in his head as well.

Also, when SoapNet started airing reruns of Another World, I started watching it for some reason, and I have to say I really liked it. When I was watching, they were running the 1990-1991 stuff where Paulina Cory joined the show, there was a mystery of who shot Jake McKinnon, and Kathleen McKinnon returned from the dead. It also featured Anne Heche at the height of her popularity.