Joel Crothers
Santa Barbara is an American television soap opera, first broadcast in the United States on NBC on July 30, 1984, and last aired on January 15, 1993. The show revolves around the eventful lives of the wealthy Capwell family of Santa Barbara, California. Other prominent families featured on the soap were the rival Lockridge family, and the more modest Andrade and Perkins families. The serial was co-produced by NBC and Dobson Productions until February 1985, when New World Pictures joined NBC and Dobson as a production partner. The newly created partnership, New World Television, then served as the distributor for the show. Santa Barbara aired in over 40 countries around the world. The show's popularity continued to rise, and it even had fans in the White House. In 1985, when character Augusta Lockridge was blinded following a tunnel collapse, Ronald Reagan sent actress Louise Sorel a letter saying he and Nancy were praying for her and hoped she recovered. Santa Barbara has won 24 Daytime Emmy Awards and was nominated 30 times for the same award. The show also won 18 Soap Opera Digest Awards, and won various other awards. In 1993, NBC replaced Santa Barbara with game shows Scrabble and Scattergories. Shortly before the program was canceled by NBC, New World Television tried to shop Santa Barbara to other broadcast and cable networks, but failed to find one that would air the show.
Dark Shadows is an American gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show was created by Dan Curtis. The story bible, which was written by Art Wallace, does not mention any supernatural elements. It was unprecedented in daytime television when ghosts were introduced about six months after it began. The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins appeared a year into its run. Dark Shadows also featured werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles; indeed, as actors came and went, some characters were played by more than one actor. Major writers besides Art Wallace included Malcolm Marmorstein, Sam Hall, Gordon Russell, and Violet Welles. Dark Shadows was distinguished by its vividly melodramatic performances, atmospheric interiors, memorable storylines, numerous dramatic plot twists, unusually adventurous music score, and broad and epic cosmos of characters and heroic adventures. Now regarded as something of a classic, it continues to enjoy an intense cult following. Although the original series ran for only five years, its scheduling as a daily daytime drama allowed it to amass more single episodes during its run than most other science-fiction/fantasy genre series produced for English-language television, including Doctor Who and the entire Star Trek television franchise. Only the paranormal soap opera Passions, with a total of 2,231 episodes, has more.
The Edge of Night was an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984. There were 7,420 episodes, with some 1,800 available for syndication.
