Classic Soaps The Edge of Night

Daniel Avery

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She's quite the cheerleader for the show. She often says it's the most fun job she ever had as an actress, and she had roles on at least two other higher-profile soaps (One Life to Live and Another World). That era in New York City has always held a certain fascination for me, so I hang on her every word when she starts reminiscing in the comments section of the videos. I had assumed I'd never get to see the Rexford Clinic plot since it was not included in the syndicated package that USA Network aired back in the late-1980s, but the tapes were "found" by Mark Arnold (the actor who played Gavin Wylie) in his personal collection. He gave them to Sharon Gabet, who gave them to someone who uploaded them to YT. Actually, he's still uploading---he's been adding two episodes a week (sometimes three) for a while now. These episodes (now at Oct. 1981) are beginning to overlap with the USA run, but it's been so long that it's like new to me.

There was also a lot of more scattered material (some complete episodes as well as parts of others) in the possession of one of the editors of the series (earlier stuff in the late-1970s) who has remained a friend of Gabet's. She took the stuff someplace (mostly video, some tape) and had it digitized, then did some themed videos, many not even including Raven. Those are also fun to watch when your memories are spotty. They seem to be coming closer to filling up the gaps of the final five years of the series. The current Holy Grail of "missing" episodes is where they revealed the identity of the Clown Puppet Killer (yes, you read that right), since the only known copy on the web is hazy/fuzzy and incomplete. It had me guessing right up to the very end, and though it made perfect sense when I read the synopsis, I want to see a clean, complete copy of that episode and revel in the performances of the killer, the "killed" and the almost-killed.
 

Jason73

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She’s currently in London in the episodes I’m watching but her presence is there in the background, so I’m looking forward to her return.

I think you're really going to enjoy her return. She bursts back onto the scene and immediately impacts April, Draper, Logan, Geraldine, Elliot and Derek and it's so much fun.

An Instagram account I follow often posts gems from old soaps and just this weekend, they posted an epic sequence of scenes involving Raven barging into the penthouse and letting rip at all of the “conspirators” that are plotting to keep her away from her baby. You may have seen it in the episodes you’re watching but if not, you’re in for a treat.

If it's the scene I'm thinking of, I watched it not too long ago and it's the perfect example of the kind of energy she brings back to the show when she returns.

As an aside, Sharon Gabet herself commented on the video as she follows the same account. She also commented on a previous video they posted of Kim Hunter during her Nola Patterson stint. It’s great to read the little nuggets of info and insights she shares.

I wish each of the classic soaps had someone like Sharon, who is so passionate about her show and willing to share behind the scenes info. It's such a rare treat for soap fans. What Instagram account is it? I'd love to follow it too.
 

Jason73

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It’s adamtghani They post lots of old soap clips, old interviews and old music clips. They seem to have a few ex-soap stars among their followers as they’ve popped up in the comments on a few videos.

Thank you! I followed him this morning and got sucked into a bunch of different clips. It's such varied content. I noticed Donna Mills follows him.
 

Jason73

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I'm about to wrap up my evening with a couple of EON episodes. Last night Nancy had a conversation over the phone with her nephew. After the conversation ended the nephew struck up a conversation with . . . a big blue puppet!?
 

Jason73

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I don't even know how to comment about this puppet stuff and whatever is going on with Kelly, but I'm definitely intrigued. Combine that with Draper back in town and having various near misses with some of his former friends and family and Raven causing problems everywhere she goes, and I can't stop watching.
 

Daniel Avery

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I'm concurrently watching stuff from October 1981 and October 1982, and it's becoming clear that someone from the network and/or P&G is pressuring them to imitate the antics of General Hospital at the time. 1982 just doesn't feel as "intimate" as 1981 or earlier, where you felt like you were along for the ride and helping the characters figure out the mysteries (and enjoying their interactions). The bad guys were doing bad things, but their schemes were in scale to the small town. In 1982
the bad guys and their plans became "bigger" in terms of the scale of their schemes/crimes, which makes it harder for the average viewer to believe a small-town police force and some smart investigators could foil their plans. As GH had their "WSB" (international spies like the CIA), EON began relying more and more on the "CEA" as a mostly off-screen spy agency with integrity problems. And they're obviously trying to make Jody Travis their version of Laura Webber, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The summer of 1982 featured the essentially pointless Republic of Eden story with Jody at the center of it, and it's the first Slesar story I found myself trying to fast-forward through. It just did not feel like something Slesar would write, so maybe it was something forced on him by the network. October 1982 is far better than August/September when the Eden story wrapped, as if they're aware they need to regain my attention.
 

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As I head into June of 1980, I'm feeling really ready for the "Draper has amnesia" story to wrap up. It's been going on since mid-March. I like the way it's playing out and the way Emily is being written as nutty but not conniving since she seems to really believe he's Kurt (or Kirk?) and her father's manipulations are allowing her to continue to believe it. I'm curious to see if Emily goes fully crazy when she learns the truth or if she continues to be a sort of fragile, mentally unstable, kind of sympathetic character.

Question: Why did Proctor and Gamble have two soaps that used Oakdale as a location? It wasn't meant to be the same place as far as I can tell. Supposedly one is in Illinois and one is in Ohio?
 

Daniel Avery

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Monticello was never written to be a town near the other P&G soaps like ATWT and AW, and when EON switched to the ABC network, there was even less motivation to say they were close. They went out of their way to obscure what state Monticello was in, using "Capitol City" in dialogue a few times when speaking of the State Government. They also used all sorts of generic names for the cities surrounding Monticello rather than the usual "nearby Chicago" we heard so much on other P&G soaps, since Irna Phillips was from Chicago and had created most of her shows to exist in that area.

So I have to assume EON's Oakdale was different from ATWT's Oakdale, but yes, that's a confusing coincidence, especially if they used it pre-1975 when EON was on CBS alongside ATWT. It's funny because EON would probably have been better-suited to use Springfield, since every state has at least one Springfield in it.

As for the Emily character? Well, I'll keep mum on that, but I will agree with you that Draper-as-Kirk dragged a bit too long. The end of the Draper-as-Kirk story is not exactly a walk in the park, but it allows Slesar to keep "happily-marrieds" from getting boring like so many soap couples. As they say, there's more to the story....
 
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Carrie Fairchild

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I'm concurrently watching stuff from October 1981 and October 1982, and it's becoming clear that someone from the network and/or P&G is pressuring them to imitate the antics of General Hospital at the time. 1982 just doesn't feel as "intimate" as 1981 or earlier, where you felt like you were along for the ride and helping the characters figure out the mysteries (and enjoying their interactions). The bad guys were doing bad things, but their schemes were in scale to the small town. In 1982
the bad guys and their plans became "bigger" in terms of the scale of their schemes/crimes, which makes it harder for the average viewer to believe a small-town police force and some smart investigators could foil their plans. As GH had their "WSB" (international spies like the CIA), EON began relying more and more on the "CEA" as a mostly off-screen spy agency with integrity problems. And they're obviously trying to make Jody Travis their version of Laura Webber, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The summer of 1982 featured the essentially pointless Republic of Eden story with Jody at the center of it, and it's the first Slesar story I found myself trying to fast-forward through. It just did not feel like something Slesar would write, so maybe it was something forced on him by the network. October 1982 is far better than August/September when the Eden story wrapped, as if they're aware they need to regain my attention.
As ABC’s lowest rating soap and one of the lower rating soaps overall at the time, you can see why ABC or P&G would have wanted to try and bolster ratings. However, by trying to imitate their big success at the time, they only served to lose more viewers as ratings dropped from a 5.0 in the 1980-81 season to a 3.8 in the 1982-83 season you mention.
 

Daniel Avery

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I think Edge's ratings fell not because of writing or anything like that, but because they were literally not available to be seen in some major markets, or at least were not seen in ideal time slots. Over the final four years they lost about 50% of their affiliates entirely, and many stations were airing it in the morning or late at night.

ABC wanted their affiliates (local stations) to air Edge right after General Hospital at 4pm Eastern. But by 1980 or so, affiliate stations for all three networks were toying with departing from the wishes of the network in favor of airing what they felt would draw the most ratings (or at least the most revenue from commercials) in the post-soaps, pre-news daypart.

All three networks aired soaps in the afternoon, but they generally ended by 4pm. Edge had indeed performed best in the ratings when it aired later in the afternoon on CBS, and only faltered in the ratings when it got moved to an earlier slot (like 2:30 or something). One of the reasons people looked fondly on the ABC purchase of Edge in 1975 was because ABC intended to put it on at either 3:30 or 4, a timeslot it had done well in previously. But by 1980 more and more affiliates were doing what was best for them rather than what was best for the network. ABC was probably afraid to make any scheduling change that might hurt the momentum of GH (such as moving GH up to a 2:30-3:30 slot and placing Edge in the 3:30-4 slot), since they made much more money off GH than Edge. Both shows benefitted from a late-afternoon slot---kids coming home from school were watching GH, and adult males coming home from work had been big fans of Edge in the 1960s and early 1970s. I can see why GH would have own the battle for that last hour of the day, but I think ABC could have helped Edge by being more strict on the affiliates and not allowing them to pre-empt the show so easily.

In 1982 CBS pushed two of its soaps up half an hour in order to sandwich Capitol between two established soaps rather than placing it in a slot where affiliates might decide to pre-empt it. ABC may have opted not to do this with Edge because of the disaster CBS brought on Edge when they did something similar (the 2:30 move). I will say that ABC seemed to stick by the show despite the problems getting it aired uniformly. There are many YT videos featuring ABC commercials promoting Edge right alongside all their more prosperous soaps, and Edge was raking in Emmy nominations even in the final year. It stands in contrast to the way NBC rarely and half-heartedly promoted their soaps not named Days Of Our Lives during that period, eventually giving up on commercials or any sort of promotions at all....then acting all broken-hearted and lamenting how they couldn't figure out why their soaps kept being cancelled.
 
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Carrie Fairchild

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I have returned to Monticello, tail between my legs, now that S&D has been cruelly ripped from us again. The arrival of the character that started me on EON, Chief of Police Derek Mallory, is almost upon us, with characters discussing his impending arrival. What I’m wondering though, is what were the circumstances around his predecessor Bill Marceau’s departure? There’s a scene where characters discuss the new arrival, explaining that Bill gave his notice before going on holidays and didn’t want a fuss around his abrupt retirement. It seemed like a very sudden exit for a character who’d been on the show for twenty years. Had Mandel Kramer fallen ill and had to be written out quickly? Was he fired? Or was it just one of those things they did in daytime when a long running character just fell off the canvas?
 

Daniel Avery

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I'm not entirely sure, though I confess I never thought to look it up. I just assumed the actor decided to retire. Like you said, he had been on the show for decades, but EON (like a lot of soaps) thought a lot of their veteran employees and would not have just written him off in a bout of age-ism. Look at the length of tenure of Henry Slesar and Erwin Nicholson! Remember they're only four years out from being performed live. Having a young, action-oriented Police Chief was not as necessary when the show was live, since there would not have been running, fighting, action, etc. onscreen. All the beating-up and fighting would have been handed off to the younger cops like Deborah, Steve, or Calvin. A quick search tells me the actor lived until 1989, so it wasn't a situation where they wrote the character out due to the death of the actor. He'd likely been too beloved by the audience to end up going down in a hail of gunfire like some EON characters.

It might sound mercenary, but the show certainly benefitted from hiring a younger, handsome Chief of Police, since there was an increasing pressure on all soaps to emulate the action/adventure aspects of GH in that period. Times change, eventually--I mean, they even got rid of Henry Slesar later in the show's run--and though the show wasn't as obsessed with romance as the typical soap, it's nice to have Derek in the mix as a romantic hero. I'm currently watching November 1981, where Derek gets his first major love story--with Kate Capshaw! o_O
 

Sarah Danner

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Mandel Kramer kept the money coming in by playing various roles on The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre for a few years after leaving The Edge Of Night. He died a few weeks after USA reran the last episode of the series.
 

Carrie Fairchild

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I'm not entirely sure, though I confess I never thought to look it up. I just assumed the actor decided to retire. Like you said, he had been on the show for decades, but EON (like a lot of soaps) thought a lot of their veteran employees and would not have just written him off in a bout of age-ism. Look at the length of tenure of Henry Slesar and Erwin Nicholson! Remember they're only four years out from being performed live. Having a young, action-oriented Police Chief was not as necessary when the show was live, since there would not have been running, fighting, action, etc. onscreen. All the beating-up and fighting would have been handed off to the younger cops like Deborah, Steve, or Calvin. A quick search tells me the actor lived until 1989, so it wasn't a situation where they wrote the character out due to the death of the actor. He'd likely been too beloved by the audience to end up going down in a hail of gunfire like some EON characters.

It might sound mercenary, but the show certainly benefitted from hiring a younger, handsome Chief of Police, since there was an increasing pressure on all soaps to emulate the action/adventure aspects of GH in that period. Times change, eventually--I mean, they even got rid of Henry Slesar later in the show's run--and though the show wasn't as obsessed with romance as the typical soap, it's nice to have Derek in the mix as a romantic hero. I'm currently watching November 1981, where Derek gets his first major love story--with Kate Capshaw! o_O

Mandel Kramer kept the money coming in by playing various roles on The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre for a few years after leaving The Edge Of Night. He died a few weeks after USA reran the last episode of the series.
Thanks for the responses! There were a few instances in British soaps around that same era, where a few long running characters slipped off the canvas without much fanfare because the people portraying them were only supposed to be going on a break but didn’t end up coming back, so I thought this might have been a similar situation.

Annie Walker from Coronation Street is a notable example. The actress that played her, Doris Speed, was written out of the show temporarily when she’d fallen ill after the tabloids published a story about her real age (she was 84 but had stated in interviews that she was 70. It was probably one of the early examples of tabloids in the UK going after soap stars personal lives due to their popularity). However, when a series of personal misfortunes followed, Speed decided to retire. So, a rather minor scene filmed prior to her break, where Annie was seen buying tins of food at a Bring & Buy sale, turned out to be the last ever scene for one of the show’s biggest stars who’d ruled the Rovers Return pub with an iron fist for 23 years. Annie’s son Billy would show up a few months later, explaining that his mother had to decided to retire quietly, much like the EON scene explaining Bill Marceau’s departure.
 

Daniel Avery

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I see that Sharon Gabet has posted on YT the 90-minute special episode that served as the launch for The Edge of Night on ABC, which originally aired on December 1st, 1975. It introduces all the major characters and gives them enough screen time to allow new viewers to get a feel for them. It also features a high-stakes custody trial, a doomed wedding, location work, the return of a presumed dead character, and a major cliffhanger at the end. What more could a soap loving viewer need?

The episode is unable to be linked directly, but if you type The Edge Of Night ABC 90 Minute Special December 1, 1975 into their search engine, you are in for a treat.
 
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Sarah Danner

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Best daytime drama there ever was for me with Ryan's Hope a close second. CBS moving it earlier and earlier (which I know is the fault of P&G) began the slow doom of the serial. After the As The World Turns expansion, I wish it could have moved to 4:00 on CBS after Match Game '75 instead of placing those All In The Family reruns at three. Thanks to ABC for keeping it alive for nine extra years and to USA for showing us reruns of the last years.
 
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Daniel Avery

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So I have to assume EON's Oakdale was different from ATWT's Oakdale, but yes, that's a confusing coincidence, especially if they used it pre-1975 when EON was on CBS alongside ATWT. It's funny because EON would probably have been better-suited to use Springfield, since every state has at least one Springfield in it.
And now I have to correct myself, having just gotten to the March 1982 episodes. Our plucky young heroine, Jody Travis is going to visit her ill mother in Springfield, having been visited by a doctor who urged her to make one last visit because...well, mom is likely not going to live much longer. In true EON fashion, Leonie Travis is murdered shortly before Jody and the gang* arrive to see her. So Springfield does also exist in the EON universe, but I still think they used the names but didn't intend to tie the soaps together since there was no effort toward crossovers.

* Jody brought along her boyfriend Gavin, her sister Nicole and her brother-in-law Miles. The casual way Dr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh offered to tag along once again showed how they not only keep forgetting Adam, Jr, but they actively behave as if he does not exist. Is he home fending for himself? Nicole was previously married to Adam Drake (RIP) and they had a son. After Nicole and Miles got together the little boy was seen less and less to a point that he only merits a mention once a month or so, typically when their housekeeper Mrs. Goodman says something about him being in his room. They had an entire set of Christmas episodes and the Cavanaughs never mentioned buying him anything or even letting him come downstairs to see the decorations. :re: Countless scenes occur between the Cavanaughs in the penthouse having dinner, talking about various issues and trying to solve problems....but the little boy is never a part of the dinner scenes or anything else. Nicole is the most hands-off mother I've ever seen. Mrs. Goodman could have taken off with the kid months ago and they would not even notice.
 
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