Where did you spend weekday afternoons?

Back in the days before VCRs, DVRs, and on-demand viewing TV Guide was the weekly television bible and daytime afternoons were booked with soap operas.  Viewers were forced to make choices like Days of Our Lives or All My Children, Another World or One Life to Live.  Most soap fans watched one channel lineup throughout the afternoon and were loyal to all the soaps in that lineup.

With the onset of VCRs and DVRs, it opened up a whole new world for soapers to be able to watch whatever stories they wanted even when they aired against each other.

Before recording devices were available I started out with Days of Our Lives and Another World.  In the late 1970s I switched over to All My Children.  When I was home I would be in Pine Valley, Llanview, and Port Charles between the hours of twelve and three.  All My Children was my favorite show and when it was over I would often leave the television on and catch One Life to Live and General Hospital.  As much as I disliked missing episodes when I was at work or away from home, the beauty of soap operas is how easy it was to pick storylines back up after being away from them.

Where did you spend weekday afternoons?

Who Did You Watch Grow Up on a Soap Opera?

Soap Opera:  All My Children

Actress:  Susan Lucci

There have been many child actors who have made their way through the virtual towns of the soap opera world and many we have literally watched grow up in front of our eyes.  Susan Lucci began her role as the teenage Erica Kane on All My Children in 1970.  Through the next four-plus decades, we watched Erica grow up, go through every trial and tribulation imaginable, have and have an infamous string of husbands. After over 40 years onscreen, we watched Erica become an exciting mature character who has shown being over 50 can be very exciting, rewarding, and relevant.