It was 1970, I was 15 years old and began watching the soap opera All My Children with my Mom. It was in black and white back then and only aired for a half hour. I liked it because I related to the character Erica Kane played by Susan Lucci. She played a 15 year old who was feisty, outspoken and giving her on screen Mom hell. That first day I watched the show, I became hooked and have been an avid viewer and fan ever since.
The show has been on the air on ABC for almost 41 years. Susan Lucci as pictured above is one of the few original cast members left. She is also my all time favorite actress. This show has inspired me at times, left me speechless at times, had me heartbroken at times and has always entertained me.
I grew up with Erica Kane, Susan Lucci's character and she has helped me through good times and bad times. I specifically remember when my own Mom passed away in 1994, the actress playing Erica's Mom in real life passed away around the same time. They had both been playing the roles of Mother and daughter together for over 20 years so the death of Erica's on screen Mom devastated her - in real life. Much of the emotion and grief was not acting but real. We both went through that horrible time together and that particular storyline helped me probably more than anything else or anyone else could. My point here is that these shows are not just crazy story-lines and entertainment, they help people.
All My Children was one of the first show to break ground on many social issues to include AIDS, Homosexuality, Drug Abuse, Alcoholism etc... It told poignant and true to life stories that touched the heart and offered wisdom and hope. It has been a pioneer in social issues and continues in that vein today.
As many of you may already know, ABC has pulled the plug on both All My Children and One Life To Live and will cancel AMC in September and OLTL in January 2012 to be replaced by a cooking and lifestyle show. The cancellations were done without warning and the cast and crew were told about an hour before the news broke worldwide. Many cast and crew members did not even know about the cancellation until they saw it either online or on the news.
The head of daytime TV at ABC, Brian Frons states that they were canceled due to low ratings which has been proven not to be true. OLTL has had consistently higher ratings than General Hospital which has been kept on the air. The reason for these cancellations is MONEY. They want to save money and it is much, much cheaper to air reality shows than scripted shows. It is sheer greed and nothing more. They don't care that not only are the actors and actresses losing their jobs but as a result, thousands of people will lose their jobs. These shows cannot be produced without writers, sound and lighting people, hair and makeup people and so many more. All will lose their jobs and thousands of families will lose their livelihoods. ABC doesn't care. They only care about lining their own pockets with $$$.
There are thousands and thousands of fans banning together in order to keep these two shows on the air. There are petitions, letter writing and email campaigns, protests across America being planned and more. We are working together to get the sponsors to pull their advertising from ABC of which we already had a major victory. Hoover vacuum is supporting this cause and will pull their ads from ABC this Friday. We are going to fight with all we have to keep these two shows on the air.
Margie and Edna, my two blogging buddies and yours as well have generously offered to help with our cause. Here is their blog post which contains links to the major pages and has some valuable info on what we are doing to save these two shows - http://margieandednasbasement.blogspot.com/2011/04/save-soaps.html
I've ranted here long enough and I will get to the point. Here are my two questions:
1. Would you fight to keep your favorite shows on the air?
2. If so what would you do and if not, why not?
A short tribute clip for All My Children.
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