All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, and on The Online Network from April 29 to September 2, 2013, via Hulu, Hulu Plus, and iTunes.
Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictional suburb of Philadelphia, which is modeled on the actual Philadelphia suburb of Penn Valley. The original series featured Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime television's most popular characters. All My Children was the first new network daytime drama to debut in the 1970s. Originally owned by Creative Horizons, Inc., the company created by Nixon and her husband, Bob, the show was sold to ABC in January 1970. The series started with half-hour episodes before expanding to a full hour on April 25, 1977. The show had experimented with the full-hour format for one week starting on June 30, 1975, after which Ryan's Hope premiered.
From 1970 to 1990, All My Children was recorded at ABC's TV18 at 101 West 67th Street, now a 50-story apartment tower. From March 1990 to December 2009, it was taped at ABC's Studio TV23 at 320 West 66th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. In December 2009, taping moved from Manhattan to less costly Los Angeles, California, at Stages 1 and 2 of the Andrita Studios, from 2010 to 2011. Taping then moved to the Connecticut Film Center in Stamford, Connecticut. All My Children started taping in high definition on January 4, 2010, and began airing in high definition on February 3, 2010. All My Children became the third soap opera to be produced and broadcast in high definition.
At one point, the program's popularity positioned it as the most widely recorded television show in the United States. In the mid-1970s, its audience was estimated to be 30% male, which was unusual at the time. The show ranked first in the daytime Nielsen ratings in the 1978–79 season. Throughout most of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, All My Children was the number-two daytime soap opera on the air. However, like the rest of the soap operas in the United States, All My Children experienced unprecedented declines in its ratings during the 2000s. By 2010, it had become one of the least-watched soap operas in daytime television.
On April 14, 2011, ABC announced that it was canceling All My Children after a run of 41 years. On July 7, 2011, ABC sold the licensing rights of All My Children to third-party production company Prospect Park with the show set to continue on the Internet as a series of webisodes. The series aired its final episode on ABC on September 23, 2011. On November 23, 2011, Prospect Park suspended its plan to revive the series, due to lack of funding and unsuccessful negotiation with the union organizations representing the actors and crews.
On January 7, 2013, Prospect Park officially brought back its project to restore All My Children as a web series on a platform named TOLN. The revival series would premiere on April 29, 2013. However, the new series faced several behind-the-scene obstacles throughout its run. On November 11, 2013, several All My Children cast members announced that Prospect Park had closed production and canceled the series again. The rights to the show returned to ABC in December 2016.
History
Origins
, then head writer for The Guiding Light, first came up with the idea for All My Children in the 1960s. When writing the story bible, she designed the show as a light-hearted soap opera that focused on social issues and young love. She unsuccessfully attempted to sell the series to NBC, then to CBS, and once again to NBC through Procter & Gamble. When Procter & Gamble was unable to make room for the show in its lineup, Nixon put All My Children on hold.Nixon became head writer for Another World in 1965, and decided to use a few ideas from her All My Children bible. In particular, she used the model of the Erica Kane character to create a brand new Another World character named Rachel Davis. Nixon said Rachel was Erica's "precursor to the public... Erica and Rachel have in common is they thought if they could get their dream, they'd be satisfied... But that dream has been elusive", Nixon said.
Creation
ABC later approached Nixon to create a show that would reflect a more contemporary tone. That program, One Life to Live, debuted in 1968. After the show became a success, the network asked Nixon for another program, and she revived her All My Children bible and the Erica Kane character.Nixon wrote a poem to include in the photo album shown in the series' title credits:
"The great and the least, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, in sickness and in health, in joy and sorrow, in tragedy and triumph, you are all my children."
1970s
All My Children debuted on January 5, 1970, replacing the canceled game show Dream House. Rosemary Prinz was signed on to be the "special guest star" for six months, playing the role of political activist Amy Tyler. Prinz was well known for her role of Penny Hughes on As the World Turns in the 1950s and 1960s, and she was added to the show to give it an initial boost due to her name value. From 1970 and into the 1980s, the show was either written by Nixon herself or by her protégé, Wisner Washam. He was groomed by Nixon to eventually take over the reins in the 1980s while she focused on other endeavors, which included creating and launching Loving in 1983.Nixon strove to create a soap opera that was topical and could illustrate social issues for the audience. She wanted this and a combination of regular humor for the series. To keep the action more real, she allowed the audience to locate her fictional "Pine Valley" on a map: situated a mere hour-long train ride from New York City. Many believed Pine Valley was in New York because of a town called Pine Valley in western New York. However, it was not until the 1980s that it was finally revealed that Pine Valley is actually in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia and also near One Life to Lives Llanview.
File:Joanna Miles Larry Keith All My Children 1972.JPG|thumb|Nick Davis and Anne Tyler Davis Martin
The show's first action takes place around several families and characters. Phoebe Tyler, who fashions herself as "Queen of Pine Valley", was the paradigm of a rich snob when she is introduced. A divorced mother, Mona Kane, and her spoiled daughter, Erica were also introduced. Contrasting this was the stable Martin family, headed by patriarch Joe and later by matriarch Ruth, who became a symbolic foundation of All My Children. Destined to break up the young romance of classmates Tara Martin and Phil Brent, Erica learned that Phil was not the son of Ruth and Ted, but instead, the son of Ruth's sister, Amy Tyler and her mother's friend, Nick Davis. In a selfish attempt to break up Phil and Tara, she told everyone the truth.
All My Childrens first success was its focus on young love. ABC wanted a soap opera that would bring in young viewers, and slowly the program was accomplishing that. The show's ratings did not start out strong, however. In its first year on the air, it ranked No. 17 out of 19 soap operas. Despite this, its audience grew with each passing year.
The show was unique for its use of the Vietnam War. Before All My Children debuted, no show had discussed the war in any depth. There were traditional Phoebe and free-spirited Amy both butting heads over the war, with Amy often leading protests around Pine Valley. When Amy left, Ruth takes over as the anti-war voice and protests against the war in the early 1970s. The character's protest speech in 1972 won Mary Fickett the first Emmy Award given to a soap opera performer. Later in the show's run, Phoebe softened.
Nurse Caroline Murray, played by Patricia Dixon, was a Vietnam veteran who overcame her chilling flashbacks to the war with the help of Dr. Frank Grant in 1976. Dr. Frank Grant, first seen in Pine Valley in 1972, his wife Nancy, and Caroline were the first Black leading characters on All My Children.
In May 1972, the character of Erica Kane Martin became the first television character to undergo a legal abortion.
Making the abortion particularly controversial is Erica's reason for doing it, not because of her jeopardized health, but rather because she did not want to gain weight and lose her modeling job. The abortion story received much media attention, especially since it preceded the Roe vs. Wade decision by nearly a year. Within the story, Erica developed a potentially fatal infection after having the abortion, and the switchboards at ABC lit up with calls from doctors and nurses, offering their medical opinions on how best to treat the character's case. The storyline has been credited for boosting the show's ratings, as well as helping establish Erica Kane as a central character who would dominate the show for its entire run.
Phoebe's husband Charles became close to Mona. The two fell in love and Charles divorced Phoebe, even though she tried to blackmail Mona and even faked paralysis. In the end, Phoebe was left a drunken divorcée and Mona becomes the new Mrs. Tyler. This ordeal starts the long-time Phoebe/Mona rivalry.
When Eileen Letchworth, who portrayed Margo Flax Martin, contemplated a facelift, she talked it over with Nixon. Not only was Letchworth going to need time off, she was going to look significantly different when she returned to the show. Nixon approved and worked the facelift into a storyline. Margo wanted to impress the somewhat younger Paul Martin. Margo's facelift in 1974 became one of the first major storylines on television discussing plastic surgery and its psychological effects.
In June 1976, character Brooke English showed up on her Aunt Phoebe's doorstep and soon clashed with Erica over Tom Cudahy and Mark Dalton. In 1976, when Kitty Shea Tyler was searching for her natural mother, the show introduced Myrtle Lum Fargate.
By the late 1970s, the show had risen to the top of the ratings. One reason for the rise was the arrival of teenage prostitute Donna Beck. Her relationship with the handsome Dr. Chuck Tyler breathed life into the show and captivated fans. Other new additions are the arrivals of aristocratic Palmer Cortlandt , his somewhat creepy housekeeper Myra Murdock, and his overprotected daughter Nina, who, to Palmer's chagrin, entrances Dr. Cliff Warner. Palmer does everything in his power to break up the couple, including telling Nina she is going blind due to her diabetes. Palmer teams up with Cliff's past flame, nurse Sybil Thorne, who confronts Cliff about fathering her son, but this is temporary; Sybil is murdered and Cliff is arrested for the crime, which actually was committed by Sean Cudahy. During the murder trial, Nina is astonished to learn that her mother, Daisy Cortlandt, whom she believes to be dead, is, in fact, alive and living in Pine Valley as Monique Jonvil. To everyone's complete shock, Myra acknowledges that Daisy is her daughter. All My Children also found memorable villains in Billy Clyde Tuggle and Ray Gardner.
All My Children had always aired in color since its 1970 debut. The episodes were initially only saved for a short time on cartridge tapes and were eventually erased in order to tape other productions. Beginning in 1976, all the episodes were saved on cartridge tape and then digitally since the late 1990s. A few early episodes were saved on kinescope in black and white, one of which aired on ABC in 1997 on a special "A Daytime To Remember", which showcased all TV shows that aired on ABC Daytime. But there are no known pre-1976 episodes to be still in existence on tape.
Nixon personally owned all the early episodes on monochromatic kinescopes. When ABC purchased the rights to All My Children in 1975, it also received the kinescopes from Nixon with a promise that the network would archive them. However, that promise was broken, because different sources point out that most of them were either lost in a warehouse fire or were erased. As mentioned above, a few early episodes survive.