Was DS the first soap saved & How much did Sci Fi pay?

[Taeylor Collins]

Was it a general rule of thumb to save soaps?  Apparently no one thought it  would live to see the light of day, since Dan told the actors not to worry about the bloopers.  So why did ABC save the episodes?  Were other soaps saved?

I WISH SOAPNET would pick up DS and show old eps of other SOAPS.  Then it may live up to its name.  Also does anyone know how much it cost Sci Fi to aquire DS and was the cost for the total ten year run??  I wish it would come back on tv.   That would be the BEST way to reach new fans!!  WHO KNOWS though what the movie will do for fandom!! YAY!

[Miss_Winthrop]

Thank heavens that someone had the forsight to save the DS tapes from original filming.  Strange Paradise, a DS look-alike soap filmed in Canada in 1969 - 1970, episodes were also saved.  There had been talk around here awhile back that they thought DS might show up on HorrorNet(?) but I haven't hard anything further on that.

[Joeytrom]

Other ABC soaps like All My Children & One Life to Live have no tapes from their early years as they were disposed of.  At some point, they were thrown out to make for space. General Hospital, I believe, has all their episodes as it was filmed in LA as opposed to New York like AMC & OLTL were.

I heard some other soaps (as well as news programs) would tape over existing episodes to save money.

[ClaudeNorth]

The process is known as wiping.  The networks would tape new episodes over old episodes because back then, videotape was far more expensive than it is now, and they could save money by reusing tapes.  Wikipedia has an interesting entry on the process; it's a bit depressing to learn how much of television history was lost to it.

As for DS surviving, I could be wrong, but I think that Dan Curtis (rather than ABC) owned the series and, therefore, had the authority to preserve the episodes.

[Midnite]

As for DS surviving, I could be wrong, but I think that Dan Curtis (rather than ABC) owned the series and, therefore, had the authority to preserve the episodes.

An explanation can be found in a search for: preserve in posts from this week (message age between 0 and 7 days if you're searching before the week's end). 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Just in case someone only sees this topic and not all the others, ABC did indeed preserve the DS master tapes. DC was never in possession of them and he has never owned them.

[Miss_Winthrop]

Interesting!  If ABC owns the master tapes, why won't they release the master tape of the lost episode where [spoiler]Bramwell finds out from Catherine that she is carrying his child?[/spoiler] I haven't seen that part of the series in awhile but as I recall, Lara Parker narrates the episode back in the 90's and they did use the original sound track.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Ep #1219 got lost somehow. Perhaps it was never stored with other master tapes (as was apparently the case with the eps where only the kinescopes survive) or it was somehow misplaced/destroyed during the years of storage when no one was looking for it. 

And just to clarify, ABC preserved the master tapes, but they haven't owned or possessed them for years - they were turned over the Wolrdvision back in the '70s.

[Charles_Ellis]

A correction or two:

General Hospital only exists in BW kinescope for roughly its first 8 years (1963-71) though it went to color in 1967.  Apparently there a only a few surviving tapes in color prior to 1978, and they're in the UCLA collection. 

As to DS, syndication was the main reason for saving the tapes.  Back then, each network had its own division for syndicating its old shows.  ABC Films was going to put the show out as soon as the show ended its network run, but the FCC intervened.  In 1971, the networks were forced to divest their syndication divisions as the result of an antitrust ruling.  So, ABC Films became Worldvision, NBC Films became NTA and CBS Films became Viacom.  Alll this reorganization delayed the syndication of DS for several years. 

Ironically, the networks can now own shows again.  Viacom woundup being merging with Paramount, and it now owns CBS!

There ARE some other vintage soaps that were saved.  Both Days of our Lives and The Young and The Restless are Columbia/Sony productions and have been syndicated abroad for over 30 years.  Since Days premiered in 1965 and was in color from the start, the fact that the archives are complete is quite a feat.  In 2005 SoapNet showed the first 2 episodes  for the 40th Anniversary.  I'm hoping that the network will be smart enough to start showing reruns of the show starting from the November 1965 debut.  For all you Don Briscoe fans, he was on the show for a few months in 1966 prior to DS. 

[Taeylor Collins]

I wish soapnet would show all the soaps old eps.  Or some at least.

[JWGucciEnvy]

As fans of Dark Shadows we are really lucky. 
I don't think we will see any other Daytime Soap on DVD for reasons stated above.

[Gerard]

They showed an episode of General Hospital on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a wonderful show that began, I do believe, on Comedy Central and then moved to Sci-Fi; I wish they'd re-air that one).  It was one of the old b&w GH's that had in it our very own Roy Thinnes of the '91 DS.  It was pretty much chintzy and cheap back then, with sets that were clearly made out of cardboard, acting that was, shall we say, rather local hometown theater, and writing that wasn't rather sophisticated.  With the narrative add-ons by the MST3K hosts, it was very hilarious.

Gerard

[Darren Gross]

With the lost episode, what I've been told was that in the case for that episode was another TV show entirely.  The case that corresponded to the other show held a tape that was completely blank.

[Taeylor Collins]

I got a hold of a bunch of  GH  DVDS from when Laura first came on the show.  It's crazy it survived and I have no idea how my friend came in possesion of it. I have all the great L & L episodes.  When he rapes her or as they would call it later "SEDUCED HER"!  GH was great then and I loved it the nineties when L & L came back, that is when I got hooked.  I have seen a few old ep flashbacks from anniversary episodes so apparently they saved some of them because it was scenes of AUDREY from the very first episode!