The day the lights went out in Bay City....

[ originally published: July 22, 2007 3:00pm ]

(best viewed with tissues :( :( )

The mid-late spring days of 1999 were a time of change on TV, and a time of more-than-average use of tissues. Your webmaster had already seen the end of a great legend in talk as The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder said it's final words in March that year. A great sendoff with pix of different guests Tom had on during the show's time, plus snaps of TS with his pet dog Oliver, his daughter, granddaughter, his 'companion', and the lovely Mother Snyder. With that, the loose, entertaining one-on-one chats on TV were basically gone, with the distant exception of Charlie Rose and his show, which still airs on Public TV.

No sooner had this event been placed in my vaults and the TV grid had gotten into a new programming pattern, that another, even greater, shock would come at me. I had just gotten my first Windows-based PC (after having had a Mac years before) and was still feeling my way around the Internet, when on an unsuspecting April evening, I happened to catch a newly-posted press release issued by NBC on their website. Even though stunned, I tried my best to read it correctly. Another Today show would debut, a new soap would debut in July, and to align their soaps more 'in pattern', the network had decided to cancel Another World. What?!? Response was immediate, off-the-charts, and lasting. Between the soap mags and the Internet, you could tell this move would not be taken lying down. Phone calls and letters were sent, but also protests would be planned--one of which took place live during a Today show airing. Banners could be seen above the crowd of fans outside--despite NBC's best efforts to swing their cameras wildly to avoid them. One of the loudest, most cohesive efforts to protest the decision that your webmaster saw came from a group called CSAW (the Committee to Save Another World). They formed a website and created various campaigns. Word came that ABC might be interested in taking on AW. Unfortunately, with the short timeframe dictated by NBC's announcement, no deals to shift programming and production would come to pass. The cast and crew were given until May 25 to wrap things up. When the Daytime Emmys aired that year, it was only days before the finale date of June 25. Linda Dano (Felicia), Stephen Schnetzer (Cass), and Lisa Peluso (Lila) were presenters for the awards show that year, and were amazingly given some extra on-air time....

Linda Dano:

Stephen & Lisa:

With those words, it was official.

Many wondered about the fate of soaps in general, if a show that lasts 35 years can be cancelled, then would any other soap be safe?? More pressing matters loomed, though, as the talent of a show that had long billed itself as a 'continuing story', would find itself scattered to the wind. Many would not find work immediately (if at all), while others were luckier. Several would continue their AW characters for a time on As the World Turns. Linda Dano would be welcomed back to ABC daytime as a return to a previous One Life to Live character, but would float to all other ABC soaps as well. A few would make it to primetime TV, while others tried movies or even work behind the camera.

The afternoon of June 25 found your webmaster in his cubicle wondering just how Bay City would fare. Others were lucky enough to not have to work, and watch history being made. In New York City, a special watch party took place at an Upper West Side sports bar, Blondie's. Many actors from Another World's past and present would attend. One surprise drop-in was Christine Jones, who had portrayed the infamous Janice. No such luck for me, as the following afternoon would have to suffice for viewing. A wedding would take place, with the 'bliss' part to wait temporarily. Meanwhile, after all other characters found their place or direction, it would be the turn for Rachel, AW's longest-running on-screen character, to do the honors of wrapping everything up....

Fortunately, the coming years wouldn't quite be devoid of Bay City. Eddie, the webmaster of an AW fan site since the mid-1990s, was still at it. I would launch the first of many tries at an AW fan site myself, starting in August 1999--you are seeing what I have currently online until the main site returns. The 2000 Soap Opera Awards gave us an all-too-brief 'tribute' during that telecast (if you want to skip the Sunset Beach part, drag the round cursor on the bottom red bar till the timer says '1:52')....

CSAW (later dubbed Sudztv.com) put together 2 reunions for AW and it's fans, 1 each in 2000 and 2001, in New York City. One website devoted to soap themes, Brian's 'World of Soap Themes', has been a visual and aural torchbearer for Another World among many other soaps, past and present, up to now. SoapNet, a Disney-owned cable channel, started airing AW reruns in July 2003 and continued for the next (almost) 4 years. A one-hour reunion special was aired twice on the channel, getting several past actors together for reminiscing and clips. In recent years, Wikipedia, an encyclopedic website, would come to have much content and background about AW. Even Procter & Gamble would provide a fix in the past year for AW fans with reruns of the show available online through AOL's Video service; the episodes, starting with August 1980, could be watched on AOL's site, or downloaded for saving on a computer or DVD. MySpace, the website you're seeing this on, would find itself home to several AW fans and actors, also a MySpace fan Group debuted in 2005; but, this past April would see the launching of this AW MySpace site. Already, many 'friends' from the show and fans of Another World have been linked here; eventually the work here will lead to the return of the main AW site.

It has not always been easy to be a fan of Another World, but those twists and turns on-screen (and off-) probably seem to make us all a strong and loyal bunch. It will be interesting to see what comes next for the show, even though production has been ceased for 8 years.


"Sharing our lives with our friends and our family is far stronger than ANYTHING that world out there can do to us..."
--from Mac's last toast, Thanksgiving 1988