Major Rant. Do not read if you are in a good mood.

[MooseMom]

Well, it's official.

I am old and no one gives a XXXX.

ABC cancelled the soap opera All My Children; it's last airing will be in September.  "Big flippin' deal!", you may say, and it's true...it's only a TV show just like all of the other tv shows on the telly today.  But I've been watching it since it started in 1970.  It's the only soap I've ever watched.  I have a history with this show, and I am furious that it is being taken off the air because most of its viewers are female and are my age and are considered virtually invisible.

You know what they are putting in its place?  A cooking show with Mario Batali.  Did you know that according to a study that came out yesterday, Americans spend less time cooking than any other nation on earth, yet we have more cookery programs than you can shake a stick at.  Mario Batali?  I'm sorry, but I can't spend an hour looking Mario Batali doing anything, much less cook Italian food.  For God's sakes, I live in effing Chicago in which there is no dearth of pasta.

Now, I don't consider myself an old fogey.  My son calls me from London to give me some music recommendations for my MP3 player, and I have some pretty "out there" stuff.  I'm cool.  I watch SNL and Colbert and Jon Stewart like a lot of cool people do, not because I want to be cool but because I find them clever and amusing.  And I don't think I am a prude, but I challenge all of you to sit down and watch one of these shows and count how many times they talk about pen*ses.  Since when did male genitalia become the greatest comedic gag of all time?  It's not just sex that is the topic of laughter, it's MALE sexuality and the adolescent nature of it, and it is so pervasive that it just astonishes me.  Do you men really find your dangly bits so damn funny?  I'm not offended, but I am massively BORED TO BITS WITH YOUR BITS!!

OK, so soap operas are not high browed viewing.  But neither are the gazillion "reality" shows, especially that one where contestants are in those puffy suits and try to get through bizarre obstacle courses.  Geez, we're getting our TV ideas from the Japanese!  At least soaps have a history of starting important social conversations.  The only conversations these days on TV are about MEN'S BITS!! 

I'm not of the sought-after demographic anymore.  That has been made abundantly clear.  I don't identify with men who somehow lose all intelligent thought when they have access to beer or some new-fangled fried food item with a billion calories.  Why do men make these sorts of commercials about other (usually young) men?  I would be insulted if I were a young man.  But I'm an old lady, and I've been thoroughly reminded by TV executives that I don't count and that I am invisible.

Have a nice day.

[Deanne]

 

I'm sorry. I don't watch soaps, but after so many years, I think it'd be like losing a friend.

[YLGuy]

Sorry. I actually watched this show in college.  I rented an apartment with 3 girls and got caught up in it.  David Canary, who played Adam & Stuart hung out at the local saloon in my home town on many occasions.

[willowtreewren]

Change is hard. 

And losing something dear and familiar is even harder. 

So sorry.

Aleta

[monrein]

I am in a good mood MM and I just have to tell you that you made me laugh out loud.  Not at you of course but at how you describe things in this little rant.  Change is unsettling and even more so when we don't feel well and something is part of a routine that helps to pass time.    and sorry you're losing your show and  for the little giggle.  I don't like Mario either btw...whatever he's eating I want to stay away from on health grounds.

[WishIKnew]

Rant away!  I can totally relate to the frustration that comes when things familiar and comforting are taken away!  We've lost so much already, these "little" losses are BIG because they are added to an already full load of loses!!!!! 
so sorry!

[jbeany]

Wow, just picturing the collection of boxed sets of seasons for that!  And most TV shows sell a single season for $30 to $50.  $2,000 for the complete set!  Can you imagine?

I bet they do it!  Just think, MM - you could start over and see it from the beginning!

[MooseMom]

Quite a few soaps have been cancelled recently, and there have been no boxed sets or anything because you'd probably have to have a separate house in which to store them.  But I do have a DVR machine, so I might record the final episodes for posterity.  The writers have plenty of time to wrap up lots of storylines, so I'm hoping that most characters will get their happily ever afters.

I guess TPTB have decided that all viewers are happy watching cheap crap on TV.  You have to pay for actors, writers and crew in a soap, but if you just stick Mario Batali in front of an oven for an hour, that doesn't cost much, so that's what we get.  Another soap is being replaced by yet another "makeover" type of show.  Doesn't that sound like compelling viewing?  And they wonder why ratings are going down for all shows across the board.  One show is just like the next.

Do any of you remember back when dirt was new that a series would start in September, run through the new year and then have repeats until the summer?  Year after year, this is the way it worked.  But now you never know when a network is going to show a new episode of any given series.  I do like some of the half hour comedies...Modern Family, The Middle, The Office...but they'll show repeats for weeks on end for no discernable reason.  I guess it's another money saving measure.

There are just so many memories attached to All My Children; it was the only link I still had to my past.  My parents are both dead now, and I'm having to sell the house I grew up in.  My dad used to tape the show, and we'd watch it in the evenings together.  My autistic son would even watch it with us, and when he is here from London, he will gradually get pulled into it again.  I know this sounds silly, but All My Children was instrumental in my son's social development.  Autistic children have real problems understanding social relationships and reading non-verbal cues.  They have trouble with empathy and "theory of mind".  So I would often use All My Children as a teaching tool and have discussions with my son about who was feeling what and why.  I would ask him to guess what might happen next; it helped him to anticipate characters' reactions and made him think about how someone's actions could impact another person.  The acting style of these types of shows were somewhat exaggerated which made reading non-verbal cues a lot easier for someone like my son.

I've got so many other stories about this show, but it makes me terribly sad to think about them so I won't go into it; you all can breathe a sigh of relief.  When I moved back to the US from the UK back in 2003, the one thing that settled me down the most was the fact that I'd get to see All My Children every day, something I had not been able to do since I left the US back in 1985.  Chicagoland is still foreign territory to me, and now yet another lifebuoy has been shattered.  I am completely and totally bereft, and it feels like such a huge loss.  I'm sure I don't have to explain that it is not so much the show itself as it is what it has represented to me for all these years.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, I find it to be particularly galling that they are replacing my show with a FOOD PROGRAM which is undoubtedly going to feature food that I CAN'T EAT BECAUSE KIDNEY PATIENTS CAN'T EVEN DRINK WATER WITHOUT RISK OF DEATH.  Do you think Mario Batali et al would ever even consider devoting an episode to renal-friendly food?  I so totally think NOT.

[YLGuy]

I am at a loss.  I feel so bad for you.          

[MooseMom]

I am at a loss.  I feel so bad for you.          

I know it is so so so so so so stupid in the grand scheme of things, and I will live and get on with life.  But I feel really sad about this silly thing, and I'm not gonna apologize for it.  Sometimes you spend so much emotional energy in coping with the big stuff...death, dialysis, CKD...that there's nothing left, and a small loss just sends you over the edge. 

You're so sweet.  Thank you.

[galvo]

I don't regard my dangly bits as being at all funny!

[MooseMom]

I don't regard my dangly bits as being at all funny!

Well, it seems that most of America would find them to be hysterical and would want to feature them in every TV show on the air...at least on the cable networks.   

[Poppylicious]

I understand your pain, MM; I imagine this is how I'll feel when the BBC cancel EastEnders. I remember watching the first episode in 1985 (I was 10) and I've watched every episode since (minus a few.)  I can't even stand people criticising it, and despite everybody else finding it devoid of humour and completely miserable, I notice all the funny-ness that is subtley worked in by clever writer people. 

 

Perhaps if enough people kick up a fuss another channel/network/company/whatever will take it on.  It's happened before; it can happen again.

*huggles*

[carol1987]

I don't regard my dangly bits as being at all funny!

well you made me laugh out loud this morning with that comment!!  SO i guss I find them funny... hahahaha

[paul.karen]

I understand your pain MM.
I felt the same way when they took the Kroft Supestars off the air.   

 

[texasstyle]

I just said that my husband as I read it this morning. "They're putting some stupid cooking show in it's place?" I yelled out. It's like the end of an era.

[okarol]

My husband's grandmother said, "They discontinued my shade of lipstick and my favorite shampoo. They no longer have the shows i like on TV and my hairdresser has retried. Pretty soon I will be discontinued!" (She was 92 at the time.)

[Ken Shelmerdine]

I don't regard my dangly bits as being at all funny!

I think I would find them funny. Heads up all who would find Galvo's dangly bits funy?

[RightSide]

I was already in a rotten mood, so this was a good post for me to read.     

When you've been watching a show for a long time, it's hard to say goodbye.  I remember how bad I felt in my youth when long-running shows, like Candid Camera, finally came to an end.

But the main reason that soap operas are dwindling is that fewer women are home to watch them anymore.  The original demographic for soap operas was stay-at-home moms, maids, and housekeepers.  And there just aren't enough of them anymore. 

Today's young women aren't even watching as much broadcast TV (any genre) as their parents did; they've got iPods and iPads and the Internet for entertainment.  I can remember when a hit prime-time TV show could command at least one-third of all the viewers in America.  Today, no show can do that because the viewing audience has become so fragmented.

Time moves on.

As far as food programs are concerned:  I imagine it's a question of image.  Many viewers who can barely microwave a TV dinner watch the Food Channel to give them the feeling that they themselves are gourmets and world-class cooks.  The same way that TV commercials of SUVs often show them off-road in rugged terrain and wilderness--while most purchasers of SUVs are suburban women who only drive them back and forth to supermarkets and shopping malls.  Such a woman can imagine herself as a frontierswoman in a wagon train crossing the Plains, as she cruises around looking for a parking space.

[tbarrett2533]

I can totally relate!!

Today while I was riding in the car to work I heard on the radio that AMC was going to be over  I am 31 years old and I have watched that show my entire life and to be honest IDK what i am going to do when its over

I feel your pain deeply, and I am effected by this profoundly 


 

[paris]

I've never been a soap watcher, but, I do remember when AMC first aired.  It was much more "modern" that the other old soaps.  My sister was in college at the time and she watched it every day.  Then she studied  on "Semester at Sea" and wanted me to watch it every day and once a week write to here!  She was in Africa, India or where ever and when they docked, she went straight for her mail. 

Now, neither of my daughters have ever seen a soap. My oldest girl is the Regional Ex. Director for MDA and the other for Methodist Childrens Home and even with DVR's they never watch daytime tv.  It is a whole new generation.  I know how my Mom must have felt when tv invaded our homes - she must have thought the world was changing too fast for her.   This generation is so busy, they never seem to have any down time.    I am attached to some night time series and everytime one ends, I tell myself not to get involved with a new one.   I don't like change. And I like control --- so I understand your frustration and sadness.   I miss the old movies that use to be on every afternoon (3pm). And watching a DVD isn't the same.    Take care, MM

[boswife]

oh my gosh im cracking up here!!!  for being such a sad posting (really it is!  i lost my "monk" show which was probably the only show i [ ]really realated to and that was just a short run of time, so i do feel for ya MM, espacially as it's part of your past! ) , the other parts are making my innerds laugh...  Bunches of whats said just hit different funny bones  Just the word "bits" is hysterical!!  and  I gotta tell ya Rightside, i cant even explain how funny that hits me on your SUV comment you added.  I think it's RIGHT ON target!! 

[sullidog]

tv just ain't worth watching anymore, it deff ain't what it use to be.

[Jean]

MM, I think in another post, we discussed how the smallest things can bring your life to a screaming halt. Getting hit however, by the loss of your favorite show and having ESRD is a bit much for any one. You do have a great and open way of discussing your feelings and made a lot of us laugh. This comes from the woman who would literally murder her husband if he tried to watch something other than Grays Anatomy or Desperate Housewives. But, I do feel for you and appreciate your reaction. You will be okay, as you always are, as time goes on.

[Riki]

I know how you feel.  I felt the same way when Another World was cancelled.  It was something that I watched, even when I didn't realize I was watching it. I always thought it funny, how quickly children grow up soaps.  I was the same age as Amanda Cory, but she was an adult well before I was.. *L*

My grandmother watches One Life to Live, which is also being cancelled.  I'm betting that she's not amused.

I have to wonder.. what will Susan Lucci do now??  I always loved Erica Kane...