Everything looks real

Sometimes soap operas actually venture outside the studio and will actually film a scene in an actuial location. In the business, it's called a remote.

Guiding Light used plenty of location filming in its last year on the air. Many longtime fans didn't like its new look.

In the earliest days of TV soaps (the early '50s), they didn't have much money for sets. Doorframes and pictures were just hung in mid-air with no walls! The commercials often had better settings than the soaps.

In the earliest days of TV soaps (the early '50s), they didn't have much money for sets. Doorframes and pictures were just hung in mid-air with no walls! The commercials often had better settings than the soaps

Uh, no. I've seen kinescopes of 50s soaps like "The Guiding Light", "Hawkins Falls", "The Brighter Day" and "Valiant Lady" and none of them featured sets of that nature.


"It's Bucket 'o Nothing! Surprise your friends, amaze your family, annoy perfect strangers!"

That's because by then, TV soaps had enough of an audience to warrant higher budgets for sets. But the ones that were on before that had extremely sparse settings.

But the ones that were on before that had extremely sparse settings.

Before what, exactly? The oldest I've seen date from as back as 1953 (via digital tranfers I got from a "friend" who had/has old kinescopes...don't ask). Soap operas that came before that, such as "A Woman to Remember" and "Faraway Hill", I admit I haven't seen recordings of. Are these what you are referring to? I did hear "Faraway Hill" was something of a utter train-wreck.

"It's Bucket 'o Nothing! Surprise your friends, amaze your family, annoy perfect strangers!"

In 1954 and '55 Love of Life employed the sparse sets mentioned originally. Since the backgrounds were black it was not obvious to the casual viewer that the picture frame hanging behind the sofa or chair did not have a wall behind it. In those years Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow must have had a slightly higher budget a their sets were slightly more complete. How do I know? I watched these shows in those years. I vaguely remember that in '54 Secret Storm used spare sets also. Perhaps that was a Roy Winsor contribution to daytime entertainment. Those really sparse sets had vanished by 1956. You should note that they were practical as usually the "strip" sets uses on soaps had to be "rebuilt" 5 days a week since the same studio in the days of live television might be used for other broadcast shows in the evening.

Just checked and yes, "Love of Life" does seem to have such sets. However, having viewed 50s-era recordings of it recently, I still say "The Guiding Light" had far more lavish sets than "Love of Life" at that period, as per these stills from 1953:
http://i46.tinypic.com/13z95kw.jpg




"It's Bucket 'o Nothing! Surprise your friends, amaze your family, annoy perfect strangers!"

The photo of the actual shows do convey that the crew on SFT and GL were adept at hanging flats as well as the crew on LoL hung velour curtains. Examine your sample photos carefully and you'l see the props and support for the Duz commercial are more elaborate and that commercial may have been filmed elsewhere. Videotape was not introduced until the late '50's so all TV was live or on film in the pre 1958 shows, and note that soaps were still performed live for more than a decade after networks started to tape some prime time shows. I remember (I think it was sumer 1958) an episode of Secret Storm where Haila Stoddard as Aunt Pauline had been psychosomatically blinded and was in an office when somehow she set the wastepaper basket on fire and smelling the smoke in panic recovered her sight. The office set was comprised of the black velour flats/curtain, a desk with a prop telephone, a couple of chairs and the wastepaper basket. You should also remember that in the '50's most TV sets in use were B&W 17-inch down to 12-inch screens. (21-inch models were more expensive and cost much more.) On the smaller screen sizes then in homes, the inadequacies of the strip sets were barely noticeable. To my grandmother (a faithful viewer) story and acting counted for more. Because Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow and The Guiding Light filled 45 minutes at lunchtime I'm sure most children who are my age were exposed to them. Oddly enough half a century later, I can still remember most of the major storylines. By the late '50's with the debut of 30-minute soaps the background sets were more elaborate ... but sometimes skimpy. Who can forget Teresa Vetter and Mike Karr in the collapsing mine in May 1961 on The Edge of Night? I'm sure the stage crew bitched about all the dirt and papier-mache rocks that had to be thrown around to simulate the chase in the treacherous mine! The introductory episodes of From These Roots were a celebratory family party at the Frasier home which was quite elaborate for a strip set. Yes, soaps have come a long way in over half a century. If you watch One Life to Live you'll notice the blizzard scenes that have been playing for two weeks now are very realistic, much more so than the scenes on Search for Tomorrow when Mrs. Baron was trying to kidnap Patti from Joanne by running through branches on a small set which represented the deep woods!