'''Days of our Lives''' is an American
soap opera, which has aired nearly every weekday since
November 8,
1965[2] on the
NBC network in the
United States, and has since been syndicated to many countries around the world.
[8][9][10] The series was created by husband-and-wife team
Ted Corday and
Betty Corday,
[1] and many of the first stories were written by
William J. Bell.
The Cordays and Bell combined the "soaps taking place in a hospital" idea with the tradition of centering a series around a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital.
[12] Storylines in the show follow the lives of middle and upper-class professionals in
Salem, a middle-America town, with the usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical storylines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems.
[13] Former executive producer
Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut."
[14]
Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia (in contrast to shows such as ''
As the World Turns'') and its portrayal of "real American contemporary families."
[15] By the 1970s, critics deemed ''Days'' to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as
artificial insemination and
interracial romance.
[16] In the 1990s, the show branched out into supernatural storylines, which critics immediately panned, as it was seen as a departure from more realistic storylines for which the show had originally become known.
[17][18] In 2006, when asked about his character,
Jack Deveraux, "coming back from the dead" — for the third time — actor
Matthew Ashford responded, "It is hard to play that because at a certain point it becomes too unreal...actors look at that and think, 'What is this — the
Cartoon Network'?"
[19]
''Days'', in addition to receiving critical acclaim in print journalism, has won a number of awards, including a
Daytime Emmy for Best Drama in 1978
[20] and a
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Drama in 2000.
[21] ''Days'' actors have also won awards:
Macdonald Carey (Dr.
Tom Horton) won Best Actor in 1974
[22] and 1975,
[23] Susan Flannery (Laura Horton) won Best Actress in 1975,
[23] Suzanne Rogers (
Maggie Horton) and
Leann Hunley (
Anna DiMera) won Best Supporting Actress for respectively 1979
[25] and 1986,
[26] and
Billy Warlock (
Frankie Brady) won Best Younger Actor for 1988.
[27]
As with other soap operas, ''Days'' ratings have declined since the 1990s. In January 2007 it was announced that the show "is unlikely to continue [on NBC] past 2009."
Storyline
When ''Days of our Lives'' premiered in 1965, the show revolved around the tragedies which befell the Horton family. The Hortons were led by patriarch Tom, Chief of Internal Medicine at Salem University Hospital, and his wife, homemaker Alice. Together they had five children: Tom Jr., Addie, Mickey, Bill, and Marie. Over time, additional families, such as the Merritts, Hunters, Bannings, and Andersons were brought to the show to interact with the Hortons and serve as springboards for more dramatic storylines.
One of the longest-running storylines involved the rape of Mickey Horton's wife Laura Horton, by Mickey's brother Bill. Laura confided in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agreed that her husband Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael Horton, a product of the rape, and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. The storyline was the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen daytime ratings.[28] Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie, proved to be very popular around the same time. It culminated in the death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.[29]
In the 1980s, the Brady and DiMera families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as core families in Salem in addition to the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, action/adventure storylines and supercouplings such as Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch and Kayla reinvigorated the show, long primarily about the Horton family.
Since the 1990s, with the introduction of writer James E. Reilly, ''Days of our Lives'' has moved from traditional plots to supernatural and science-fiction-themed stories, in conjunction with the rivalry of good vs. evil Hatfield/McCoy feud like (Bradys vs. DiMeras).
[ Grandpa of soaps goes back to family matters ] Under the tenure of Reilly, ratings, which were in trouble in the late 1980s and early 1990s, quickly rebounded to second place. Despite shaky footing in the ratings with the introduction of new head writer Hogan Sheffer in 2006, which led the show's producers to hire past fan favorites to stop the ratings hemorrhage,[30] ''Days'' has since leveled back to the middle of the daytime ratings, continuing with stories and arcs Reilly originally introduced.
Best-remembered stories
In addition to the love triangles of Bill/Mickey/Laura and Doug/Julie/Addie previously mentioned, other storylines which were most remembered by viewers included the 1968 story of amnesiac Tom Horton, Jr., who returned from the Korean War believing he was someone else and then proceeded to romance his younger sister Marie;[28] the twenty-year tragic love triangle when John Black stole Marlena Brady from her husband Roman ;[28] the 1982 "Salem Strangler" (Jake Kositchek, who was nicknamed "Jake the Ripper"), who stalked and murdered women;[28] the 1984 ''Gone with the Wind'' storyline when Hope Williams and Bo Brady hid out on a Southern plantation and dressed up as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (originally devised to keep viewers tuned in despite pre-emptions due to the 1984 Summer Olympics);[28][35] "The Cruise of Deception" in 1990, when madman Ernesto Toscano invited all his enemies aboard a ship, the ''S.S. Loretta,'' and held them captive;[28] the 1994–1995 storyline when the town's Christmas tree burned down and Marlena became possessed in ''Exorcist'' fashion;[17][28] and the 2003–2004 "Melaswen", when several characters purportedly died at the hands of a masked psychopath, but were later revealed to have been kidnapped to the secret island of Melaswen (New Salem spelled backwards).[28]
Cast
Main articles: List of Days of our Lives cast members
When ''Days of our Lives'' debuted in 1965 as a 30-minute serial, the cast consisted of 11 actors, nine of whom were permanent fixtures in the storyline.[40] In 1974, the show was planned to expand to an hour in length, and the cast was increased to 27 actors in different storylines. By the 25th anniversary in 1990, 40 actors appeared on the show in contract or recurring roles,[41] which is the approximate number of actors the show has used since.
Of all the current cast members, only Frances Reid, who plays Alice Horton, has been on contract with ''Days of our Lives'' since it began, appearing since the very first episode in 1965. Original cast member John Clarke, who played Mickey Horton, left the series in 2004 and is as of 2007 too ill to continue in the role; the character is now off-screen. Suzanne Rogers, who plays Maggie Horton, and Deidre Hall, who plays Marlena Evans, have been appearing on the show for over 30 years.
Along with many other tenured cast members, ''Days'' has also hired many entirely new actors in recent years. Twenty-one of the current cast members have been hired since 2004, and eleven of them are completely new to ''Days''. Many old favorites have returned; starting in 2006, cast members from the 1980s, such as Stephen Nichols (Steve Johnson), Mary Beth Evans (Kayla Brady), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera), and Thaao Penghlis (Tony DiMera) have been brought back to ''Days'', in an attempt to reach viewers who may have quit watching the series.[30]
Executive producing and head writing team
Main articles: List of Days of our Lives producers and writers
The original executive producer, Ted Corday, was only at the helm for eight months before dying of cancer. His widow, Betty Corday, continued producing the show with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin before semi-retiring to a supervising producer position in 1985. Upon her death two years later, her son Ken became involved with the day-to-day running of the show, becoming executive producer by 1991, a title he still holds today. His co-executive producer is Edward J. Scott, who was hired after longtime producer Stephen Wyman left the program.
The first well-known head writer, William J. Bell, started writing for ''Days'' in 1966 and continued until 1975, well after he had spun off his own successful soap, ''The Young and the Restless''. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, high writer turnover was commonplace. In the early 1980s, Margaret DePriest helped stabilize the show and kill off dead wood in the cast via a serial killer storyline. Later head writers, like Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina and Leah Laiman, built on that stability and crafted storylines of their own, temporarily bringing up ratings. Writing changes occurred after Laiman left the series in 1989, and would not become stable again until James E. Reilly started with the show in 1993. His tenure, which lasted for four-and-a-half years, was credited with bringing ratings up to the second-place spot in the Nielsens. Other writers who succeeded him, such as Sally Sussman Morina and Tom Langan, failed to keep the ratings success, and another writer turnover continued until Reilly returned to the series in 2003.
Currently, the head writer of the series is Hogan Sheffer, who has been in the position since October 2006. His co-head writer is Meg Kelly.
Ratings and scheduling history
'DOOL Ratings: 1965-present'
Not long after its introduction in 1965, ''Days of our Lives'' became a successful part of NBC's attempt to dethrone daytime powerhouse CBS. By 1973 the show, pitted against CBS' ''Guiding Light'' and ABC's ''Newlywed Game'' at 2 p.m.(EST)/1 p.m.(CTS),[3] had matched the first-place ratings of ''As The World Turns'' and sister NBC serial ''Another World''. NBC capitalized on this success with the decision to expand to one hour on April 21 1975. This expansion had followed the lead of ''AW,'' which became TV's first-ever hourlong soap on January 6, three and a half months earlier. Further, ''Days' new starting time of 1:30/12:30[3] finally solved a scheduling problem that began in 1968 when NBC lost the game ''Let's Make a Deal'' to ABC, and in its wake, eight different shows were placed into the slot, with only one, ''Three on a Match,'' lasting more than nine months.
However, this first golden period for NBC daytime proved to be short-lived, as ''Days' ratings began to decline in 1977. Much of the decline was due to ABC's expansion of its popular soap ''All My Children'' to a full hour, the last half of which overlapped with the first half of ''Days.'' By January 1979, the network, in a mode of desperation more than anything else, decided to jump headlong against ''AMC'' and moved the show ahead to the same 1 p.m./12 Noon time slot.[3] In exchange to its affiliates for taking away the old half-hour access slot at 1:00 p.m./Noon, NBC gave them the 4pm (EST)/3pm (CTS) slot, which many (if not most) stations had been preempting for years anyway.[3] By 1986, ABC and CBS followed suit, under the intense pressure of lucrative (and cheap) syndicated programming offered to affiliates.
By the early 1980s, ''Days'' had displaced ''Another World'' as NBC's highest-rated soap. However, the entire NBC soap lineup was in ratings trouble. In fact, by 1982, all of its shows were rated above only one ABC soap (''The Edge of Night'') and below all four CBS soaps. The "supercouple" era of the 1980s, however, helped bring about a ratings revival, and the 1983–1984 season saw ''Days'' experience a surge in ratings. It held onto its strong numbers for most of the 80s, only to decline again by 1990, eventually falling back into eighth place. In the mid-1990s, however, the show experienced a resurgence in popularity and the show reached number two in the ratings, where it remained for several years before experiencing another ratings decline beginning in 1999, the year that ''Days'' became NBC's longest-running daytime program (upon the cancellation of ''AW''). Throughout the 2000s, ''Days'' and all the other remaining network daytime serials have witnessed a steady erosion of viewers, mainly due to vastly altered viewing habits induced by cable networks and alternative genres such as reality and talk shows on minor network affiliates.
On January 17 2007, NBC Universal Television president Jeff Zucker remarked that ''Days of our Lives'' would most likely not "continue past 2009."[47] With the impending move of ''Passions'' from NBC to DirecTV in September 2007, ''Days'' will become NBC's last remaining traditional daytime program (excepting the ''Today Show'', which will receive a fourth weekday hour in exchange for the forementioned cancellation) on its mid-day schedule. After the January announcement, the Nielsen ratings for ''Days'' dropped to 1.9 million households[48] before stabilizing in June near 2.4 million households.[49] In an April 2007 interview with ''Soap Opera Digest'', executive producer Ken Corday remarked of the ratings decline of the previous months, "If I don't pay attention to the ratings and what the viewers are saying, I'm an ostrich. I have not seen a decline in the ratings on the show this precipitous — ever. I've never seen this much of a percentage decline."[50] But ''Days'' has not been able to recover the viewers it has lost.
On September 10, 2007, due to Passions' cancellation/move to DirecTV and The Today Show's extension to four hours, NBC in most areas will move ''Days'' to 2pm weekdays, taking over Passions' former timeslot. Some areas will stay at 1pm an a few others will move to Noon.
External distribution
According to ''Variety'', ''Days'' is the most widely-distributed soap opera in the United States, with episodes not just broadcast via NBC, but also via cable (SOAPnet), and as of June 2007, episodes are offered via iTunes.[51]
''Days'' also has an international audience. It started broadcasting locally in Australia in 1968,[ later moving to the Nine Network. Over time, ''Days'' ended up airing at a delay of nearly five years behind the United States due to cricket pre-emptions in the summer, so in 2004, Nine aired a special titled ''Days of our Lives: A New Day'', which summarized four years of storyline in one hour, in an attempt to catch up to more current telecasts.][ This speed-up caused mixed feelings as viewers missed many vital storylines and it landed right in the middle of the Melaswen storyline. Now, episodes are ten months behind the United States. New Zealand has aired ''Days'' nearly as long, debuting on Television New Zealand by 1975 at the latest,][[52] and currently running approximately three years behind the United States on the TV ONE channel.]
''Days'' also airs in a number of countries across Europe, premiering in France on July 29, 1991, Germany on September 6, 1993, Finland on August 11, 2003, and Hungary on June 14, 2004. Channel 5 aired episodes of ''Days'' in the United Kingdom from March 2000 until April 2001, eventually pulling it off the air; network executives deemed its audience of 200,000 viewers as too low a figure.[ ''Days'' had previously aired in the UK and Ireland on the Sky Soap channel between 1994 and 1999; episodes were three years behind U.S. telecasts. From September 3, 2007, UK viewers will be able to watch Days on the female-skewed entertainment channel Zone Romantica. In Italy ''Days'' aired for only three months in 1985 on Rete A; in 1992 Italia 7 started to air new episodes, five years behind U.S. telecasts. In 1993, after 260 episodes, the show was cancelled.]
Theme song and opening title sequences
The title sequence of ''Days of our Lives'' has changed several times since the show's debut, but always maintained hourglass imagery and trademark voiceover, "''Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives''." Beginning in 1966, the voice has been that of Macdonald Carey (1913–1994), who played Dr. Tom Horton from the show's opening until the actor's death from lung cancer.[53]
Opening titles
1965 - 1972 | Almost completely unchanged since the show's debut in 1965, the titles show an hourglass, as sand slowly trickles to the bottom against the backdrop of a partly cloudy black and blue sky.[54] In 1966, the focus moved from the entire hourglass to the bottom, with the sand trickling away as the theme played. |
1972 - 1985 | In 1972, the current title lettering was introduced,[54] a condensed version of the Times New Roman typeface in yellow coloring (before then, the show's title was in Latin Bold font). The title card would also say "Copyright 1972 by Corday Productions, Inc." While the copyright was only for the title sequence, viewers would become confused in later years, as the 1972 copyright notice stayed on the title sequence until 1985. |
1985 - 1993 | No marked difference came in 1985's titles revision, save for the removal of the copyright notice from the bottom of the screen. |
1993 - present | In 1993, a computerized version of the visual was made, with completely redone sound effects and rearranged music. In this version the hourglass, now slowly spinning clockwise, starts focus at the bottom-half, overlooking the dawn. As the sun rises, the focus is zoomed out, and the audience sees the entire hourglass and the show's title "flourishes" onto the screen as the music flourishes.[54] While the entire hourglass is revealed, the clouds in the sky change formations. The current version of this theme is about 30 seconds in length, however the full version lasts around 3½ minutes.A shortened version of this open debuted in 1995 as the show's time period was shortened due to coverage of O.J. Simpson trial (and later for the Martha Stewart trial in 2004). It is still used from time to time when episodes run over the allotted time, usually during sweeps periods. |
Opening music and announcement
The theme that regularly accompanies each sequence was composed by Charles Albertine, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.[57] The theme has only been modified twice since ''Days'' premiered: in 1993, when the opening titles were changed to computerized visuals, and in 2004, with an orchestral arrangement that was only used in eight episodes, at which time the theme was reverted back to the 1993 arrangement, and is the one currently used.
From its debut in 1965 until March of 1966, announcer Ed Prentiss spoke the words now made famous by Macdonald Carey.[54] Since April 1966, the late Macdonald Carey has intoned the legendary epigram "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." From 1966 to 1994, he would also say, "This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the days of our lives." After Carey's passing, the decision was made to remove the second part of the opening, out of respect for Carey and his family.[54]
A portion of the opening and theme music are also used as a mid-show break bumper, starting after the hourglass has zoomed out and title has appeared with Macdonald Carey announcing "We will return with the second half of ''Days of our Lives'' in just a moment," which has been used since the show expanded to one hour in 1975.
Cultural impact
''Days'' was satirized on the hit sitcom ''Friends'' when one of the principals, Joey Tribbiani (played by Matt LeBlanc), got a job as Dr. Drake Ramoray on the show,[60] despite the fact that Joey lived in New York and ''Days of our Lives'' is shot in California.[60] All storylines shown on ''Friends'' (with guest shots by actual ''Days of our Lives'' stars) were fictional and did not represent what was really going on in the soap opera itself. Joey's fictional stint on the show ended when he angered its writers and his character was killed after falling down an elevator shaft.[62] Later, his character was brought back to life in a further spoof on the show (no fewer than thirty-six characters have been "brought back" from the dead on ''Days'').[63] Joey was brought back as a man with a brain transplant. His new brain was from the character Jessica Lockhart, played by Susan Sarandon. Lockhart died from a horseback riding injury.[64] The Lockharts are also the last names of Bonnie, Mimi and Patrick on ''Days'', but the Jessica character is not a relation to any of the three. Alison Sweeney, who plays Sami Brady, appeared on ''Friends'' as Jessica Ashley who stars with Joey on ''Days''.[65] Another episode has Joey in a scene with Kristian Alfonso as Hope Brady;[66] she and Roark Critchlow's Mike Horton[67] are the only characters from the real ''Days'' to appear on ''Friends''. In the spinoff sitcom ''Joey'', Joey was nominated for "best death scene" in which his character was stabbed while performing surgery.[68]
The show has had many high-profile fans. In 1976, ''TIME'' magazine reported that then-Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, would call a recess around the 1 p.m. hour to watch ''Days of our Lives''.[69] Actress Julia Roberts admitted at the 2002 People's Choice Awards that she was a fan of ''Days'', and asked to be seated near the cast at that event as well as other award shows. In 2004, during the show's Melaswen storyline, Roberts' interest was considered notable enough that ''Entertainment Weekly'' quoted her saying that "[the show has] gotten a little wacko."[70] A 1998 ''TIME'' article mentioned that Monica Lewinsky, the White House aide who had an affair with then-president Bill Clinton, was a passionate fan of ''Days of our Lives'', so much so that she wrote a poem about the series in her high school yearbook. The article compared her whirlwind experiences in the White House to a story on ''Days''.[71] Best-selling horror novelist Brian Keene has said in interviews with The New York Times, Rue Morgue Magazine and elsewhere that he has been a fan since the early Eighties and never misses an episode.
Notes
1. NBC Pays Big for More 'Days'
2. Cinema
3. NBC Daytime
4. NBC Daytime
5. Days of our Lives Television Show
6. Days Of Our Lives Home Page
7. Cinema
8. A new day for Nine
9. TVNZ Schedules
10. Days Yanked in UK
11. NBC Pays Big for More 'Days'
12. Gilbert, Annie, ''All My Afternoons'', p. 110.
13. Gilbert, Annie, ''All My Afternoons'', p. 111.
14. Move Over, Sam Ervin
15. Gilbert, Annie, ''All My Afternoons'', p. 109
16. TIME Rates the Soaps
17. Soap Operas: The Old and the Desperate
18. Love, Money, Witches and Beach Grass
19. What you didn't see at the Daytime Emmys
20. Daytime Emmys - 1977
21. 52nd Annual Writers Guild Awards
22. Daytime Emmys - 1973
23. Daytime Emmys - 1974
24. Daytime Emmys - 1974
25. Daytime Emmys - 1978
26. Daytime Emmys - 1985
27. Daytime Emmys - 1987
28. Unforgettable Stories
29. Gilbert, Annie, ''All My Afternoons'', p. 112.
30. Mascolo Brings Stefano Back to Salem
31. Unforgettable Stories
32. Unforgettable Stories
33. Unforgettable Stories
34. Unforgettable Stories
35. Where's the Soaps?
36. Unforgettable Stories
37. Soap Operas: The Old and the Desperate
38. Unforgettable Stories
39. Unforgettable Stories
40. Original Cast of Days of Our Lives
41. Days Cast Photos Through the Years
42. Mascolo Brings Stefano Back to Salem
43. NBC Daytime
44. NBC Daytime
45. NBC Daytime
46. NBC Daytime
47. No surprises at NBC
48. ''Soap Opera Digest''. "Crisis at DAYS! The Secret Plan to Save It". April 17, 2007
49. Days of Our Lives Weekly Nielsen Ratings Charts
50. ''Soap Opera Digest''. "Crisis at DAYS! The Secret Plan to Save It". April 17, 2007.
51. iTunes plays 'Days' Josef Adalian
52. PM Bears Tidings of Meo's Departure
53. Milestones: MacDonald Carey obituary
54. Opening and Closing Credits
55. Opening and Closing Credits
56. Opening and Closing Credits
57. Bobby Hart Biography
58. Opening and Closing Credits
59. Opening and Closing Credits
60. Increasingly, TV Shows Are Talking About Themselves
61. Increasingly, TV Shows Are Talking About Themselves
62. The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies
63. Days of Our Lives FAQ
64. The One With Joey's New Brain
65. Friends: The One With Joey's Award
66. Friends: The One That Could Have Been, Part I
67. Friends: The One After the Super Bowl
68. Joey: Joey and the Wrong Name
69. Sex and Suffering in the Afternoon
70. Daytime's Secret Weapon
71. The Days of Her Life
External links
★ Days of our Lives on NBC - Official Website
★ Days of our Lives - Website run by Sony
★
★ Daytime Soap Operas Days Of Our Lives -news, rumors, cast updates, polls
★ Brady/Horton Family Trees
★ Beth's Days Page
★ Prevuze - Day ahead satire
★ Days of our Lives @
★ 'soap'central.'com'
★ [1] (dutch)
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
![Don\](images/articles/thumbs/beachrainthumb.jpg "Don\")
