Search for Tomorrow

Back in the 1980s, soaps ruled daytime. It's not replaced with talk and service shows now. There are only 9 shows. Only four are produced in New York City and the 5 are produced in Los Angeles. There was a time when it was 14 and New York City ruled daytime television. Those days are long gone because of production costs and the fact that audiences don't seem to be interested in daytime television as much as prime time. In England, soaps are very popular and acceptable. They have become part of their culture. It's sad that the same country that produced the early daytime serials like Search for Tomorrow which showed Agnes Nixon's creative genius and actors like Mary Stuart and Larry Haines play Jo and Stu for 35 years to lose daytime television. Daytime soaps like Search for Tomorrow are no longer being produced in New York City. I don't believe New York City will ever reclaim or want to reclaim it's title of the daytime television industry. It's a shame. There are plenty of actors who want to stay in New York City and work in stage, film, and television without having to relocate to Los Angeles. Maybe the answer is north in Toronto where actors and actresses can work on stage, film, and television. I remember Mary Stuart and Jane Krakowski from Ally McBeal fame in this show. This was a pleasant half-hour on television. We don't have them anymore.

In my case, this IS a show my Mom used to watch (she watched all of the CBS serials to varying degrees) and unlike today's soaps, as all of the marital infidelity, etc., was never on screen, I suppose it was all right for a little kid to see, although I seem to remember that JoAnne Tate lost a son about my age and it bothered my mother a lot. In those days the plot lines really moved slowly; I could go back to school for nine months and still know what was going on the next summer! I've always wondered how actresses like Mary Stuart who played the same character on the same show for decades did financially; presumably it was good enough that they didn't go look for other work. I've heard that more of the people whose TV careers started on this show became stars after they moved on than any other soap opera. And this show was really that - a true soap opera in every sense with all that implies. When I was a kid it still had the ominous organ music, a carryover from soaps on the radio (even though that this one, unlike "The Guiding Light" with which it shared a half-hour when they were both 15 minutes, did not go all the way back to the radio itself).

I used to watch this show, along with Edge of Night,As the World Turns and Guiding Light when I was a kid during the summer vacation with my mother. Back then, they stayed on for only 15 minutes each. I can still hear that organ playing every time a reaction was required and the actor would freeze. Classic. There didn't seem to be as much sex back then -- I mean the plots were similar in that at least once Erica Kane-type character seemed to marry every man in town at least once and children had a knack of growing 10 years in a week but the sex was more implied and I think that was better. Nowadays, well, you know how it is nowadays.

I really never saw many soaps. My mom was working when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, so I pretty much watched TV series when we were home.

In the late 60s when I was 15 or so, I came to enjoy the show when I was out sick from school, and started to listen for the beautiful lead-in music.

It was very touching and uplifting, I remember. The next time I saw the show the music was the same.

I wonder if anyone remembers what the music sounded like in the late 60s - it was touching and almost other-worldly which fits the title well.

When I was out of school I started to watch it whenever I was home from a part-time job. I am hoping to find out about the music now. It may have changed over the years, but I would love to find a VHS or DVD depicting how it was.

Thanks!

Another commentator seems to suggest(I could be reading it wrong) that ATWT and EON were once on for 15 minutes. While SFT and GL did air for 15 minutes a day, EON & ATWT started out as half hour soaps. I grew up watching the entire CBS daytime lineup with my grandmother during the summer. The only soaps I could watch during school were EON and Dark Shadows because they aired in the late afternoon. I have so many memories of those years. Jo Anne blind. Malcolm Thomas stabbed on EON. Jonah revealed as Keith Whitney on EON. Kip cheating on Amy on Secret Storm. I don't know if the stories were better because I was young and everything was new to me. But they certainly seemed better.