All My Children Tv Series
All My Children, or AMC for short, is a soap opera that
airs Monday through Friday on ABC. It has been on the air
since January of 1970, and repeats air every weeknight on
the Soapnet network. The show was created by famed soap writer
Agnes Nixon, and it is set in the fictional Pennsylvania town
of Pine Valley. The show’s title refers to the common bonds
that tie us all together, and in the opening credits, you’ll
see a photo album with a poem (written by Nixon) that reads:
“The great and the least, the rich and the poor, the weak
and the strong, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow,
in tragedy and triumph, you are all my children”.
The show was the first soap of the seventies, and it was
originally owned by Nixon’s Creative Horizons company. The
show was sold to ABC in 1975, when it was only a half hour
long. It then went to a full hour in April of 1977.
From 1970-1990, the show was recorded at the ABC studio TV18.
Now, it is taped at TV23 in Manhattan. Back in December of
2009, the show moved to Los Angeles, and it is now broadcast
only in high-definition. The show is so popular, that at one
time it was the most widely-recorded show in the entire country.
A large part of the viewing audience is male, marking a departure
from most soaps. In 1978, the show was top in Nielsen ratings,
and throughout most of the eighties and the early nineties,
it was the number two soap on the air.
The cast has seen its share of changes, with the death of
Ruth Warrick in 2005. Susan Lucci (who plays the sometimes-devious
Erica Kane) and Ray MacDonnell were the only two original
cast members left, until MacDonnell chose to retire rather
than move with the rest of the show to Los Angeles.
All My Children has always been successful because it catered
to younger viewers, with its storylines centering around “young
love”. However, it didn’t start out strong- in its first year,
it was seventeenth out of nineteen soap operas on TV. The
show is unique, however. It was the first show to discuss
what was happening in Vietnam at the time. Phoebe, a conservative
character, and Amy, a liberal, butted heads all the time.
Phoebe did go on to become more moderate in her views, however,
and that continued until Ruth Warrick’s death.
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