I loved this show, and am still nostalgic for it. Is there some obscure cable channel that will show the old episodes? I would love to relive it from the beginning...Kelly and Joe, Eden and Cruz, Sophia pulling the plug on C.C.'s life support machine, Eden getting paralyzed and abducted by a yeti, Eden and Cruz's wedding, Robert Barr, Mason and Julia...I'm gonna cry.

They showed the old episodes back when I lived in Japan. Hopefully SoapNet will buy the rights.

I'd watch that show again to relieve the beauty that was Mason and Julia. I only vaguely recall the "good days" of the show before my mom went back to work. I remember dropping it from after-school soap day when it landed in hell in the Kim Zimmer and Jack Wagner days.

Oh, Gawd!

[dating myself]When I was in college I used to schedule my classes so I could watch Santa Barbara.

Mason and Julia? Best. Soap. Couple. Ever.

LD and NLG on TFGH? Most. Tragic. and. Criminal. Misuse. of Talent. and Chemistry. Ever.

Don't kill me, Queen B, but I was a big BJ/Warren fan with Sydney Penny and Jack Wagner. They were so cute. Now JW/SP are on B&B, which should be renamed Boring & Boringer, for all the use they make of their awesome chemistry or any original writing they do. Feb sweeps is all about lasagna at the Marone house and the Gaping Cooter coming back home and having yet another bastard child. Seriously.

CineFille, loved Mason/Julia as well, never got over the recasts. What TFGH has done is criminal.

Oh my Gawd.............I can't believe there's a Santa Barbara topic on here. I used to literally run from the bus stop to my house when I was in junior high school to get home in time for SB. Eden and Cruz were the best couple EVER. No wait-- Mason and Julia were pretty good too. I think I started watching it when Gina pulled the plug on C.C.'s respirator. Gina was a great villain. Who was her partner in crime? I can picture the actor's face, but I can't remember his name on the show. I think it was something like Tim or Tom or something sort of plain and non-soap opera-ish like that.

And I loooved Mason. Remember Eden and Kelly's brother? I think he was the youngest. Was his name Ted??

Editd to add: Saffron-- you mentioned Sophia pulled the plug on C.C.'s life support, but didn't it turn out to be Gina??

. . .

Was it Keith? Played by Justin Deas? Am I crazy?

I think it was Keith.

All I remember about Ted was that he was sort of just ... there. Kind of like Thorne on B&B -- the younger son that no one really cares much about, including the viewers.

I loved Santa Barbara too...up until the storylines became just too preposterous for words. Remember when Cruz and Eden went with Santa Claus? I think that was about the time I tuned out.

Keith (Justin Deas) was Gina's cohort and I loved those two.

Ted (Todd McKee) was the youngest. He did some time on B&B (word to everything starrynight5 said about that waste of air time) -- as Taylor's younger brother, I think.

Robin Wright Penn has come a looooong way. She used to drive me nuts on SB with all of her hair flipping.

I think so. Sophia went to jail for it, but it turned out to be somebody else. Did Eden pull the plug when she was in split-personality mode and thought she was Channing? Or did she shoot Sophia? My memory is so fuzzy.

I think I really started to tune out after Eden/Suzanne left to do Palace Guard. It was at that time they moved the show from 3 pm (right after I got home from school) to noon, when I couldn't watch it.

My sisters loved Santa Barbara. They'd race home to catch the last part of AW and all of SB. I vaguely remember it as a little tyke.

This soap had one of my favorite opening sequences EVER.

Dude, now I've got the theme song in my head!

dah dah dah DAH . . . dah dah dah NAH nah . . .

Thanks, Saffron, for starting this thread! I adored "Santa Barbara." Boy, does this take me back to my college days, too - of taping and watching three hours of soaps (Days, AW, & SB) every day! SB had the best couples. Mason and Julia? Agreed: best soap couple ever. (Damn did I love that storyline when what's-her-name got killed or whatever and her frozen body kept turning up everywhere... I'm obviously unclear on the details, though - anyone else remember the specifics?) I also loved Eden and Cruz, mostly because of A Martinez. And Gina was one of the best characters ever.

Hee. I just remembered something else I loved about this show. I had this theatre history professor in college who thought Dame Judith Anderson was the shiznit. He was one of those anti-TV snobs too. I got extreme pleasure from the knowledge that not only was his Acting Goddess on TV but on a soap to boot! (And they didn't give Minx nearly enough to do, IMHO!)

Thankfully around the time it started sucking was the time I had to stop watching soaps altogether, so I never had to suffer through Kim Zimmer and all the other weirdness.

I sincerely hope (a) SoapNet picks it up, and (b) that my stupid cable system gets SoapNet. I'd watch it all over again. Sigh.

If you don't already have the credits downloaded onto your computer, you can get a .rm file of it here. There's also a German site with some nice clips of Mason and his unfortunate split personality Sonny (Gawd, I love irony), but either the site is down or I'm having problems accessing it. I hope nothing happened to it.

I think Y&R is the best all-around quality soap consistently over time, but Santa Barbara during its glory days is definitely a contender for best writing and acting.

My favorite Mason/Julia moment is the impromptu wedding vows after Gina's little theft of Mason's printed copy. "Ground beef, eggs, milk…"

I can't believe I forgot about that! That is one of my top ten favorite soap moments, definitely. That was so funny, and so in character. God, I loved Mason and Julia.

The early years were superb. SB was funny, sexy, romantic, suspenseful, sometimes tragic - just what a soap should be.

I loved Eden/Cruz, Mason/Julia, Mason/Mary, Sophia/CC, Gina/Keith, Augusta/Lionel and was surprised, near the end, to find myself loving Gina/Lionel.

Gina was one of the great sympathetic villainesses once Robin Mattson took over the role. I loved the Andrade family, too. But I'm maybe one of three people on earth who never cared for Roscoe Born or the character of Robert Barr.

One of my all-time favorite moments was when Lionel and Augusta were trapped in a cave together and made love when the earthquake hit, and afterwards Augusta purred, "Did the earth move for you, too?"

BTW, SB fans, Jed Allan, the longest-run and, I think, definitive CC, was just signed to take over the role of Edward Quartermaine on GH.

Sasha Schmidt was her name. She was a lounge singer.

That was TudorQueen. Never saw SB, but now that I've seen the potential of NLG/LD, I wish I had seen SB for those two alone. Add Robin Mattson and Jack Wagner and I wonder why I never watched. Maybe we'll get lucky and SoapNet will pick it up. I could use a new soap.

This was my favorite show of all time. I'd love it if it could come back on SoapNet. Mason and Julia are my all-time favorite soap couple as well, although I really liked Mason and Mary as well before she died (killed by a giant neon C falling on her on the roof of the Capwell Hotel).

I wish this forum had existed back then; I swear every one of my posts back in 1986 would have contained, "SHUT UP, SANTANA." She spent virtually the entire year shrieking variants of, "You don't LOVE me, Cruz! You love EDEN!" Oy.

With regard to:

They're three separate things.

1. Sophia killed Channing Capwell Jr. by accident in 1979. She was on a yacht with Lionel in 1969 and fell overboard during an argument. She mistakenly believed that Lionel was trying to run her over with the boat, but in fact he had been knocked unconscious. She wound up with amnesia and married Count Armonti in Europe. She regained her memory and snuck back into Santa Barbara and the Capwell mansion at a big party and sent Lionel a note to come to the study, where she was waiting with a gun that she had emptied of bullets. She wanted to scare him. CC, however, had noticed the gun was empty and refilled it, and Channing wound up with the note by mistake. He enters the study and she shoots him immediately, not knowing the gun was loaded. Her stepson Marcello spirited her back to Europe and erased her memories of the event through hypnosis, but Cruz put the pieces together in 1985. Sophia was arrested, but got a suspended sentence of community service and probation because to a large degree it was an accident. Brick Wallace was later revealed to be the real Channing because Minx Lockridge had switched the babies at birth; she knew it was actually Lionel's son and refused to have a Lockridge raised a Capwell. (Note: the show started in 1984, so most of this was backstory that was eventually revealed.)

2. When CC went into a coma after his aneurysm burst (he and Gina were having a heated argument because he had caught her with Mason and was preparing to divorce her and cut her and Brandon out of his will; he collapsed before he could sign the papers), Eden was conflicted because CC had told her he didn't want to be kept alive by machines. Gina knew this and started gaslighting Eden with tapes that sounded like CC saying "Let me die" and spiking her drinks with a mood altering drug to make her appear erratic. On the night in question, Eden entered CC's room intending to pull the plug, but passed out with her hand on it. Gina, dressed as Eden, finished the job, then made sure someone (Mary) saw her leaving out the window; Kirk had found Eden and taken her away during all this, and she wound up marrying him because she thought she had done it and was too ashamed to face Cruz. The truth eventually came out, but Gina wasn't prosecuted because by that time she had saved Eden's life from Kirk twice. Santana had a fit and started shrieking that it was unfair that EDEN was getting her way. Quelle surprise.

3. 8-year-old Eden had hid out on the yacht back in 1969 and saw Lionel and Sophia arguing; the memory of realizing her mother had been unfaithful caused her to have split personalities, which erupted in 1991. The last one was her dead brother Channing, under which she shot Sophia as revenge, then fled town. Fans were incensed that Eden was written off (Marcy Walker had gotten a prime time show, the short-lived Palace Guard) in such a shitty manner.

I think TIIC at GH did give us one pseudo Julia/Mason scene, where Cameron has custody of Kristina and for some inexplicably confusing reason, must live with Alexis in her apartment. Zander is with Alexis when Cameron comes by with Kristina and her new "favourite" toy: Barnyard Baby, which drives Alexis up the wall. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen - especially Zander blowing a raspberry on BabyK tummy as he leaves. Awwww. What could have been.

Anyway, here's a few sites with more SB and LD-related stuff:

www.starringlanedavies.com
lane-davies.com

Enjoy!

I just posted this on the TFGH thread, but it's equally relevant here:

Santa Barbara was my first soap opera. I’d get home from first grade in time to watch the end of AW and all of SB. I remember when I was about 3 or 4, my mom watched it and I had really no interest in it. But I liked Eden and I thought her name was Santa Barbara. The first storyline I remember is Sonny Sprocket about to marry Gina and getting shot and going to heaven. I loved Mason and Julia the best and Mason reading the grocery list at the wedding is my first thought whenever I think of SB. I also loved the Robert Barr/ Quinn Armitage storyline. Roscoe Borne is the first person I ever fell in love with.

Last Dodo, damn you're good! And starrynight, thanks for the links to the videos. The last time I saw "Eden's rape" was when I was 10, and looking back, it really glamorized rape! It was just another opportunity to have beautiful Eden play the damsel in distress. I'm not crazy about that, although SB is certainly not the only soap that has done it.

I would love to see Eden and Cruz's wedding again. I don't like big, frou-frou weddings at all, but even so, Eden had the most beautiful wedding dress ever.

Eden's rape was highly controversial, as it turned out her rapist was her ob/gyn, and that played into a lot of women's uneasiness towards their annual pelvic exam or some such thing...

Plus, it was also pretty graphic, and this in an industry in which rape is often presented in Gothic bodice-ripper she-says-no-but-means-yes fashion. Then afterwards for quite a while the audience knew that Zach the OB/GYN was Eden's rapist even as he was treating her throughout her pregnancy with Adriana! (This on the heels of Eden thinking that she might not ever be able to have children, and then undergoing risky surgery in order to restore her fertility.) The rapist even changed Eden's amnio results to make it look as though Cruz wasn't Adriana's bio-father.

I have to say, though...this SL cemented my Cruz love for all time. He was furious when it was appropriate, he was caring and sensitive when it was appropriate...and he was smart. He didn't trust the amnio results, and he thwarted Rape-Boy's plans to change Adriana's final paternity test results by going to the lab and picking up the results himself. I still remember that scene (paraphrased):
Zach: How could you let him leave with those results? He's not a doctor!
Lab Tech: I don't know about you, but when a police officer tells me to do something, I DO IT!

Fortunately, Zach didn't deliver the baby; Cruz did that. In a cave. Of course.

Oh, I also loved CC and Sophia. And Kelly and Jeffrey; having Kelly miscarry their baby and then fall into the arms of Mullet-Boy TJ (or whatever his name was) was just horrible. But Jeffrey and Mason were Niles and Frasier Crane v1.0; I always think of Niles and Frasier as the copies.

Mason was prettier than Frasier and had far more respect for the ladies.

1984 opening credits

1984 closing credits

Credits set to French dubbing of "In My Arms Again"

Ending credits. Must be late-'80s, the EP is JFP and not MEB.

Light muzak opening

Final episode credits...with subtitles in Serbo-Croat?

Second-half of mid-break bumper

Five English videos: Eden's rape.

I read through the thread and couldn't find a mention of this, but in the first credits, Jade Perkins is played by "Melissa Brennan." That's the maiden name of Melissa Reeves (Jennifer on DAYS), right?

Yep. IIRC, she went straight from SB to Days.

Dude, Starrynight! Get out of my head. Seriously. I was a GH watcher as a child, but as a teen I got sucked into DAYS, then AW, then SB. I only watched SB for the last year, so I missed the glory days.

I adored Jack Wagner and Sydney Penny. Despite the huge age difference, they sold the pairing. Remember Stephen Nichols as BJ's therapist? And B.J's creepy uncle molestin' Frank was on GH ( I think) and OLTL right?

I remember thinking BJ's brother was damn bore as were her parents. Thaoo Penghliis (sp?) from DAYS was annoying on there as well, and I can't even remember who he played. I liked Kelly and the FBI agent guy who sang her an Elvis song, I hated Kelly with Cruz. And I liked Ted and Lilly, although all I remember about them is that Ted was a Capwell??? and Lilly was Gina's daughter and I don't know why, but they were married and not sure about being married. I adored Mason and Julia, even though I probably only saw LD's Lane once or twice when I used to watch with a friend sometimes after school.

Poor LD and NLG.

I didn't so much hate those two together, although it was a little squicky, as I hated the show in general then. It was like a whole different show than what I remember watching on rainy days (which around here? Is often) with my mom. And there was a focus on those two. Ai.

NLG is quite possibly my favorite soap actress of all time. I remember how excited I was when she joined GH. And now...I'd be so excited for her if she found something better.

I loved SB too, and I'm so glad someone on this board opened up a thread on it!

This is one soap we should have been able to discuss like this back in the day.

First of all, for those of you who wondered about that gorgeous song they always used to play during Michael (Frank Runyeon of the sexy chest!) and Laura's (Christopher Norris) love scenes during the Leo Mitchell Storyline it is called "Somewhere" and a cover of it is available on the Rick Springfield/Sahara Snow Album which is out-of-print but is fairly available on e-bay and other online sellers. The version they used on the show was by a Pre-Enya Irish vocalist named Aeone and I recently let both her and the guy who wrote the song know that there are many of us who would like to see it on her next album. I post this because it took me years to find out the name of it and I don't want anyone else to have to wonder.

Speaking of soundtracks, if ever a soap needed a soundtrack and score album it's Santa Barbara, the show just oozed romance...

Moving along...

Who could forget...

CC & Sophia, Eden & Cruz, Mason & Julia, Kelly & Jeffrey?

The romance of Kelly and Jeffrey on the run, and by the way, only Robin Wright-Penn counts as Kelly, the other actresses were glorified temps!

The super sexy chest of stable-man Jake?

The brutality and frightening realism of Hayley and Eden's rapes?

How about Cruz and Eden's cool-ass beach-house and the waay cool Capwell mansion?

The drama each time Eden was presumed dead?

That crazy-ass bitch Elena Nikolas who tried to kill her and that Hippy who healed her but then went crazy when she went back to Cruz?

That loony-toons psychic Sandra who slept with Cruz's ne'er do well brother Ric and then tapped into Cruz & Eden's scorching passion?

Man, there's so much to remember.

Sherilyn Wolter as Elena just scared the hell out of me. You knew she was capable of messing you up. Does anyone remember the love scene between Ric and Miranda, where right before they had sex he tied her hands up, that was pretty kinky for daytime.

Where was SB taped? I want to say Los Angeles. It wouldn't make much sense for it to be New York.

I found a website with scattered synopses. I'm assuming these would be the Eden rape episodes:

Yes it was taped in LA. That was a rape episode, and I remember them putting a warning for viewers before those shows aired.

SB Episode Summaries

The "conclusion."

These episodes would be from approximately November 1988.

I'd always wondered if they'd brought up the morning-after pill possibility; that was at a time in which not too many laypeople knew about the option. It does make sense that Eden would refuse them; she had gone to great lengths to get pregnant after two miscarriages and was actively trying to conceive. I could see her not being willing to terminate any pregnancy, even one that might be caused by a rapist, out of fear that she'd never be able to get pregnant again.

I had a tape of Cruz and Eden finding out about Adriana's paternity at one point, but that's long since withered away. I wish I could buy episodes...or watch them on my (brand spankin' new!) Soapnet. Anyone up for starting a "Santa Barbara on Soapnet" campaign?

What pill did the rapist give her on the beach?

That question bothered me for years and now it's on my mind again?

Was it a Date Rape type pill or something else?

I don't think I ever saw so disturbing a depiction of a rape before -- or since -- that episode of SB.

They actually had someone else hired to act out the rape scenes because Leigh McClosky apparently did NOT feel comfortable going through it.

The story actually was pretty believable, I've heard of two incidents where women were raped by their gynocologists.

One correction, Zack tried to change the sonogram/amnio/paternity test results but the lab tech refused to hand them over and as a result Cruz and Eden learned that in fact Adriana was Cruz's.

...

That was the shits. The show had gone to hell by then. Didn't she have another alter Susannah? or something like that. Whose identity she assumed when she was presumed dead?

What was that priest's name that Julia had an affair with? I couldn't stand him. Getting in the was of Mason/Julia. Unacceptable! Loved Lionel and Augusta too.

I never liked Jeffrey either, although I did like RWP's Kelly and Eden, with their long, flowing locks. I remember Cruz/Eden and Mason/Julia having the most elaborate, beautiful weddings.

Which wedding was it that Keith/Gina tried to crash and ended up rolling around having a mudfight? They were so cool.

I know they are because Star World aired them in Hong Kong, and many other networks in other countries aired them as well.

I'd assume either the Dobsons or New World Television owns the rights. New World has been good about putting their other shows out on VHS/DVD and syndication, so there might be hope for SB.

All the info about lobbying Soapnet to get SB back is on Lane Davies' site. Apparently Fox owns SB, so people are trying to get Fox to air it:

The best soap opera of all time. Frankly, I can't watch soaps anymore; they all pale in comparison to the glory days of SB.



I think it was a sedative of some sort. Heather asked Eden at the clinic if it "made her drowsey" and Eden replied affirmatively. I guess it was just so the rapist could make a clean getaway while his victim was woozey at worst or knocked out at best.

That happened with the paternity test after Adriana was born. We found out about Adriana's true paternity in the adorable "She dances just like her Ma"/"Let's get one thing straight: no one is going to call me Ma" scene. But Eden had a separate test done before Adriana was born, via amnio, and Zack managed to change that test to indicate that Cruz wasn't the father. Cruz didn't buy it. Because Cruz, at least in his glory years, wasn't stupid.
Though I still think Cruz's finest moment was the time he and Eden were tied up together by Kirk Lee, sitting back to back in two chairs, surrounded by gasoline/kerosene, with a board balanced on both of their heads with a lit candle on top of it...and Cruz managed to loosen his bonds and, with Eden's cooperation, lift the board up without spilling the candle. I still remember the "I'm about to open a can of whoop-ass" evil grin Cruz had on his face when he did that. Ah, good times.

They might not be on tape. TV series were shooting episodes on film well into the 90s, and there's no point in destroying film because they can't tape over it, but it degrades over time.

First, Eden was jewel thief Lisa. Lisa-Eden fell off a cliff and was presumed dead. Now, in reality, underwater she changed into a long frizzy auburn wig, put on a pair of granny glasses, and emerged as artist Suzanne Collier, and NO ONE KNEW IT WAS HER. (I only WISH I was making this shit up.) Sophia eventually caught on, which is when Eden took off the wig, slicked her hair back, put on a tux, and became a Madonna-as-Dita impersonator--er, Channing, shot Sophia, and fled town. Sometime around then, the REAL Suzanne Collier, who was an old friend of Eden's (but whom the family had never met) came to town, and wore a long frizzy wig until they got far enough into the storyline to where Terri Garber could use her own short hair. Real Suzanne got involved with Cruz (and I actually didn't mind them, if he HAD to be with somebody) until someone had the bright idea to pair him up with Eileen Davidson-Kelly. (Whom I LOATHED as Kelly, although I later loved her as Kristen, Susan, et al. But I saw no need to jettison Carrington Garland for her.) Shortly thereafter, Kim Zimmer and entourage came on, and the handbasket officially made its final pitstop in hell.

The other screwy thing was that they'd already had a Lisa--Lisa DiNapoli, Celeste's sister, played by Tawny Kitaen and Tea Leoni two years before, and then the next year, Lisa Fenimore came on played by Bridgette Wilson. So that's three different Lisas in three years. Someone must have reeeeeeeeally liked the name.


That was Michael. I didn't like him with Julia, but I liked him afterward. I always thought he and Celeste should have gotten together.


I forget which one exactly, but it was either Cruz/Eden, Kelly/Jeffrey, or CC/Sophia.

You know who else I liked, come to think of it? In 1986 there were the Capwell cousins from Boston, Courtney (Julia Campbell, aka Christy Masters Christensen from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion) and Madeline (Terry Davis). Madeline was a RIOT; unfortunately she got killed a few weeks after she showed up; eventually it came out that Courtney killed her in self-defense. But I liked Courtney and Pearl together, although he eventually became interested in Kelly instead.

Another rape storyline (there were an alarmingly disproportionate number in retrospect) was when Christie Duvall (Tricia Cast) got raped in 1985 by her stepbrother Steve. He made her accuse Ted Capwell, and to top it off was the prosecuting ADA at the trial so she was constantly under his surveillance. THAT was some psychologically intense stuff.

Another klunker of a storyline from the same time: Amy Perkins going to the gynecologist for a routine checkup and winding up impregnated with the sperm of the prince of New Stailand, culminating in two Jack Lees running around a European castle having sword fights. Oy.

I stopped watching around then I think. They really never resolved Eden's story after that? Did they mention her at all? That is one of the worst exits ever for such a beloved character.

Thanks for mentioning Courtney, TLD. I always liked her, and loved Pearl with her. I'd forgotten about Madeline, too.

It's funny how actors who had short-term roles on this show went on to bigger and better roles, like Tricia Cast. Is she still on Y&R? Or wasn't she, at least, for a long time?

I thought it was Cruz/Eden's Gone with the Wind seaside wedding. Wasn't that when Gina wore the brightly colored dress (all the legitimate female guests were in pastels) and G/K got into a carriage, but some ghosts messed up their plans?