1907 replies to this topic

[Saffron]

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.

[TheCustomOfLife]

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

[Queen B]

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.

[starrynight5]

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.

[peacefuldyke]

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??

Edited by peacefuldyke, Feb 7, 2004 @ 1:28 PM.

[avocato]

. . .

Edited by avocato, Mar 30, 2007 @ 9:37 PM.

[Queen B]

Gina was a great villain. Who was her partner in crime?

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

[NicoleMN6]

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.

[spokesmolly]

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.

[Saffron]

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

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.

[TheCustomOfLife]

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.

[senso mccoy]

This soap had one of my favorite opening sequences EVER.

[ChickenGrrl]

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.

Edited by ChickenGrrl, Feb 7, 2004 @ 7:09 PM.

[Bach-us]

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…"

Edited by Bach-us, Feb 26, 2004 @ 12:19 PM.

[Queen B]

"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.

[TudorQueen]

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.

[StellStell]

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

[bluedevilblue]

Who had that great line a few months back in the TFGH thread - "How in the name of Santa Barbara do you screw up Nancy Lee Grahn and Lane Davies?"

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.

[The Last Dodo]

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:

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

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.

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.

Edited by The Last Dodo, Feb 8, 2004 @ 10:40 AM.

[starrynight5]

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!

Edited by starrynight5, Feb 10, 2004 @ 8:09 PM.

[emdroberts]

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.

[Saffron]

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.

[TudorQueen]

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...

[Marabet]

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.

[Bach-us]

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.

[TheCustomOfLife]

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?

Edited by TheCustomOfLife, Feb 8, 2004 @ 8:13 PM.

[avocato]

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