Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara remains the highlight not just of daytime TV, but of American television. Never before or since has such a plethora of extraordinary actors appeared on a series: Dame Judith Anderson, Robin Wright, Marcy Walker, A Martinez, Sydney Penny, Eric Close, Robin Mattson, Ally Walker, Kim Zimmer, Joseph Bottoms, John O' Hurley, Judith McConnell, Lane Davies, Harley Jane Kozak, Justin Deas. But besides the acting, Santa Barbara featured superlative writing and direction. Never before had there been a daytime comedy. Nor has there since. Totally unique in daytime history, SB was beyond brilliant.

What was it about "Santa Barbara" that managed to get dedicated non-Soapists like me hooked? Humour, in a word. SB is the only soap I'm aware of that had an all-the-way-thru' sense of humour about itself. I discovered this , as so many do, while surfing the channels. Up came an incident in SB when a lawyer character is seen in a coma. He fantasises himself into an all-white version of his lawyer's office (i.e. Heaven) where he is seen arriving bedecked in white from head to toe. His first stop is his secretary's desk. "She", also a vision in white, is not his real secretary but one of SB's male characters who is also a transvestite. He/she is seated at his/her desk, filing his/her nails AND--here is the piece of resistance that made SB irresistable to me--watching the opening credits of his/her favourite soap on the office TV. The favourite soap being--what else?--"Santa Barbara! A nice little touch of post-modernism there, I think.

Then there was the murder of the lounge singer by the local District Attorney and her husband.(A very Santa Barbara reversal of the usual plotline!) They hide the body in a freezer which provides a superb full- face picture of the corpse for the closing credits. The make-up artist has done a superb job, ice crystals mixing with mascara and blusher to achieve that all-over "dead" effect. AND, forgoing the Santa Barbara theme music, the episode ends with the dear departed lounge singer's own voice singing the highly appropriate "AM I BLUE?"!!!

From then on I was hooked. Humour and a wonderfully anarchic script that had characters trapped in dungeons at the beginning of an episode and attending a" black tie 'n' frocks party" at the end, are what made Santa Barbara a soap like no other. And I daresay we shall not see its like ever again.

Santa Barbara got me through a tough period in the late 1980s. For a while there it was the only thing i really looked forward to. Mason's rich sarcasm, Gina I's uncontrollable facial expressions, Gina II's bone structure, Eden's dreamy egotism, Kelly's bad luck, the coincidences, the overheard conversations, the misunderstandings that went on for weeks at a time, the laughter, the tears, the sorrow and the pity, the daily dose of hyperbole, hysteria and melodrama, the little bit of insanity in a sanitized world, that was Santa Barbara. It's been gone from our screens for years, in Australia at least, where i used to watch it. But it lives on in the backwaters of my mind, often resurfacing, at odd times, giving me solace in times of extreme absurdity. Thank you, Santa Barbara, I will never forget you.

Usually, I don't like soap operas, and I rarely watch them. But I was impressed by how enormously popular it was in Russia. It is a real cult there, and a big percentage of people watched it and talked about it. So, I watched it, too, when I was in Petersburg for some weeks, and I would say it was worth it. The stories are quite complex, and most of the various threads of the action are very interesting.

It is interesting how popular such a series can become abroad. In Russia, it is certainly much better-known than in the US. When I was in Russia, some liked it and others disliked it, but I don't think there is anyone who does not know it or has no opinion about it - which is just the more remarkable because the series is so sophisticated that watching several pieces is necessary for fully understanding it.

I love "Santa Barbara" and hated to see it got canceled. It was really the best soap ever. Actors like A Martinez, Marcy Walker, Robin Mattson and more managed to make me laugh in one scene and cry in the next. Characters and storylines were funny and well-written. It won three Emmys with a reason! No other soap can compare!!!