Friday Fun

Okay, to make up for no Fun last week, I've really raised the bar this week. I know ya'll are all a twitter with the possibilities...Is it more Sars? More FameTracker? More bizarrely addictive games? It is not.

Sci-Fi network has been airing the soap Passions from the beginning at 9. This coincides with exactly the time I get back from taking Charlotte to school. I've never been a soap watcher and it seems odd that people could or would watch these things for years on end. Mostly the entire hour is full of just the most amazing coincidences possible. I just watched an ENTIRE episode that was essentially people missing each other by going in and out of doors. It was like the Three Stooges. Not that I'm slamming on Passions, I'm actually enjoying it. So this got me to thinking about other soaps that have enjoyed serious longevity. I went to Wikipedia and looked up a few. I wanted to share a few story lines with you from Days of Our Lives which has gone way and above the call. I really advise you to go and read the entire history of these storylines because...well, you'll see:


From Days of Our Lives: (I have taken the liberty of highlighting the most interesting parts)

Tom Horton, Jr., presumed dead in Korea, came home with a disfigured face and a new identity. Unknowingly, his sister Marie fell in love with him.

Doug and Julie had a rough time getting together, as Doug had once married her mother Addie (at first he was only using her for her money, but then they fell in love, even though he still loved Julie).

Another addition to the show in the 1980s was the creation of two new families, the DiMera and the Kiriakis families, which along the lines of the Godfather movies took advantage of popular culture's lack of understanding the difference in the use of the word "family" to describe crime syndicates (as in the Mafia), and actual blood families

It was explained that Roman was recovered by Stefano after his fall from the cliff, given immediate medical attention, brainwashed into believing that he was one of Stefano's assassins, given extensive training in the martial arts, and had plastic surgery to give him a brand new face. Temporarily nicknamed "the Pawn", he was actually "auctioned off" by a DiMera henchman named Petrov during an adventure in Miami

In the end, everyone made it back to Salem save for Hope, who was "killed" by way of being dropped in a vat of acid in an exploding cage by Ernesto. It would later be revealed that Ernesto had traded Hope to the DiMera family and that a lookalike named Greta von Amberg was the victim instead. Hope would be brainwashed as a pawn of Stefano, who used her as a replacement for her evil doppleganger Gina von Amberg (Greta's mother), a princess who along with her mercenary lover John Black, stole valuable items for Stefano.

Laura was suspicious of Peter, so he had her office painted with toxic chemicals to send her around the bend.

Various plagues were visited upon Salem, and Marlena began to terrorize the town by desecrating Christian symbols and anything relating to Christmas. In an attempt to steal John's soul (who at this point still believed he was a priest), Marlena morphed into Kristen, at one point in order to seduce him, but what the devil soon realized was that John really wanted Marlena and then tried to take his soul away. In other demonic twists Marlena morphed into a leopard and was seen levitating several times.

Stefano's "People of the Night" found John guilty, but he was saved from having his head chopped off by his aunt Vivian

resulted in the sudden, surprise revelation that John Black, rather than just being a semi-amnesiac former mercenary, thief, and priest-turned-wealthy local businessman, was in fact Salem's resident ISA agent-in-place, and naturally his #1 assignment was to wage the ongoing battle against the DiMera clan (the exact timing of his employment by the spy agency was never revealed; it was just sprung on the audience out of the blue one day with a brief return by Shane Donovan).

Cassie (Alexis Thorpe) was stabbed to death and placed in a pinata on Thanksgiving

Marlena confronted Alice, who despite heavenly interventions by Abe, Maggie, Caroline, and Roman, was suffocated by one of her homemade donuts that had brought joy to the people of Salem since the beginning of the show.

Tony DiMera (Thaao Penghlis) was mauled by a tiger the killer let loose at a fundraiser where he had promised to reveal the Salem Stalker's identity

He had assembled a literal army of highly trained mercenaries and sought to conquer Iraq as part of his scheme for world domination.