Oh yet another funky spin off. They are so many cooler things to write about than some desperate half thought out sitcom spin off that only lasts a couple of months. Nope this is a whole different breed of half thought out failed spin off that only lasted a couple of months: it was a primetime soap opera spun off of a daytime soap opera. CBS's As The World Turns is one of the longest running daytime soap around. It's been on forever! I think when God was making the world he took breaks to watch it every afternoon and it's still running today!

   Well, in 1965, CBS decided it wanted a piece of the primetime soap pie that ABC had mainly to itself with the huge hit soap Peyton Place. So they took As The World Turn's character of Lisa Hughes, who to this day is played by Eileen Fulton, and spun her ass off into her own primetime soap called Our Private World for the summer of 1965. I hate to say it, but with that title alone I could've told CBS they were screwed.

   Our Private World had Lisa moving from As The World Turn's town of Oakdale to Chicago where she found passion and intrigue working at a hospital and at the hands of the rich Eldredge family. But viewers didn't give a fart about Lisa passion and intrigue so at the end of the summer she went home. CBS kicked Our Private World's private ass off its public schedule, thereby affording the inhabitants much more privacy.

   Now normally that would be that. But in this case there is actually a little more to be said. The show was ignored and forgotten for a long, long time. But in the early 90's some soap writer on As The World Turns remembered the show and got the bright idea to actually DO something with it. Lisa's former flame John Eldredge popped back into As The World Turn's plot bringing the whole Eldredge clan with him. The Eldredge family proceeded to turn Lisa's private world into a private hell with a lengthy story. This is noteworthy because most soaps go from moment to moment and don't really care about their pasts. Hell, a lot of shows would rather the viewers forget their pasts so they won't have to deal with plot inconsistencies.

   "Hey, isn't that guy that Jade is marrying the guy who brutally raped her five years ago?"

   "Yep. Not only that, two years ago they said he was her brother and last year he was supposedly rendered permanently comatose."

   As The World Turns has the smarts to value its history and had the guts to dig over twenty years into its past to bring something new to its storyline. It's a cool move because viewers do remember the history and so instead of having them picking apart contradictory past events you get long time viewers going...

   "Holy crap! I remember that! I was, like five when that happened! I can't believe THEY remembered it let alone brought that story back!"

   Hey, I'm not a huge soap freak but it is undeniably a cool move.

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