Production
Santa Barbara began on an uneven foot, with one reviewer deeming the series "the worst program on television... maybe ever." However, creators and executive producers Bridget and Jerome Dobson tightened the show's cast among a handful of popular characters and proceeded to kill off or write out weaker links and supporting characters via a natural disaster and a serial killer storyline. When a major earthquake hit Santa Barbara, core character, Danny Andrade, slept through the entire thing. Minx Lockridge was unfazed, saying that the 1984 Santa Barbara earthquake was nothing like 1925. She was later locked into an empty sarcophagus. Luckily, her grandchildren were around to let her out and she escaped with merely a bruised ego.
| “ | We think of having succeeded since we are today the only soap whose ratings increase unceasingly. The others stagnate or lose televiewers. We just have now to gain the head of the group. We have to reach this objective in seven years. However, our first purpose remains to tell attractive stories with rich characters to give pleasure to our public. The only way to get it : to still work harder by saving this marvellous team spirit which already saved us. | ” |
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—Bridget and Jerome Dobson |
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By concentrating on such popular characters as Eden Capwell and Cruz Castillo, C.C. Capwell and his wife Sophia, Mason Capwell and Julia Wainwright, Gina Blake Lockridge, Augusta Wainwright, and Lionel Lockridge, the program managed to achieve critical acclaim as well as slowly but surely rising ratings. The show was famous for its comedic style and offbeat writing. For example, in July 14, 1986's episode, former nun, Mary Duvall McCormick (Harley Jane Kozak), was killed by having a giant neon letter "C" (for "Capwell" atop the Capwell Hotel) topple on top of her while she was standing on the hotel roof during an argument atop the hotel (this was later referenced in the American Dad! episode "Homeland Insecurity"), and despite an irate letter-writing campaign by the show's fans (and an offer from the soap to come back), Kozak was reported as saying that she had "no desire to return to SB", or in fact, any other daytime soap. Another example from 1989 involved Greg Hughes (Paul Johansson) having a dream while unconscious about Mason and Julia being aliens and being taken to "The Capwell Zone".
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