Agnes Nixon's new presence on the Internet stirs up memories and spawns new ideas

Courtesy - ABC

Agnes Nixon and her brilliant career in writing, acting and creating soap operas is now being showcased on the web at AgnesNixon.com. Nixon began her career working for Irna Phillips, the creator of more than a few serial dramas of her own. Working under Phillips,  Nixon wrote for As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light and Another World.   Nixon came into her own when she decided to leave Another World according to Wikipedia:

When she left Another World, she left the tutelage of Phillips (and the restrictions of sponsor Procter and Gamble) to create her own shows."

Upon leaving Another World, the rest is history.  Nixon took her passion and cutting edge ideas (she jumped through hoops to write about cervical cancer on Guiding Light) and went out on her own to create One Life to Live and All My Children.  The fact that she abandoned the restrictions of sponsor Procter and Gamble was a bold move on her part all those years ago.  It simply boggles the mind that Procter and Gamble's restrictions continue to play a role in the subjects that can or cannot be introduced on the daytime dramas they own so many years after Nixon took that chance on herself.

Hmmm--there is someone lurking around right now in the world of daytime who seems to be following in the footsteps of Agnes Nixon by taking her passion for good storytelling to a new level sans restrictions.  You all know who I mean.

Getting back to my original point here, many of you are avid readers of Mindschmootz (I often feature her work here) and we have been talking back and forth lately about the rich history connected to the world of soap operas.  Schmootz was the one to stumble across the Agnes Nixon site and when she alerted me to her find, it prompted us to refocus our efforts to take you on a journey back in time to the early days of this medium.  We want to remember when nurses wore uniforms, sensible white shoes and caps with gold pins proudly displayed on their starched white collars.  We want to take you back to simpler times when the problems of the world seemed as black and white as the cameras filming those broadcasts that chronicled your grandmother's stories. We want to explore the medium when there were no VCR's, no DVR's, no online recaps and no 'Tweets'.    

We have several ideas as a team and while we are still working out the logistics of this joint venture, we wanted to share the idea and collect comments from all of our readers to test the waters so to speak. We would like your thoughts on such a venture and hear about whether or not you would be interested in taking the journey with us.  Just think about how many dead characters we will all be able to reminisce about next Memorial Day weekend!

Schmootz will be writing about this venture at MindSchmootz  as well, and we will both keep you up to date on the progress we make.  In the meantime, do check AgnesNixon.com and stay tuned for more details.

Do share your thoughts and ideas here and let us know if you want us to explore sudser history back to the days when sound effects were critical to convey a sense of danger during this medium's launch in radio, and short ominous sounding chords vibrating through organ pipes were as critical to warn of impending disasters when the soaps transitioned to television.  We're talking techniques employed by 'rabbit ear' broadcasting when it was in its infancy. 

Thanks to all my readers in advance for your thoughts on this and thank you Agnes Nixon for One Life to Live, All My Childrren and the years of inspiration. I would have nothing to write about if it weren't for this incredible woman.