Why didn't they have many older characters as regulars in 90s

[j.laur5]

When I look at Neighbours and Home and away in 90s.

I feel the main difference is that there were so many more older regulars in Neighbours in the 90s than Home and Away in 90s.

in Home and away in the 90s the only older regulars were (Alf, Ailsa, Michael, Pippa, Donald and Irene).

For example in 1993 the older regulars were Alf, Ailsa, Michael, Pippa, Donald and Irene.

Neighbours older regulars in 1993 were Helen, Jim, Lou, Dorothy, Pam, Doug, Benito, Cathy, and Phil and later in year Cheryl.

I know H&A has at times had more older characters than Neighbours like in 2000 (Alf, Ailsa, Irene, Ken, Donald, Colleen, Natalie Joel, Rhys, Shelley and Judith) and 2011(Alf, Irene, Colleen, Elijah, John, Gina, Roo, Harvey, Sid and Marilyn).

Whereas in Neighbours in the 90s we had a great range of older characters. Females (Helen, Madge, Cheryl, Susan, Ruth ,Marlene, Dorothy, Pam, Angie, Faye, Brenda Cathy and Lyn)

Males- (Jim, Lou, Harold, Doug Benito, Phil, Karl and Joe.)

I know they were not all on the show at once but however they went through a lot more older characters in 90s than H&A.

Does anyone know why H&A didn't want more older regulars in 90s?.

[beau_t]

I guess quality is better than quantity. They may have only had a few older characters but they were well used and treated by the writers.

[Red Ranger 1]

Quite:The reason is that most of those Neighbours characters were only there a couple of years or so, while Alf, Ailsa and Don were there for the whole decade and Pippa, Michael and Irene were there for over half of it.(Well over half in Pippa's case.)

(Plus, Tom and Celia just about made it into the 90s and Joel, Natalie and Judith were introduced towards the end of the decade.)

[sindikatas]

This is tricky situation. When I see someone complaining that H&A has become a teen show I want to say, that it was like that in the best era (90s), but probably because older characters were treated very well in the 90s that's why you couldn't say that it was a teen show.

[alexx]

They also had guest adult characters during the 90's too such as Diana.

Re. teen show. I honestly don't think it was a teen show back in the 90's. It was a family show. The focus simply wasn't on the teens for the majority of the time, it was always evenly balanced. It may have had a youthful vibe, but if it was a teen show they wouldn't have bothered allocating so much screen time to the adult characters or bothered with their character development.

If you compare it to a real teen show from that period, Heartbreak High - you will see that the adults are always the secondary characters with a lot less character development or screen time. They are just there really to support the teen characters and even then weeks could go by without even seeing the parents and the teachers were always just supporting roles - especially after the first few series.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Again the Neighbours comparison, and this time when talking about older characters in the 1990s. And vice versa if this was about Neighbours. If ever Neighbours has a problem people say "Home And Away never does it" and vice versa. They have always been 2 different beasts, each living their own lives, like Corrie and EastEnders, 2 soaps always being compared the same as N and H&A.

I think there were plenty of older regulars in the 1990s. Don, Alf, Irene, Pippa, Ailsa etc. In 2014, Alf and Irene remain and we only really have Palmer and Marilyn as over 40 years old.

[j.laur5]

Roo is over 40!.

[Red Ranger 1]

Roo must be over 40 as well by now.

[jodlebirger]

Sometimes i get frustrated because people forget that the characters once were younger. Alf was only in his fourties when in the early years, and so was Morag, Ailsa and Don. Irene was in her thirties. So was Pippa.

As the matter of fact we have had more older characters from 2010 than we ever have had before. Alf is now in his sixties, Irene is late 50's or early 60's, John Palmer is about 53-54 (it was his 50's some years ago), Marilyn is in mid 40's, Roo is 43/44?

And we also had Sid and Harvey from 2010/11-13. In other words, a lot of characters over 40.

And a few in their thirties, Zac, Brax are over 30. And we have had several characters that was about 30; Natalie, Henri, Hannah??, and what about Andy?? Nate and more...

The problem is how they are portrayed, there is a huge difference in how they were portraying late 20's, 30's something back in the nineties comparing to how they are doing now. Just look at Hannah, Zach, Brax, Andy etc... Not exactly like average "settled" persons at that age. There are nearly no difference between how the teens are portrayed and how the adults between 25 and 35 are portrayed. And that is not natural. I think this is the reason why the show feels more teen orientated now than before. Because the teen group is not bigger than earlier. Even the over 40's group get "silly childish" storylines!

Writers, please portray the adults like adults!!! And write about problems like adults can have, and about things they normally are concerned about.

And why didn't they have more adults in the 90's?? Because they didn't need to. The few they had were portrayed like adults, and we felt the adult vibe in the show. They didn't need to have a lot of older characters just for the sake of it.

[Trudy Heine]

What about Leah, how old is she now?