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Was H&A purely teenage or family soap in the 90s?.


j.laur5

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Many people say H&A in the 90s was purely a teenage soap. However I'm not sure if I would have called H&A purely teenager soap in 90s even though direction was heading to focus on teens more. 

I know a lot of characters like Floss/Nellie/Morag and even young adults like Martin and Lance were axed to give way for more focus on teens and Fiona Spence  actually decided  to leave by choice. Since they didn't replace Celia with another older female character it speaks volumes that show direction and focus was on teenagers.    

As characters who seemed to get most Centre storylines in 90s were teens and even younger adults like Nick/Matt/Donna/Roxy were all sidelined for most part. 

But then older characters definitely had their moments to shine with Pippa with her baby, Dale's cot death, Irene's character development and Alisa mental break down in 1995 and seeing Bobby ghost and Donald unlikely marriage to Marilyn etc. 

But I would say H&A was more of a family soap in 80s as focus was mainly on Fletcher's and Stewarts as nearly every  original character was either connected to Fletcher's or Stewarts.

Whereas in the 90s it was teenagers that was given lot of Centre stage stuff but fostering aspect was still there.

H&A in modern times is certainly not purely teenagers soap although teenagers still get mostly limelight still and even thought we don't have any high school characters on show at moment .   

 

Thoughts?. 

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  • John changed the title to Was H&A purely teenage or family soap in the 90s?.

Well, there did seem to be a period where the 18-30 age group was almost entirely unrepresented, in sharp contrast to these days: Nearly everyone was either a teenager or the parent figure of a teenager. The show didn't quite seem to know what to do with characters once they left school and quickly wrote them out (Sally of course being a notable exception). But at the same time, yes, family obviously played a big part in it, the parent figures weren't just noises off or rarely seen authority figures, they were a big part of the storylines.

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I recall, as being a teenager myself when home and away started, it was very popular with that age bracket of viewing audience.  My parents and other adults I new were just not really into it. 
i think it had a lot to do with the time slot it was screened, 530pm here (after neighbours which was at 5 or may have been the other way around?) a time slot traditionally when kids watched tellie after school.

also in those days we had no internet, phones or social media to occupy us, so TV was so much more popular for young people, and most people would sit down and religiously watch the same shows every day or week. So different to now when we can just watch catch-up episodes on technology when we feel like it.  Totally different world really when you think about it.

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On 21/02/2021 at 19:27, Red Ranger 1 said:

Well, there did seem to be a period where the 18-30 age group was almost entirely unrepresented, in sharp contrast to these days: Nearly everyone was either a teenager or the parent figure of a teenager. The show didn't quite seem to know what to do with characters once they left school and quickly wrote them out (Sally of course being a notable exception).

True - there are very few memorable or long-running characters in the 18-30 bracket from the 90s era. Travis, Rebecca, Jesse and Vinnie spring to mind. Travis and Rebecca were pushed into Summer Bay House after Pippa's exit though. Equally though, there were many as short-lived characters in the late 90s/early 2000s that didn't go the distance: Harry, Shauna, Jude, Charlotte, Kelly, James.  

I think it changed around the early 2000s though, with Leah staying forever, the introduction of "The Palace" (the home of the Noah/Hayley/Scott/Dani foursome) and Hayley and Dani making the successful transition from school student to young adult. That group were then replaced by the likes of Jack, Martha, Rachel, Dan and Amanda, who were then replaced with Charlie, Angelo and the Braxtons.

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H&A had a huge teen/young adult focus right from the moment Tom Fletcher got retrenched and left Sydney to move to Summer Bay. I say even in the first 2 years, the show was predominantly for younger people, then difference is they were mentored by older people such as Tom, Pippa, Ailsa, Alf, Floss, Don and Neville. When the show begun it had a huge younger character focus as it had Stevo, Frank, Carly, Bobby, Roo, Sally, Matt, Lynn (all youngsters), and Lance and Martin who were slightly older but still youngsters. Then Alison Patterson who was a semi regular. Brett and Stacey Macklin were young as well, as well as Gary Samuels.

H&A always was a younger persons show, ever since the start, but did cater more for older characters as well in the first 2 years.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm a bit young for that era, but from clips I've seen from the mid-90s, there were so many foster kids around.

If you look at the 1996 floods, you have Chloe and Selina living with Irene; Sally, Shannon, Jack, Liam and Sam living with Pippa and Michael (and possibly also grown-up Steven), and I think Curtis was still with Alf and Ailsa.  Then they had Christopher and Duncan around too.

Look at the 1997 cyclone, you have Joey added to Irene's household (with Chloe and Selina), then with Pippa, there was Sally, Justine, Tiegan, Sam (and Christopher), and Aaron with Alf and Ailsa.  And Casey somewhere too.

 

My first specific memories of watching Home and Away were from 2000-2001 when there was a larger 16-18 year old group but also a small group of 13/14 year old characters like Jade, Kirsty, Nick, Duncan and Seb.  Those five are the ones I remember from being a 6/7 year old rather than the likes of Hayley, Will, Gypsy, etc.  And at that time, you had the Sutherlands fostering Brodie, the Stewarts fostering Mitch, Irene fostering Will, Hayley and Nick, and Seb being looked after by Don as his grandfather.

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2 hours ago, homeandawayroxsomuch. said:

Look at the 1997 cyclone, you have Joey added to Irene's household (with Chloe and Selina), then with Pippa, there was Sally, Justine, Tiegan, Sam (and Christopher), and Aaron with Alf and Ailsa.  And Casey somewhere too.

Casey lived with Donald and Marilyn from memory

 

 

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