Santa Barbara was an NBC soap opera about the Capwells, the Lockridges, the Andrades, the Perkinses, and—at least off-screen—the Dobsons. Husband and wife team Jerome and Bridget Dobson created the series after serving as head writers on As the World Turns, Guiding Light, and General Hospital, the latter of which was created by Bridget's parents, Frank and Doris Hursley.
Santa Barbara. Capítulo 01. El asesinato de Channing Jr.
Coincidentally, it was General Hospital, the most popular daytime soap opera at the time, that was competing with Santa Barbara when it premiered 40 years ago, on July 30, 1984.
“We wanted to take risks,” Bridget told the Los Angeles Times in 1988. “Otherwise, we knew the show would die in that time slot, as other soaps and game shows had done. So we created two competitive families, the Capwells and the Lockridges, who were psychologically complicated but also psychologically and emotionally valid. We took the core of our own inner souls and brought them to the screen, to multifaceted characters with multidimensional personalities. The humor made the show unique — every character has a sense of humor.”
Also unique was Santa Barbara's pace — "Our stories often begin and end on the same day," executive producer Jill Farren Phelps told the Times — and its aesthetic, with contemporary music and warm lighting adding to the Southern California vibe.
