Playin' Barbies

Cast of "The Howktown Dollies"

I heard recently that "As the World Turns" is going off the air after over 60 years of soap opera sudsiness. Normally, I wouldn't care too much because I'm not really a soap opera watcher.  I don't set my TiVo, VCR, or rearrange my schedule to keep up with "The Story" as my grandmother used to call them....

but that's just it. My grandmother used to watch the same story that my Mom watches, and frankly, I watched all growing up.  I've been watching As the World Turns since I was an infant, and my mother since she was 8 years old with her mother.

I can walk into my mother's house when she watching ATWT and reasonably understand the story line. It's not too hard, they don't change much. The actors playing the characters change more than the story lines.

My mother said ATWT was her family when she and my dad were overseas or far away from home in the military housing. She knows all the kids and grandkids of the characters and all the illnesses the actors have struggled with.

I honestly can't say that I'll miss the story when the show is off the air... but I do think I feel like I'll notice something not quite right in the early afternoon. I'll feel like there is something I should be doing with my mother at this time. I'm sure we'll find something else to watch together. HGTV, Food Network, or you know... Y'n'R.*

While playing barbies with my niece, I realized that the soap opera is not completely dead in Howktown. In fact it's the same ol' story line.  We created our own Howktown Soap Opera, The Howktown Dollies, and boy, you would not believe what is happening there! Yikes!

Let me tell you. Rock and Roll Relationships never work out.

BREAKING NEWS FROM HOWKTOWN:::  NEW SERIES PREMIER::: THE HOWKTOWN DOLLIES:::  STARRING::: WESTERN BARBIE, JEM, JOEY MCINTYRE, GRANDMA DOLL, HAN SOLO, AND GUEST STARRING KEANU REEVES AND OTHER STOP BY DOLLIES, INCLUDING NEMO. STAY TUNED FOR OCCASIONAL EPISODES

*Young and the Restless for those who don't know.