TV Tidbits books and site content © Michael Karol and/or Craig Hamrick

Since I was a toddler, I've always loved soap operas. Some of my clearest early memories aren't of events shared by my own family; they're of the Horton family Christmas traditions and the Coreys' weddings and funerals.

Watching The Days of Our Lives and Another World with my mother and grandmother, I learned more some great life lessons. (Is it any wonder, then, that whenever I hear that someone has died, my first reaction is to wonder if it's a hoax?)

I can remember sitting in the basement with my mom, watching a flickering black-and-white screen and seeing Rachel Corey in a glorious, flowing cape, spinning around to confront someone who'd just made a disparaging remark behind her. (Rachel -- played to perfection by Robin Strasser at the time -- was always spinning around and confronting someone.) And the sight of Julie Horton accidentally spying her longtime boyfriend, Doug, and her mother, Addie, picking out wedding rings is seared in my memory -- almost as distinctively as Addie's off-screen heroics several months later when she pushed her baby, Hope, out of the path of an oncoming car....

This is the section of TV Tidbits.com where my co-author Michael Karol and I pontificate about soaps past and present. Click below to read more. And tune in again soon; we'll be constantly updating the site.

Craig Hamrick (left) has written several books about the TV classic Dark Shadows as well as the biography of Louis Edmonds, star of DS and All My Children. Click here for more information about his books. ... ... Michael Karol has written four books about Lucille Ball, including Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia, plus The ABC Movie of the Week Companion. All are currently available on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and many other online and in-store sources. Visit here for more information.