okay today me and JT were looking at soap themes and we were watching the one for Strange Paradise, a 1969-1970 soap opera that was syndicated in the US and aired on CBC in Canada. I liked the opening so I looked it up. It is SO much like DS!! It's so freaky too. A website on it is at http://www.strangeparadise.net

Some similarities:
~The whole supernatural thing lol and the manion

~COSETTE Lee was an actress on it and was born the same year as Joan Bennett.

~Videos of it were made with 5 episodes per tape like the DS ones and were $19.95 like the DS ones were when they came out.

~Desmond was the guy's last name . . . during the 1840 storyline, John Karlen played Desmond Collins!

~The same company that published 32 DS books(Paperback Library or something like that) published 3 SP ones!

~It aired after DS on many local ABC affiliates in the USA.

~Robert Costello worked on this show. He was a former DS producer.

A summary of it:

"A Gothic soap opera that took place on a small Caribbean island, Strange Paradise featured the occult in the story of wealthy but cursed Jean Paul Desmond who resided in his castle Maljardin with his servants Raxl, a voodoo priestess, and Quito, a mute strongman. When the series began, he was mourning the deaths of his wife Erica and their unborn child. His desire to bring his wife back to life resulted in more tragedy. Eventually Maljardin burned down and the action moved to Desmond Hall, the family home in Canada, and many new characters were introduced."

Now I really want to see it LOL.

WoW I want to see it too................

I want to see it to! That is way too coincidential! And there's more! The main character grew up in DESMONDTON! Just like there's a COLLINSPORT, there's a DESMONDTON! FREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAKY!

The first episode is available to download from The World of Soap Themes (http://www.wost.org), which is a great site which has 2 - 4 episodes of soaps at a time...right now the other episodes they have are of One Life to Live (1988?), Search for Tomorrow (1951), and As the World Turns (1991?).

I think it's decent...not as good as Dark Shadows, but not bad. Thus far I've watched 4/5ths of it. The first 65 episodes took place on an island, and the remainder of the episodes took place in a town called Desmondton. The Desmondton episodes are supposed to be better. *shrugs*

Also, Joe Caldwell & Ron Sproat, who were both writers for DS, also wrote for SP.

Sean, the fact that the performers were born the same year and the show using the same type of videotape were just coincidences.

Originally posted by ficlopri
Sean, the fact that the performers were born the same year and the show using the same type of videotape were just coincidences.

I realize that. However, I was just pointing those things out along with the other things because I thought it was interesting.