[Unidentified Female:] Tell me, Erica, how do you think your daughter would feel if she knew she was taking your sloppy seconds?
[Lemon:] All right. It is classic Erica Kane, the slap and then the sting of music, but this week real life drama unfolded on daytime TV when ABC said it was cancelling long-time favorites "All My Children" and "One Life to Live." The network is making time for some reality shows, and we're seeing a true swan song of soaps. That's the question. So to answer now, Tom O'Neil joins me from New York. He's an entertainer writer for the "Los Angeles Times." And, Tom, we know soap operas have been losing their viewers, but this was a big surprise, even to you, I'm sure. And what are we going to do without our Erica Kane?
[Tom O'neil, Former Senior Editor, Touch Weekly:] I know, never mind the princess over in Britain. The queen of daytime is stepping down. This is huge, Don. Let's put this in perspective, because we see fads and TV come and go like game shows, primetime TV come and go, but we're talking about an entire genre, dominant genre of TV dying, and the queen of that genre is now out of work or will be soon, Erica Kane. This is huge.
[Lemon:] It is huge. But, you know, I'm showing my age a little bit. I remember when Erica Kane was an ingenue and it was Katherine Chancellor on the "Young and the Restless" and "The Edge of Night" and "Another World." I mean, my grandmother would sit there and watch soap operas with her all the time. It's kind of hard to believe this is happening. But say, what brought down soap operas? What killed soap operas?
[O'neil:] O.J. Simpson.
[Lemon:] Really?
[O'neil:] It's really where it started, and this is fascinating. In 1969, that was the the height of soap operas. You had 19 of them on at one time in daytime. In the 1990s you were down to like nine or ten of them, but they were still getting great viewers. They were getting about 6 million to 7 million viewers per day. And then the O.J. Simpson trial took place and it dominated daytime TV. It was a real soap opera involving somebody we all know and love. So it was unbelievable. And that shift of viewership from the soaps to the O.J. Simpson trial at a time when there was alternate programming coming up on cable TV was the death of soaps. They went then from this 6 million to 7 million to 8 million viewers down to the 3 and 4 range. They have never recovered.
[Lemon:] You know what, I have never thought about that until now. I remember when the O.J. Simpson trial was going on, and I was working for Fox station in New York. We created programming and shows around that trial. We created a show called "O.J. Today," and took off all the daytime programming. So you're right about that. If "Luke and Laura" had happened during, you know, O.J. Simpson, we probably wouldn't even known about them. So what's going to happen to SOAPNet or the cable channel that focuses on soaps?
[O'neil:] That's gone. ABC has already abandoned it, after these two soaps, "One Life to Live" and "All My Children" are gone, which are both ABC soaps. The only franchise that ABC is going to have in this whole genre will be "General Hospital," and then you have to wonder how long can that hold down. We're down to four soaps, it's all now. We're down to "General Hospital," "Days of Our Lives," and "The Young and The Restless."
[Lemon:] If I can interrupt you, you don't think it will be like the game show channel, because it's fun to see the old game shows like "Tattletales" and all that, again. You know, match, or whatever it is.
[O'neil:] Oh, I know, I know. But ABC has already said they're getting rid of the soap network, which I can't believe either because it's free. I mean, this programming is already done and coming back, but apparently, the ratings are so bad it doesn't justify keeping it around.
[Lemon:] Yes. Give us the four remaining again before I let you go.
[O'neil:] Give the what?
[Lemon:] The four remaining soaps.
[O'neil:] Oh, the four remaining, "Young and The Restless," "Bold and the Beautiful, "Days of Our Lives" and "General Hospital."
[Lemon:] And that's it. The end of an era, we think. Tom O'Neil, thank you. All right, speaking of soap operas, there's a new development in the arrest of Oscar winner Nicolas Cage. Video from TMZ shows Cage Friday night before New Orleans police detained him. I want you to pay attention to the left. You see the left of the screen. That's Cage with his wife, Alice, visiting a tattoo parlor and arguing. TMZ is reporting that. That's before people saw Cage arguing with his wife on a French quarter street about where their house was. Police say he was so unruly that passer-bys alerted them and that's when they charged the 47-year-old actor with public drunkenness, disturbing the peace and domestic abuse, battery. The story of LaShaun Armstrong troubled many of us. He is a 10-year- old boy whose mother intentionally drove the family car into the Hudson River killing everyone in the car except him. LaShaun managed to get out and eventually flagged down a woman to help him. Now later he admitted several cars drove right past him, ignoring distress and our human behavior expert Dr. Wendy Walsh tackled the question of why no one stop to helped this boy.
[Wendy Walsh, Psychologist:] This is racism. And we don't know
[Lemon:] Really?
[Walsh:] I don't know how big this child was, but I happen to have a 12-year-old daughter who's multiracial, who's 5'8. So this child could have been perceived as a young black man at the side of the road. Oh, my gosh, a threat. I mean it's so disturbing. But I can only imagine if a 10-year-old white boy was standing there how many cars would have passed by. I'm sorry, but this really bothers me.
[Lemon:] That's Dr. Wendy Walsh. In Fort Lee, New Jersey, a gas station attendant went on a wild ride when a driver tried to make off with a free tank of gas. The attendant finished pumping and then clung to the car as the driver tried to speed off. The gas station worker was hospitalized in stable condition, we should tell you. The owner of the station blames higher gas prices for a recent rash of thefts. We've got a very special guest on CNN. Cookie Monster joins us. Sure, he's talking about cookies, but wait until you hear his financial advice. You have to see this.