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As the World Turns (ATWT) is the second longest-running American television soap opera. It airs on CBS.
Television pioneer Irna Phillips created the show in 1956. Viewers responded to the half-hour serial. As the World Turns was the most-watched daytime drama from 1958 until 1978, with ten million viewers tuning in each day.
The show transitioned from black-and-white to color in the mid-1960s, with the final black-and-white episode airing on February 17, 1967. The show moved from a half-hour in length to one hour starting on December 1, 1975.
The show has aired over 12,000 installments; the 10,000th episode aired on May 12, 1995.
One of Phillips's innovations was to introduce a sort of Greek chorus to the stories. The primary purpose of characters such as Nancy Hughes (played by Helen Wagner) was to comment on the crises faced and decisions made by the town's more dynamic residents. This technique contributed to the popularity of the show and continues to be widely used in other soap operas.
The key was that the show did not adapt well to radical change. Each new addition to the cast was done in a gradual manner, and was usually a key contact to one of the members of the Hughes family. As such, the show got a reputation as being quite conservative (though the show did showcase the first gay male character on American soap operas, in 1988).
As the World Turns debuted on Monday, April 2, 1956 at 1:30 in the afternoon. Before this show (and The Edge of Night, which premiered on the same day), all soaps were fifteen minutes in length; ATWT was the first half-hour serial. In the beginning, the story focused on the middle-class Hughes family in the small Midwestern burg of Oakdale. Lawyer Chris Hughes (Don MacLaughlin), a partner in a small law firm, was the patriarch of the family. His wife Nancy (Helen Wagner), while a very traditional housewife, was always the strong voice of reason in the household. Chris and Nancy had three children: Don, Penny, and Bob. A fourth child, Susan, was never seen as she died as a result of swimming during a thunderstorm before the series started.
As the show began, Chris and Nancy were debating whether they should have Chris's father, Will (Santos Ortega) live with them. Their daughter, Penny, was angry with Nancy over her decision to prohibit her going on a spring vacation trip with her best friend, Ellen Lowell. Penny had also always been jealous of her mother's relationship with the late Susan.
As the show moved into the 1960s, Penny (Rosemary Prinz) found love with Jeff Baker (Mark Rydell), but he died in a horrible accident early in the new decade. Don married Janice Turner Whipple, but Nancy was strongly opposed to the marriage so he was forced to move away to Texas. Bob (who, by this time, was being played by Don Hastings) fell in love with schemer Lisa Miller (Eileen Fulton). Bob had become a doctor, and Lisa had no desire to stay home, waiting for her husband, so she had an affair, despite recently giving birth to a son. Bob divorced her, and Lisa became a pariah, as dictated by most of the town (headed by Nancy Hughes). She left for a two year span (her son, Tom, stayed with the Hughes family), and came back to Oakdale in 1966. By this time, she was newly rich, and was suddenly interested in her ex-husband when he found new love with Sandra McGuire (Dagne Crane).
While Lisa was a vixen during her formative years in Oakdale, eventually everyone (including Nancy Hughes) forgave her for her past transgressions, and she has reformed into a very valuable member of society (she currently owns half the stake in a boutique, Fashions, with Barbara Ryan as well as a restaurant, The Mona Lisa, and a hotel, The Lakeview.)
Notable storylines during the 1970s revolved around the two Sullivan sisters; Jennifer (Gillian Spencer) and Kimberly (Kathryn Hays) came to town and shook up the moral fabric. When John first came to Oakdale in 1969, a rivalry began between him and Bob Hughes that lasted more than twenty years, and eventually blossomed a love triangle with Kim in the center. Ultimately, even though Kim had given birth to John's child, Andy, she chose Bob to be with in the end. However, Kim's pairing in the 1970s with Dan Stewart (John Colenback) was a favorite with many viewers.
More drama ensued from the trauma Jennifer's daughter Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk Pinter) endured by being married to criminal James Stenbeck (Anthony Herrera). After being widowed by Gunnar St. Clair (Benjamin Hendrickson). After a one-night stand with Darryl Crawford, Barbara was forced to admit that the baby that was conceived (Jennifer, named after her mother) was not Hal's, and he divorced her. In the 1990s, however, Barbara and Hal were to be married two more times.
From 1985 to 1993, the show was written by Douglas Marland, and is widely considered to be the revival of ATWT, after an experiment with new blood in the 1980s under the head-writership of Jean Rouverol, and later Bridget and Jerome Dobson. After many years of standoffs between the executive producer's office and the cast, Marland wrote the core Hughes family back into the storyline, bringing back original cast members Nancy and Chris, who left after a spat with the former executive producer, Mary-Ellis Bunim. Marland's back-to-basics writing, coupled with the integration of a new farm family, the Snyders, caused the show's ratings to go up to near where they had once stood in the 1970s. Many of the stories during this period revolved also revolved around Lucinda Walsh (Elizabeth Hubbard), a tough-as-nails businesswoman. Her daughters, Sierra (Finn Carter) and Lily (Martha Byrne) had as many problems as Lucinda did, and the drama that ensued took much precedence in the late 1980s.
| U.S. soap operas |
| Currently on the air: |
| All My Children |
| As the World Turns |
| The Bold and the Beautiful |
| Days of Our Lives |
| General Hospital |
| Guiding Light |
| One Life to Live |
| Passions |
| The Young and the Restless |
| Important cancelled soaps: |
| Port Charles (cancelled 2003) |
| Another World (1999) |
| The City (1997) |
| Loving (1995) |
| Santa Barbara (1993) |
| Ryan's Hope (1989) |
| Capitol (1987) |
| Search for Tomorrow (1986) |
| The Edge of Night (1984) |
| Love of Life (1980) |
| The Secret Storm (1974) |
| Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1973) |
| Dark Shadows (1971) |
Douglas Marland left a plot outline behind when he died, but it was largely thrown out the window. The new writers, Richard Backus and Juliet Law Packer, decided to wrap up many storylines and, as a result, failed to renew many actors' contracts (most notably key actress Lisa Brown, who had played Iva Snyder since 1985). His last outline, however, had called for the introduction of another blue collar family, the Kasnoffs and As the World Turns did incorporate this idea (although Marland's planned angle of the Kasnoffs having been abused as children was, for the most part, not explored).
In the mid-1990s, the remaining Snyders were written out (except for the matriarch, Emma, who stayed around as a sounding-board for new ingenue Rosanna's (Yvonne Perry) problems. Later, Emma's son Holden (Jon Hensley) would return, but the family never regained the prominence it had during the Marland years. Throughout the decade, new characters were introduced but for the most part left the show as soon as the writers who created them did.
After the cancellation of Another World, As the World Turns left its Manhattan studios and moved in to AW's former studios in Brooklyn. Former Another World executive producer Christopher Goutman became ATWT's executive producer at this time and former Another World writer Leah Laiman became As the World Turns' new head writer. Former Another World sets were also incorporated into As the World Turns, as well as characters from Another World. Many longtime ATWT fans were alienated by what seemed to be an effort to make As the World Turns into Another World. Although the ratings had peaked right after the introduction of the new characters, they had since been in a decline.
A controversial storyline decision occurred in November 1999, when core AW character Vicky Hudson (Jensen Buchanan) was killed in a plane crash. The producers had never intended for Buchanan's character to become a permanent fixture in Oakdale, but the violent nature of her character's death (she was pregnant with twins who were presumed dead along with her) caused many former AW fans who'd followed the character over to tune out. By the end of the year, the only former AW actor left on ATWT was Tom Eplin who was fired in 2002. Eplin would later admit that he'd known all along that he wouldn't last on ATWT since the writers failed to integrate his character into the Oakdale landscape (although fans did notice chemistry between Eplin and Elizabeth Hubbard.)
In 2000, Leah Laiman was replaced as head writer by Hogan Sheffer. Plots at this time became increasingly outlandish. Core character Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk-Pinter) had three of her worst enemies sent to a Swiss spa, where an evil doctor (played by soap veteran Larkin Malloy) caused their facial features to age 40 years; this storyline was brought on by the fact that three of the show's leading ladies were pregnant at the same time, and it was explained later that the spa storyline allowed the cameramen to sufficiently shoot around the pregnancies and not have to write them into the storyline.
Jessica Griffin (Tamara Tunie), previously a grounded, successful businesswoman, cheated on her husband Ben twice; once with fellow lawyer Marshall and then with ex-football player Doc Reese. In a controversial storyline, long-time character Craig Montgomery (Hunt Block) had his daughter Lucy kidnapped.
Sheffer has been accused by many (most vocally by five-decade vet Eileen Fulton) of neglecting the show's veteran characters, although some argue in his defense that many other shows are doing the same thing. Despite the complaints of long time fans, Hogan Sheffer has remained a critical darling and thus secures his job. In 2004, he started to include longtime actors such as Kathryn Hays, Don Hastings, and Helen Wagner back into the story, but it was largely seen as a temporary appeasement as they were not seen much after the first few months of story.
The show has only changed opening visuals from the original format four times: in 1981, 1993, 1999, and 2002, with a slight modification of the 2002 visuals redone in 2003.
As a testament to the show's unwillingness to change in the early years, the show had the same theme song (an organ tune which transitioned into a pre-recorded version in 1973) and opening visual (a globe spinning in the distance, with the globe moving toward the center to spin stationary) from 1956 to 1967. The visual was not markedly altered when the show transitioned to color in 1967. The changes to the color opening had the globe at the center of the screen and the title zoomed out from the middle of the globe. The organ version of the main theme (by Charles Paul) was used over the color visual until 1973. The color update of the black-and-white visual stayed until October 30, 1981.
On November 2, 1981, a theme song inspired, ostensibly, by science fiction soundtracks was first heard, with new computer-enhanced visuals. The globe had now been relegated to an O in the word WORLD, with three beams of light reflecting separate ways. The tune was modified in 1984 and again in 1988. The globe was on the center of the screen for the closing sequences.
On February 3, 1993, the theme song and opening visual was changed again. The theme song was composed by Barry DeVorzon, famous for composing the theme song of The Young and the Restless. This time the credits were done by computer specialist group Castle/Bryant/Johnsen. In the visuals, the letters of the title slowly passed by, with the seasons illustrated in picture form inside the letters themselves. When the visual finally got to the O in WORLD, a spinning globe fell into its place and the whole title was zoomed out of focus, to be seen by the audience.
The show changed its music and opening again on November 1, 1999. For the first time, cast shots (both solo and group) were seen, accompanied by music. At the end, the O in WORLD was shown to consist of different clips from the show's history, not unlike a process first seen in the movie The Truman Show.
A new sequence, featuring cast clips to a mellower music selection, debuted on July 8, 2002. The backdrop to complement the clips was colored in gold, and was changed to sky blue in November 2003. The music from 2002 remained intact.
The actors who have gotten their start on As the World Turns include:
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