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As the World Turns (ATWT) is the second longest-running American television soap opera (the first being Guiding Light), airing each weekday on CBS. It debuted on Monday, April 2 1956 at 1:30pm. 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.
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 expanded from a half-hour in length to one hour starting on December 1 1975. Also in 1975, it transitioned from being televised live to being taped in advance. (ATWT was among the last soaps to make this transition.) The show has aired over 12,900 installments; the 10,000th episode aired on May 12 1995. As the World Turns is notable for having been taped in New York City for all of its 51 years on television (43 years in Manhattan and 8 in Brooklyn).
PremiseImage:AstheWorldTurns1970s.jpg The cast of As the World Turns, on a TV Guide cover dated August 7 1971. Many long-time cast members are in this photograph: Eileen Fulton is in the second row, second from left; Helen Wagner is holding Don MacLaughlin's hand, second from left in the first row, and Larry Bryggman is second from right in the back row. As the World Turns was the creation of Irna Phillips who, beginning in the 1930s, had been one of the foremost creators and writers of radio soap operas. As a writer, Phillips favored character development and psychological realism over melodrama, and her previous creations (which included The Guiding Light) were especially notable for placing professionals - doctors, lawyers, and clergypeople - at the center of their storylines.
One of Phillips' 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. Phillips' style favored gradual evolution over radical change. Slow, conversational, and emotionally intense, the show moved at the pace of life itself - and sometimes even more slowly than that. 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). During the show's early decades, the content-related policies of its sponsor Procter & Gamble Productions may have contributed to the perception of conservatism. The soap manufacturing giant typically balked at storylines in which adultery and other immoral behavior would go unpunished, and as late as the 1980s characters from the primary families were still generally not allowed to go through with abortions. HistoryAs the World Turns premiered on April 2 1956. It was the first television daytime drama to ever premiere with a 30-minute running time; all daytime dramas until then had had 15-minute running times. By 1958, the program was the number one daytime drama in the United States. As the World Turns continues to run to this day on CBS, and has won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Drama Series four times (in 1987, 1991, 2001, and 2003.) History of As the World Turns series Title sequencesImage:Atwt61.jpg The original title design, first seen in black-and-white from 1956 to 1967. Image:Astheworldturns1981.jpg As the World Turns moved to color in 1967, and there was only a very slight update in titles, which lasted until 1981. Image:Astheworldturns1987.jpg This As the World Turns logo was seen from November 1981 until February 1993. Image:Astheworldturns93.jpg This As the World Turns logo was seen from February 1993 until October 1999. Image:Astheworldturns2000.jpg The "As the World Turns" logo that was seen from November 1999 through July 2002. The show has only changed opening title sequences 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 1981. The visual was not markedly altered when the show transitioned to color in 1967. The minor 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. The sponsor tags during the black and white and up to the 1981 title changes were hand drawn pictures of the product, or the name of the product superimposed over the globe. On a 1965 closing sequence, the sponsor tag was an actual photo card of the product. This may have been the practice used on credit days. On non-credit days, the superimposure was used. After the 1981 title change, the sponsor tags were actual photos of the products. This continues to this day. There have been occasions, where a sponsor was to be plugged, that it would not occur until after the title sequence. A CBS announcer would plug the product. EX: AS THE WORLD TURNS is brought to you by (product). On November 2 1981, a new synthesized theme song 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. In 1995, the closing credits ran over original scenes related to events in that day's episode (for example, if a character was seen in an episode, the credits might show them cleaning a room or playing a piano—things too "boring" to be in the episode itself.) By 1997, however, the credits simply rolled over scenes from that day's episode. The globe was used for closing credits from 1993 until they changed to beauty shots. For a brief period, the globe was used to promote the viewer feedback line. Then they would use the beauty shots for the credit crawl. 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. Internet fans complained that the sound effects in the theme song which accompanied these credits, which was written by David Nichtern and Kevin Bents, sounded too much like "toilet flushing noises." A new sequence, featuring cast clips to a mellower music selection (written by Jamie Lawrence and, again, David Nichtern), debuted on July 8 2002. The backdrop to complement the actor clips was colored in gold, and was changed to sky blue in November 2003. The music from 2002 remained intact. Several shorter versions of this intro are used from time to time, featuring different members of the cast in each. In September 2006, a temporary intro was introduced to mark the "Ice Storm" theme of the next few shows. To hear the opening theme, click here. History of show announcementsFrom the show's inception until October 1981, the show's announcer (and the most remembered of all of ATWT's announcers) was Dan McCullough. His voice-overs were utilized as follows:
Music sample:
In 1981, after 25 years with ATWT, McCullough retired from the program and was replaced by a much younger announcer, Dan Region. His announcements were as follows:
After the titles were changed again in 1999, for the first time in the series history (for the most part), ATWT had no official announcer or show announcements, however Martin Bookspan (who had taken over as announcer of Guiding Light) still had to announce the sponsor tags on days where the show was sponsored. CastCurrent cast members
Recurring cast members
Comings and Goings
Deceased cast members
Famous starsThe actors, musicians, and directors who have gotten their start or became better known because of their work on As the World Turns include:
See also: List of As the World Turns cast members Scheduling/Ratings historyAs The World Turns is best known for its virtually uninterrupted reign as the highest-rated soap from 1958 to 1978, twice tying for first place with NBC's Another World (1973-74 and 1977-78), which, like ATWT, was a P&G-packaged serial. By the mid-1960s, it was so firmly entrenched that its strongest competition, Let's Make a Deal, despite developing a devoted fan base in its own right and becoming one of daytime's most popular game shows, could not quite come close to matching it in the Nielsens. Its strength was such that ABC ran hourlong drama reruns in the 1-2 p.m. (Noon-1 Central) slot in the mid-1960s, and NBC, after losing Deal to ABC in 1968, ran a total of eight shows, all short-lived (excepting Three on a Match), against ATWT and Deal from that point until 1975. It was only in April 1975, when NBC, encouraged by the success of its expansion of AW to one hour, did the same to Days, moving its start time to coincide with ATWT. That marked the first erosion ever of the venerable soap's hold on the daytime crown, but CBS fought back later that year by electing to make ATWT its initial one-hour soap (these expansions incidentally occurring only seven years after the last two 15-minute serials, Search for Tomorrow and Guiding Light, assumed the half-hour format). To do so, however, CBS had to lose one serial, and it chose P&G's Edge of Night, which paralleled ATWT in that it premiered on the same day in 1956 and had, until recently, broadcast live daily from the CBS New York studios (except for taped location scenes). Edge lost a large portion of its audience when it changed to an earlier timeslot in 1972. P&G, however, wanted to continue Edge, and CBS' plan to expand ATWT in September was held up until P&G cut a deal with ABC, who picked the crime-and-mystery-themed soap up for its afternoon lineup. Within weeks of expanding in December, ABC was forced to relocate Deal to Noon/11, where it died six months later. However, the last half-hour of ATWT faced that network's successful $10,000 Pyramid (later $20,000) at 2/1, so the expansion did not totally succeed. Although the eventual hit game Family Feud ran against ATWT from July 12, 1976 until April 22, 1977, it did not become a smash hit for ABC until its move to the mornings. It was only when ABC made its first move to a one-hour soap with All My Children that trouble really began for ATWT (and also Days), since ABC kept that serial's starting time at 1/Noon, meaning that fans of that serial who tuned to NBC or CBS would miss out on the last half of that day's storyline (or, contrariwise, would not, if they watched until the mid-program commercial break and then changed channels, pick up the ATWT or Days activities from the episode's beginning, since ABC strategically placed its break several minutes after the bottom of the hour). Further, AMC's emphasis on youth-oriented, sexier storylines provided a sharp contrast to the domestic, almost quaint tone of ATWT (and, to a lesser degree, the melodramatic, somewhat topical Days). Worse still, on January 16, 1978, ABC ballooned its decade-old One Life to Live to the 2/1 starting time, compounding the other networks' headaches. Eventually, ATWT's audience defected enough to the point that during the 1978-79 season, it lost its ratings crown and even its position as CBS' highest-rated soap, with that honor going to sister serial Guiding Light. Nonetheless, the show still rated strongly, despite its problems, which were largely stylistic and capable of remedy by writing and cast adjustments, something that occurred fairly frequently through the mid-1980s. In March 1979, NBC decided to put Days head-to-head with AMC, perceiving it as the show to beat. About a year later, CBS countered this move by expanding the fast-growing The Young and the Restless and moving it to 1/Noon. This meant that, for the first time, ATWT would have a new starting time, 2/1, against AW and OLTL. This, however, did not help either ATWT or Y&R, and both shows returned to their former slots in June 1981, with affiliates receiving the option to run Y&R at 12:30/11:30 or Noon/11 and Search for Tomorrow spending its last days on CBS at 2:30/1:30. CBS decided, despite ABC's clear triumphs, to stand put with ATWT until March 1987, when it scrapped the five-year-old Capitol in favor of The Bold and the Beautiful. Believing that Bold would do better running in tandem with Y&R (especially on Eastern Time Zone affiliates), CBS scheduled it at 1:30/12:30, and finally settled ATWT at 2/1, where it has remained since that time. Although facing the full length of AW and OLTL once again, the Douglas Marland era of 1985-1993 saw a resurgence in ratings, and by 1991 it was back in its once habitual top-four placing. ATWT would survive NBC's cancellation of its sister AW in 1999 in favor of Passions, which is itself scheduled for cancellation in September 2007. The venerable soap celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006 looking ahead to a secure future, even though no longer dominant. This is largely because, although it has lost audiences steadily since the emergence of cable networks and other viewing alternatives since the mid-1990s, so have all the other daytime dramas. One example of the drastic change in daytime television can be found in the following: Daytime history: Highest rated week (November 16-November 20 1981) (Household ratings- Nielsen Media Research)
1995 ratings
ScheduleAs the World Turns broadcast history
As the World Turns crew
ATWT current crew Writing Team: Jean Passanante, Christopher Whitesell, Leah Laiman, Susan Dansby, Judith Donato, Elizabeth Page, Courtney Simon, Judy Tate, Lisa Connor, Anna Cascio, Richard Culliton, David A. Levinson Producing Team: Christopher Goutman, Carole Shure, Jennifer Schacor, Jennifer Maloney, Vivian Gundaker Directing Team: Michael Eilbaum, John O'Connell, Jennifer Pepperman, Maria Wagner, Habib Azar, Sonia Blangiardo, Christopher Goutman InturnIn 2006, CBS launched a reality TV show called Inturn on their broadband channel innertube, the winner of which would go on to receive a 13-week acting contract on As The World Turns. The eventual winner of Inturn was Alex Charak, an 18 year old "Student/Pizza Transportation Artist" from New York [1]. Charak made his debut as the character Elwood Hoffman on September 26 2006. A one-hour "best-of" show aired on CBS on November 24 2006. Awards WonWriter's Guild of America Awards
Daytime Emmy AwardsShowAs The World Turns has won 43 Daytime Emmys:
Individuals
Trivia
See alsoSee super (or semi) couples on As the World Turns
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