As the World Turns

As the World Turns is a piece of Americana culture. Cast members like Helen Wagner, Bob Hastings, Eileen Fulton, Kathryn Hays, Colleen Zenk Pinter, Marie Masters, Elizabeth Hubbard, Larry Bryggman etc. have really helped make my days sometimes. The show was created Irna Phillips, the creator of daytime television. From her ideas, she created the world of Oakdale, Illinois. Helen Wagner should be given many honors besides a Lifetime Emmy Award. Next year, she will be celebrating 50 years of playing the same character on daytime television. Where are the accolades that go with such an achievement? She deserves a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and even to be an honoree at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center Honors. Don't stop there! She should be inducted into the television hall of fame for her contributions to television. I think CBS is the best, most supportive network of the three. While Guiding Light needs ever viewer, this year will determine both Guiding Light and As The World Turns future. If you want to know where Desperate Housewives' ideas came from, this is the place and it has been there for most of our lives. I just wish more people would appreciate the fine quality of work that these cast of brilliant actors do for daytime. I would like to see prime time players do the hectic schedules of any daytime player. It goes unappreciated. The story lines have not been the same since Douglas Marland's death but his legacy is his creative contributions to the show like the Snyder family. I will never forget the Angel incest storyline as the most shocking entertaining informing and brilliant portrayal ever anywhere else. Marland weaved stories like his predecessors Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, etc. He is sorely missed even now. I hope As the World Turns and Guiding Light live on television forever so please give daytime a try. You might like it better than prime time, I usually do and I have watched it for 20 years.

The number of nominations this soap opera received at the 2001 Daytime Emmy Awards is just one indicator of how excellent this show has been lately. The writing has been especially good, and the acting seems much better than most daytime fare. Of particular interest is the dual roles of long-estranged twin sisters Lily/Rose played to perfection by the talented Martha Byrne. Her scenes opposite herself are brilliant.

This soap opera's best feature, though, is the pace at which story lines move along. There is no spoon-feeding the audience. You have to watch consistently to get involved in the plots: there are no recaps of the past month's twists. Conversely, there have been incredible flashbacks and memories using real original footage from as far back as the series first season (1956). This really adds a warm sense of continuity for characters like Nancy Hughes, played since the beginning by Helen Wagner.

I am an aspiring soap writer, and I have watched most of the shows on the air as research. Somewhere along the way, I discovered As The World Turns. When I first caught glimpses of it, Carly was just home from The Spa, found in a carnival fun house after Hal was brainwashed by James Stenbeck. Emily was being kept in a trunk. Bonnie was a duchess. Molly's family was being threatened by an evil babysitter, eventually resulting in Jake's death and the near-death of Oakdale's neighbor, Bay City. It was sort of weird and awful at first, but I would tune in just to see the Oakdale hunks, especially Jack Snyder. Woof!

I can't remember when the tides really turned with this show. All I know for sure is, I discovered Ben Harris when Bonnie finally came home. Not only Grade A prime soap beef, but he and Jessica were electric on the screen. These were clearly two people who deserved much more screen time, and eventually got it. Margo, a staple character for years according to the ATWT scrapbook, got to be on the front burner for a week or two when she discovered she had hepatitis, contracted during a rape she was now being forced to relive. It would take a while, but eventually she moved back to the front burner again as well. In short, this show has an incredible pool of talented actors, and the writing team, receiving back to back Emmys for their work, have a knack for utilizing the vast talents of their cast.

It's not always perfect. The Oakdale 3 were awful. But from that terrible plot we eventually got a (somewhat) reformed Allison, who is now one of my favorite characters on the show. And, as with most shows, an emergency rewrite for a departing or pregnant actor can yield some substandard plots. Of course, I blame a lot of that on the soap fans, who can be pretty unwelcoming of temporary recasts (and that means you especially, Passions fans!) But As The World Turns is honestly the best soap on TV, and that includes the primetime dramas, and reality shows which are nothing more than soaps with real people for characters. I would love to see another attempt at Our Private World, a primetime spin-off featuring the amazing Eileen Fulton, following Lisa Hughes as she moved from Oakdale to Chicago. Imagine a revamped Another World, where Molly goes back to Bay City to fight for her daughters Bridget and Michelle. With enough shared writers, I'd watch both series faithfully. In the meantime, I will have to settle for the five hours a week of ATWT I have now and hope a few other writing teams can tune in and take a few notes.

This show, the first half-hour soap opera, had the classic soap opera setting - a suburb with two families who were good friends. Three and later four or five generations of these families were featured. The two families were the Hughes (middle-class) and the wealthier Lowell family. Chris and Nancy Hughes had a more secure marriage than did Jim and Claire Lowell. In fact, Chris's sister had an affair with Jim, who later divorced and was killed. The show was the first to offer the teen romance of Penny and Jeff. Penny's friend Ellen, after being rejected by Don Hughes, had an affair with a married, older doctor and bore an illegitimate son The Hughes family's storylines were more conventional and less plot driven, but those of the Lowell family were daring for their time. Penny and Jeff eloped, but the marriage was annulled. Later, they had a grand wedding to which the viewers were actually invited to attend at the end of the program. The show moved very slowly in the early days. The ratings were not the greatest, but eventually this show became the number one rated soap opera. 1960 proved to be a good year for the show. Don Hastings, Henderson Forsythe, Patricia Bruder, and Eileen Fulton all joined the show that year. Ms. Fulton, as Lisa, was the first great bad lady who was hated by the public. The role was originally intended to be a minor, short role, but the performances of Ms. Fulton insured that the audience would immediately notice the character. In 1965, the production company and network spun-off Lisa to a twice-a-week primetime soap opera called Our Private World. Irna Phillips, the show's creator and headwriter, left the show in the late 1960s. The show struggled creatively. Eventually Ms. Phillips returned, but the ratings had suffered. Ms. Phillips killed off a lot of the Lowell relatives during a short period of time. She was eventually fired from the show herself. Two other headwriting teams (Robert Sonderberg and Edith Sommer, Ralph Ellis and Eugenie Hunt) were able to keep the show interesting. (Others had failed.) But, later, a former actor from the show, Douglas Marland, became the headwriter on two occasions. By the time of his second term, the show had lost so many of the previous characters and had failed to add any new, interesting ones that the show seemed lost. Mr. Marland allowed the unthinkable to happen when the sister-in-law of the show's leading physician (Kim) who had once had an affair with the doctor, was allowed to marry him after the death of her sister. The show continued its downward slide while Mr. Marland and his successors wrote the show. Helen Wagner (Nancy), Don Hastings (Bob), and Eileen Fulton (Lisa) continue on the program today. And the show lights up whenever these performers are given occasionally good storylines or even scenes. But the show has continued to stray away from the core families - always a bad sign for a soap opera.

It is such a shame we don't get to see As the World Turns anymore. It was such a great show. It should never have been canceled! It ran for 54 years. It had great characters and great actors and actresses who portrayed them. The show has such an impressive history, it is legendary. It was never boring, so much happened and we got to see a lot of epic story lines. If you have never watched it, you really have missed something. I am only 21 and I've watched the show for 11 years, in the Netherlands. It will always be part of TV history and the show should never be forgotten. If you have the chance, watch some clips on Youtube. You won't be sorry. The world will always turn in my heart.