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CBS Has Cancelled The Guiding Light After 72 Years


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CBS has cancelled The Guiding Light after 72 years on the air (radio, then television.) Sad to see it go (as it was wonderful during the Pam Long-era during the 1980s and early 1990s) but not surprised. The show has been on a creative decline since the early 1990s when the producers/writers killed off the tentpole character Maureen Bauer. The show barely captures 2 million viewers now.

Only seven daytime soaps remain -- three on CBS (The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns), three on ABC (All My Children, One Life To Live, General Hospital) and one on NBC (Days Of Our Lives). My suspicion is that the rest of the shows will go one-by-one in the next decade until none are left.

Farewell Reva Shayne -- I'll miss you!

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It wasn't one of my mother's favorites by the time I was growing up, and I didn't really follow it, but she listened to it on the radio when she was growing up and watched it intermittently, and she could recite decades worth of history of the Bauers. I never imagined that soaps, such as this venerable one, would ever end :(

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I've never heard the expression "tentpole character." What does it mean?

A tentpole character is a character around whom you can build a longterm audience, one who seizes the attention of the public. "Erica Kane" of All My Children was a tentpole character. In the movie "Soapdish," the actress played by Sally Field has that role in her fictional soap. I guess you could call "Luke and Laura" on General Hospital a tentpole couple. The term is used in other fields, too.

Times are changing, and it may be that the soap opera era is passing, slowly.

Sad news, miliosr. The Guiding Light was a great show back when, although All My Children was the only one I really watched for the longest period.

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The only one I ever got into was 'As the World Turns', when Lisa Hughes (Eileen Fulton) was still young. I suppose she may be still on it (definitely a 'tentpole character', though; never heard the term either.) Lost interest in soaps when it began to bother me that they never (as I recal anyway) made reference to outside events, so they're weirdly opaque, more Twilight Zone than 'Twilight Zone'. I just can't suspend disbelief to that degree, since they're daily. The first regular programming to come back after 9/11 suspended all regular programming for a few days was a soap, probably 'All my Children' or 'Days of Our lives', first I'd seen for decades and last I've seen as well--and it really felt weird then to look at these funeral-home colour decors and slightly drugged discussions or internecine family wars. Things like 'The Sopranos' did often make reference to world events, of course, although not too heavily. But I remember thinking Fulton was especially skilled at this kind of acting, and there was a brief nighttime version called 'Our Private World', or in any case it starred Ms. Fulton. Visiting relatives once, I saw some of Erika for a few days, but Ms. Lucci never captivated me that much. I believe really early on I liked some of 'The Edge of Night', because more murder than just 'sitting around talkin'. Also loved the opening with the Brahms of 'Secret Storm'....although this makes me remember Carol Burnett's hilarious 'As the Stomach Turns', especially when Nanette Fabray guested as a pill-popper, and Carol would just put the baby on the table by the door so she could go do important melodrama. Nanette absolutely great in this, and those were the days when comics couldn't keep from laughing at each other, and they'd leave that part in.

'Love of Life' and 'Search for Tomorrow' also long-gone, I believe.

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Thanks for the explanation of "tentpole character," dirac. When I was a schoolboy I used to come home and listen to the radio soaps "Stella Dallas," "Lorenzo Jones and his wife Belle," and "Mary Noble, Backstage Wife." After a while, I began to appreciate the comedy of Bob and Ray and their spoof, "Mary Backstage, Noble Wife."

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The Guiding Light was one of my Mom's soaps along with As The World Turns.

I remember my sister and I watching it along with her in the seventies and eighties. I had a crush on so many of those actors when I was younger!

I stopped watching it for quite a long time until I was home on extended bed rest before the birth of my daughter in 2000, then I got hooked again for a few years.

It's a big investment nowadays to give 1 hour of your day 5 days a week to a program. The internet is a big time waster (except for ballet talk of course :( ) which might have something to do with all daytime soaps declining ratings.

Okay, now I'm actually kind of bummed it's been canceled. So many of my memories of this show are wrapped together with memories of my Mom. Now they're both gone.

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Audience tastes are changing, and the daytime drama numbers have declined as women headed out into the workforce.

perky, you don't really have to watch a soap every single day (that's why the stories move so slowly - so you can miss a few days or even weeks and catch up relatively quickly).

"As the World Turns" has produced two major movie stars, Julianne Moore and Meg Ryan. Marisa Tomei and Parker Posey too, I think.

I've seen as well--and it really felt weird then to look at these funeral-home colour decors and slightly drugged discussions

It can seem at times as if everyone is underwater.

those were the days when comics couldn't keep from laughing at each other, and they'd leave that part in.

(Off topic. Countless sketches were ruined or damaged on on the Burnett show because the cast couldn't stop laughing (or were encouraged to break up, I began to suspect). I used to watch with my father and he'd say, "I hate it when they do that." )

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I now remember I did watch 'The Guiding Light' for a period in teenagehood. I think it was 15 minutes, and 'Search for Tomorrow' was 15 minutes, and they followed 'Love of Life', whose organ theme I learned to play on the piano, as I did that the 'As the World Turns' theme, which starts with A below Middle C and then goes up a D Major scale to D above High C. Stirring, oh yes...

Is that correct, about the 15-minute version back in the 60s?

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More details on the end of the show.

The move came after many years of steeply declining ratings for the hourlong soap, which is owned by Procter & Gamble and thus was a link to the earliest days of daytime serial dramas on radio. The shows were eventually called soap operas because soap companies sponsored them.

A spokeswoman for P.&G., Jeannie Tharrington, said the company would seek to place “Guiding Light” elsewhere. “We’re looking at all our options,” she said. “This show started as a 15-minute radio show, and then it was a half-hour television show, so it has adapted over the years.”

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Sad, but not unexpected. The pundits have been calling GL's demise for the last 15 years are so, based on the declining ratings and the expense of keeping the show going. Soaps have large casts and crews to manage and relatively high operating costs relative to the ratings. They've been going down one by one for the last 20 years.

I always have had a soft spot for GL, though. It was the only soap I ever watched with any regularity. My roommate in school was also a GL-watcher, and I remember meeting her for lunch one day some years later, and blurting out "Vanessa's in jail!" Her boyfriend who was in tow for the day, was aboslutely appalled. "You know someone in jail!?" :o

The one thing I do wonder about is the drying up of a fertile training ground for young talent. For decades, a lot of young (and not-so-young) talent have used soaps as a launching pad to fruitful careers, and the casting directors at GL and "As the World Turns" have been long been known as having particularly keen eyes for picking out talented actors and giving them a start.

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perky, you don't really have to watch a soap every single day (that's why the stories move so slowly - so you can miss a few days or even weeks and catch up relatively quickly).

I was on a bicycle trip in New Zealand in 1997, in which we'd arrive in a town in the late afternoon, shower, and hang in our rooms resting until reconvening before dinner. I started to watch the Australian soap "Home and Away", which was broadcast in the early evening. In about three days, I knew all of the characters and relationships.

Fast forward to 2002 when I first visited Australia, and while I had to figure out who a few characters were, it only took a day or two.

A year later, I took another bicycle trip to New Zealand, turned on the TV, and within 20 minutes had caught up. So you don't even have to watchs soaps every month to keep up with them.

That early evening timing was wonderful for soaps, especially with so few women home in the afternoons.

I'm fairly sure I saw "The Guiding Light" in Europe, and I think it was "The Young and the Restless" that was all the rage there.

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I remember watching as a teen. I think I was really captivated by the villain Roger Thorpe. Sherry Springfield, who later played Susan Lewis on ER, played Roger's daughter Blake. Roger was in a long-term love/hate relationship with Holly (Maureen Garrett).

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I remember watching as a teen. I think I was really captivated by the villain Roger Thorpe.

Michael Zaslow was fabulous as Roger.

Roger was in a long-term love/hate relationship with Holly

I'll say. Hi, canbelto, good to hear from you.

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I think I was really captivated by the villain Roger Thorpe.

He was a puppy compared to the grand patriarchs -- James Mitchell (Tyler Cortland, "All My Children"), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera, "Days of Our Lives"), Charles Keating (Carl Hutchins "Days of Our Lives"), John Aniston (Victor Kiriakis, "Days of Our Lives"), John Colicos (Mikkos Cassadine, "General Hospital) -- although he had it all over Edward Quartermaine, in my opinion.

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More details on the end of the show.
The move came after many years of steeply declining ratings for the hourlong soap, which is owned by Procter & Gamble and thus was a link to the earliest days of daytime serial dramas on radio. The shows were eventually called soap operas because soap companies sponsored them.

A spokeswoman for P.&G., Jeannie Tharrington, said the company would seek to place “Guiding Light” elsewhere. “We’re looking at all our options,” she said. “This show started as a 15-minute radio show, and then it was a half-hour television show, so it has adapted over the years.”

Now I think the two 15-minute soaps come back: It was 'Brighter Day', now nearly forgotten, and then 'Search for Tomorrow', which were back-to-back 15-minute shows. Then I think 'Brither Day' was cancelled as far back as the 60s, and 'Search for Tomorrow' became 30 minutes. Probably 'Guiding Light' was always 30. Zaslow I may have watched to see him, because he was always at Suzuki School here, had a daughter or son in the program, I had horrible job there in 1990. But I don't remember if I saw him in it.

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Guiding Light also had a great villainess in Alexandra Spaulding. I also enjoyed the blue-collar family the Coopers and their feud with the obnoxious Spauldings. Michael Zaslow unfortunately died of ALS and it was sad to see his slurred speech and restricted motor movements towards his last months on the show but he had great chemistry with Holly (Maureen Garrett).

I always preferred the more down to earth style of Guiding Light to Young and the Restless and Bold and the Beautiful, for whom slow-moving storylines would be an understatement. For instance, I can turn on B&B right now and I bet the storyline would be the same: Brooke and Stephanie hate each other, and Brooke is torn between Ridge and someone else. :o

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My favorite couple hands down has always been Quint and Nola.

She started out as Floyd's trashy, loose villain girlfriend and ended up an appealing, quirky heroine.

The beginning of the Quint/Nola romance was a homage/spoof of the Hitchcock movie Rebecca. I also remember those daydreams that Nola had with herself cast as various old-time movie heroines from movies such as Casablanca.

And yes Canbelto, Alexandra Spaulding was a great villian. She was so smooth she purred!

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James Mitchell (Tyler Cortland, "All My Children"),

I think the name of that memorable character was Palmer Cortlandt. One of the nice things about the soaps is that they give good opportunities to older performers as well as young ones, as sidwich pointed out.

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Yes, you're absolutely right -- it was 'Palmer'. I loved Mitchell as Michael in 'The Turning Point'.

One of my favorite older soap actor did not play a villain. He was Douglas Watson, who played Mac Corey on 'Another World' until he died of a heart attack while on vacation, and Romeo to Olivia de Havilland's Juliet at the Broadhurst Theatre, a production in which Balanchine choreographed a dance for the Capulet ball. (no 278 in the Balanchine Catalogue.)

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Among patriarchal soap villains, I also really like David Canary in the dual role of Adam/Stuart Chandler in All My Children, and Ben Masters as Julian Crane on "Passions."

How could I have forgotten Candy from Bonanza???

David Canary is wonderful both as the cunning Adam and the child-like Stuart.

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Similar to a few other BTers it seems, my mom loved this show when I was a small child. I remember her picking me up from day care and school, and she always had it on the radio. This was the era when Reva, Josh and Cassie were all important, and I think I remember a story line about cloning...deep stuff GL, haha (I have no idea if these characters have been in the soap recently).

I happened to see GL once this past summer, and I can completely understand why it has been cancelled. It looked like they were trying to do a new type of camera work (which only succeeded in making me dizzy). Also, I don't think I saw one character that I remembered from the past.

I'll have to tell my mom about this...I'm sure she still has a soft spot in her heart for GL, lol.

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Guiding Light's production model (which the show adopted in a last ditch attempt to cut costs and avoid cancellation) was very polarizing among the show's fans. The combination of hand-held cameras, high school theater production-level sets and location shoots in Peapack, NJ divided the fans -- some loved it as the direction soaps needed to go in if they wanted to survive and some hated it because they saw it as a betrayal of all that was special about the soap genre.

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