What Happened on the Final Episode of ‘As the World Turns’?
As the World Turns made daytime history when it debuted on April 2, 1956 on CBS. Unlike all the dramas that had preceded it, ATWT didn’t begin as a radio serial — and it was also the first of two soaps to debut as a half-hour serial. (Edge of Night, which premiered on the same day, was the other.)
The series is still beloved and greatly missed by its loyal fan base — but can you remember how the show ended when it finally called it quits after 54 years?
In the Beginning
Created by Irna Phillips, ATWT told the stories of the Hughes, Stewart, and Lowell clans. The show was directed by Ted Corday, who’d go on to create Days of our Lives with Phillips.
ATWT was the soap that pretty much everyone watched. In its heyday, it held a 67 share – meaning for everyone 100 TV sets that were turned on when the show was airing, 67 (!) of them were watching the gang in Oakdale.
In the year-to-date ratings, ATWT was the most-watched daytime drama for 20 years, starting in 1958. Approximately 10 million viewers tuned in daily.
The first words on the show – “Good morning, dear” — were spoken by Helen Wagner, who played Nancy Hughes. Wagner would go on to appear on the series for almost its entire run.
As it developed, ATWT became known as the soap that delved deeper into familial drama. The show depicted divorce at a time when many families in America may not have known a real-life divorced couple.
The show is also known for creating one of soaps’ first major bitches – the willful Lisa Miller, played by legendary Eileen Fulton.
While today’s vixens commit a host of unsavory activities – murder, infidelity, corporate espionage – newlywed Lisa earned the wrath of viewers by taking household money given to her by her husband Dr. Bob Hughes (Don Hastings) to hire a maid to do the chores. While the maid was cleaning the Hughes home, Lisa went out to get spa treatments!
Lisa became so popular that the character was spun off into a night time serial that aired twice a week. Originally called The Woman Lisa, the short-lived series was later titled Our Private World. After it ended, Fulton brought Lisa back to Oakdale.
Viewers were also hooked on the lives and loves of young heroines Penny Hughes and Ellen Lowell. Penny and Jeff (Mark Rydell) became soaps’ first supercouple. Ellen had had an out of wedlock child, Dan (John Colenback), and married Dan’s adoptive father, Dr. David Stewart (Henderson Forsythe), which reunited mother and son.
Much of the show’s action took place at Memorial Hospital. In addition to Bob, Dan, and David, other doctors there included Dr. Susan Stewart (Marie Masters), and Dr. John Dixon (two-time Daytime Emmy-winner Larry Bryggman), and later, Dr. Casey Perretti (Bill Shanks).
The show had plenty of lawyers over the years, too, including Nancy’s husband Chris Hughes (original cast member Don McLaughlin), his son Donald (Conrad Fowkes), and grandson Tom (numerous actors including Richard Thomas, Justin Deas, Gregg Marx, and Scott Holmes). Other legal eagles were Grant Colman (James Douglas) and Jessica Griffin (Tamara Tunie).
Making history
ATWT didn’t just make soap history — it was a party of American history, too. On November 22, 1963, the Hughes clan was discussing plans for Thanksgiving when it was interrupted by CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite who reported on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
As the years rolled on, the show became a major cultural force. ATWT landed the cover of TV Guide Magazine on August 7, 1971. The show’s title was spoofed on The Carol Burnett Show in the sketch known as As the Stomach Turns. Burnett starred in the sketch as Marian Clayton, who lived in Canoga Falls.
Phillips, the show’s creator, died on December 23, 1973, soon after her return to the show as head writer had been met with something less than success. She did not live to see serials move to the hour format as they began to in the mid-1970s. ATWT became a 60-minute serial on Monday, December 1, 1975.
Many of the genre’s most recognizable names were at one point head writers of ATWT. Phillips and Bill Bell (who left in 1966 to take on head writing chores at Days of our Lives), Bridget and Jerome Dobson (who wrote the marital rape story involving John Dixon and Dee Stewart, played by Jacqueline Schultz), and Douglas Marland all charted the course of the Hughes and Stewart clans, and John Dixon and James Stenbeck’s escapades.
ATWT in the ’80s
The show updated its opening with a jazzy rendition titled “The World Turns On and On,” composed by Jack Cortner. It debuted on Monday, November 2, 1981 — just one of the many exciting changes the show would unveil in the ’80s.
Meg Ryan joined the cast from 1982 to 1984 as Betsy Stewart, jump-starting the actress’ career.
Marland, who had had successful runs at General Hospital and Guiding Light, became the show’s new head writer in 1985 with his first episodes airing in September of that year. The next few years were among the finest in the show’s 54-year history. Marland kept the emphasis on the Hughes family, bringing back Chris and Nancy and moving them into Bob and Kim’s (Kathryn Hays) garage apartment. The first family of Oakdale was once again multi-generational.
That same year, Kim discovered she’d had a secret admirer, who was sending her anonymous notes and gifts. Meanwhile, Frannie Hughes (Julianne Moore), Kim’s stepdaughter, met her “Prince Charming” – Douglas Cummings (John Wesley Shipp), a loving and charismatic restaurateur, who was recently widowed. Additionally, a killer was roaming the streets of Oakdale as Marie Kovacs (Mady Kaplan) and Cal Randolph (Luke Reilly) were murdered.
These three stories were all tied together as Kim’s admirer and the murderer were revealed to be Douglas! He killed Marie and Cal when they got in the way of his plan to marry into Kim’s family by taking Frannie as his wife.
Believing (mistakenly) that a distraught Frannie had stabbed Doug with a crystal cylinder (rather than the predictable letter opener!), Kim took the blame and went on trial for second degree murder. At trial, it came out that Marsha Talbot (Guilia Pagano) was the true killer!
Marland also introduced the Snyder clan and revealed that Iva Snyder (Lisa Brown) was the birth mother of Lucinda Walsh’s (Elizabeth Hubbard) daughter Lily (Martha Byrne). The scribe also turned perpetual victim Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk) into the town bitch, when Barbara let Tom (Gregg Marx) believe that they’d slept together (even though they hadn’t). But the ruse re-ignited a feud between Barabara and Tom’s wife, Margo (Hillary B. Smith), that lasted for years. The two women later vied for the affections of Det. Hal Munson (Benjamin Hendrickson).
ATWT turns 30 and the end of Marland’s era
On April 2, 1986, for ATWT‘s 30th anniversary, Marland wrote back in several characters who’d left Oakdale over the years, including Susan Stewart and Dee (Vicki Dawson) and Annie (Mary Lynn Banks), Ellen and David’s daughters.
Other highlights of Marland’s tenure were the unlikely May/December romance of Casey and Lyla (Anne Sward), the return of James Stenbeck, and the introduction of villain Tonio Reyes (Peter Boynton), who stood between lovers Craig (Scott Bryce) and Sierra (Finn Carter); also, “have-not” Meg Snyder (Jennifer Ashe) was patterned after other Marland creations Nola Reardon (GL) and Bobbie Spencer (GH).
Teen Lily was deeply attracted to hunky stableboy Holden Snyder (Jon Hensley) – thank goodness he turned out not to be her uncle!
Marland also brought on a new generation of characters, tying them to Oakdale mainstays by making them turn out to be the long-lost children of familiar faces. We met John’s long-lost son Ian “Duke” Kramer (Michael Louden), Tom’s daughter, Lien (Ming Na), from his time in Viet Nam, and Sabrina (Julianne Moore; Claire Beckman), the daughter that Bob and Kim thought had died at birth.
Not to be left out, Lisa was given a long-lost son, Scott Eldrige (Joe Breen; Doug Wert), who she had in between the end of Our Private World and her return to ATWT.
The death of Helen Wagner and the end of ATWT
Marland’s untimely death in 1993 was a blow from which the show never truly recovered. Post-Marland story highlights include the introduction of bad girl-turned-heroine Carly (Maura West), Lisa suing John for malpractice and his subsequent takedown of her at their engagement party.
The show was infused with new creativity with the 2000 arrival of scribe Hogan Sheffer, who read through Marland’s bible in order to devise stories for Oakdale residents. The writer won four Daytime Emmys for writing ATWT.
However, despite this infusion of new energy, in late 2009, CBS announced that the final episode of ATWT would air in September 2010. Plans that had been put in place for the series to end with Helen Wagner saying “good night, dear,” to parallel her series-opening line “good morning, dear,” were scrapped when Wagner sadly passed away in June of that year before taping of the final episode could be completed.
Instead, another beloved cast member would close out the show…
What happened on the final episode?
ATWT broadcast its finale on Friday, September 17, 2010. The show began with Bob (Don Hastings) packing up his desk at Oakdale Memorial hospital as he planned to retire and move to Arizona with his wife, Kim. Bob’s wistfulness over saying goodbye to his job and to Oakdale mirrored the feelings that he – and viewers – had about ATWT coming to an end.
Unlike the Guiding Light finale, which had aired nearly a year before, there wasn’t a gathering that drew everyone together. Instead, viewers visited numerous happy couples individually as they began their respective days.
Also unlike GL, which had invited numerous past cast members back to do one last appearance, ATWT mainly stuck to its regular cast. One exception was the return of Larry Bryggman as Dr. John Dixon. John and Lucinda had a tumultuous marriage that ended with him finding out she tried to keep him from Duke. But now, they managed to put all that in the past. Lucinda visited her daughter Lily (Noelle Beck) to tell her she was putting her personal life head of business.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my time with John and forget all about work!” Lucinda said. She told Lily that she knew where to find her if she ever wanted to see her.
“Good night, dear,” the ex-mogul told her daughter. Lucinda walking away from business? The world truly had come to an end!
Bob wistfully shared with Kim that he’d taken care of patients at Oakdale Memorial hospital from their first breath to their lasts. If you didn’t know you for certain that you were tuning into the last episode of ATWT, surely emotional remarks like that let you know that this episode had an air of finality to it.
Popular couple Carly and Jack (Michael), a duo that suffered more than their fair share of angst, were finally happy. Carly fretted that they might become boring as she asked her husband to check on a funny noise their car was making. “Us? Sweetheart…no, not a chance!” Jack assured his beloved.
ATWT viewers were left knowing that their favorites were going to be happy. Heroine-turned-villainess-turned-leading-lady Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk) found happiness with Henry Coleman (Trent Dawson).
Dusty (Grayson McCouch) and Janet (Julie Pinson) were over the moon with their son, Lorenzo. He was getting a lifelong playmate as Carly announced that she was pregnant. “I think things turned out exactly the way they were supposed to,” said Janet.
One of the largest group scenes – and most emotional – in the finale had Margo (Ellen Dolan), Tom (Scott Holmes), Emily (Kelley Menighan Hensley) and Susan (Marie Masters) wishing Casey (Billy Magnussen) and Alison (Marnie Schulenburg) a fond farewell as they went off to school and a new life.
Chris (Daniel Cosgrove), recovering from his heart transplant, got down on one knee and asked Katie (Terri Conn) to marry him. “You knew my answer before you even asked…of course, it’s a yes,” Katie responded.
Barbara handed her son Paul (Roger Howarth) a document saying she was dissolving their business partnership at BRO (Barbara Ryan Originals). Emily told Barbara she couldn’t believe she was walking away from her son.
Proving that somethings never quite change, Barbara pointedly leaned into Emily and informed her, “I am not walking away from my son, Emily. I’m setting him free. I’m setting both of us free.”
Luke (Van Hansis) visited Chris and listened to the late Reid’s (Eric Sheffer Stevens) heart in Chris’s body using Reid’s stethoscope.
There was a lot of history between Susan and Bob and Kim – and most of it wasn’t very good. Not only had Susan and Kim battled over Dan Stewart back in the 1970s, but history repeated itself over a decade later when Bob and Susan had a brief affair after he’d been married to Kim.
But all that was in the past. Susan came to Bob’s office to wish him well, and to lament that she was going to have to work with John, who was taking over as Memorial’s acting Chief of Staff! Bob and Susan shared a farewell embrace. Then, Kim and Susan did, too.
Soaps have been called stories without end. And while we were left with the knowledge that all the characters would be living their happy lives we also knew that they’d be doing so off-camera. This was goodbye.
Or perhaps not! “I didn’t realize how hard it would be to say goodbye,” Bob said to his wife. Kim replied: “Well, you know darling, I don’t’ think there should be goodbyes. Just ‘goodnight.’ So, my sweetheart. It’s time to have fun. I’ll meet you out in the car. Take as much time as you need.”
The final moment of the series was Bob packing up his nameplate. He took a look around the office and said, taking his wife’s thoughts to heart, “Good night.” The camera panned to an illuminated globe on Bob’s desk and it began spinning. As the World Turns had come to an end, but the world keeps spinning.
The emotional finale, scripted by writer David A. Levinson, tugged on all the heartstrings— and won a Writers Guild of America Award for Daytime Serial writing.
The final episode of ATWT was nearly perfect — except for Lisa’s ending. Yes, it was great to see Lisa in the finale trading a barb or two with longtime nemesis Lucinda — but where was the happy ending for the often-married Lisa? Nearly everyone else was getting a satisfying conclusion. Why not Lisa, the woman who was so largely responsible for the show’s popularity? A one-way phone call from one of Lisa’s exes – Grant Colman perhaps? – telling her that he was coming back to Oakdale and wanted to see her would have let viewers know that Lisa wasn’t going to be alone.
Viewers had hoped that they’d see more than just John return for the finale. A generous Beck had offered to vacate the role of Lily so that Martha Byrne, who played the part the longest and was most identified as Lily, could return, allowing viewers to see perhaps Holden (Jon Hensley) and Lily reunite. Alas, that deal never materialized.
It also would have been nice to see past favorites Patricia Bruder (ex-Ellen) and Rosemary Prinz (ex-Penny) make appearances. Surely, Bob’s retirement would have prompted their visits to the show.
The legacy
ATWT was the last soap within the Procter & Gamble family to leave the airwaves.
Ironically, ATWT was replaced by The Talk, a CBS talk show. Four ATWT cast members – Ellen Dolan, Colleen Zenk, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Martha Byrne — visited the program in 2016 to honor ATWT’s role in the eye network being No. 1 in Daytime for 30 years.
Last year, The Talk aired its final episode. Its replacement, Beyond the Gates, a brand-new soap opera created by Michele Val Jean (Santa Barbara, Generations, General Hospital, Bold and the Beautiful), debuted on Monday, February 24 at 2 p.m. ET.
There will be a little bit of Oakdale in Beyond the Gates. Tamara Tunie (ex-Jessica) has been cast as the series matriarch, Anita Dupree. The world keeps turning, indeed.
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