Guiding Light (1937)

Directed by

Larry Carpenter, Bruce S. Barry, Susan Strickler, Robert Scinto

Genre

soap opera

Country

United States

Length

1 season, 213 episodes

Rated

TV-14

Rating

5.7 of 10 from 19 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

The show follows families in a small American town, starting with a reverend who helps people in need. Over the decades it centers on the lives, relationships and problems of several core families like the Bauers and the Spauldings.

slow-paceddramaticemotionalconversationaldomesticmoralintimateserious

What happens

Guiding Light (also known as The Guiding Light before 1975) is an American daytime soap opera. It aired for 57 years on television between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, but it began even earlier as a radio serial on January 25, 1937. With 72 years of radio and television runs, it is the longest-running American soap opera, ahead of General Hospital. When the show debuted on radio in 1937, it centered on Reverend John Ruthledge and people whose lives revolved around him. The "Guiding Light" in the show's title originally referred to the lamp in Ruthledge's study that people used as a sign for them to find his help when needed. When the show transitioned to television in the 1950s, the Bauers, a German immigrant family first introduced in 1948, became the focus of the program. Other core families were introduced over the show's run, including the Norrises in the 1960s; the Marlers and the Spauldings in the 1970s; and the Coopers, the Lewises, and the Reardons in the 1980s. Guiding Light was created by Irna Phillips and Emmons Carlson and began as an NBC Radio serial on January 25, 1937. On June 2, 1947, the series was transferred to CBS Radio, before starting on June 30, 1952, on CBS Television. It continued to be broadcast on radio until June 29, 1956. The series was expanded from 15 minutes to a half-hour during 1968 (and also switched from broadcasting live to pre-taping around this same time), and then to a full hour on November 7, 1977. The series broadcast its 15,000th television episode on September 6, 2006. Although Guiding Light was the longest-scripted program in broadcasting history during the time, CBS canceled the series on April 1, 2009, after many years of declining ratings. The show taped its final scenes on August 11, 2009, and its final episode would air on the network on September 18, 2009. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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