I’ve never seen the daytime soap opera Guiding Light, but I’ve always known about it. What I didn’t know is that the Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the longest-running television drama. According to CNN, the series is finally going to shut down after 72 years.
I thought it was a misprint when I first saw that it was 72 years old; after all, television itself is barely 72 years old. However, Guiding Light actually first started as a radio show in 1937 and then later moved to TV in 1952. One could say that it needed a new medium to take it to the next level. Even that timeline is long–if it’s radio life was a continuous run, it had 15 years of life on radio alone. That radio time alone would probably make it older than most TV shows.
Talk about old. I have a lot of respect for people who stay in the game for that long, but as we’ve been discussing with regards to the 44s, sometimes it’s best to leave with a bang and a legacy.
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