The First Hundred Years

For the 1938 film, see The First Hundred Years (film).

Jimmy Lydon and Olive Stacey as newlyweds Chris and Connie, 1951

The First Hundred Years was the first ongoing TV soap opera in the United States that began as a daytime serial, airing on CBS from December 4, 1950 until June 27, 1952.[1]

A previous daytime drama on NBC, These Are My Children, aired in 1949[2] but only lasted one month, and NBC's Hawkins Falls began in June 1950 as a primetime "soap" and didn't move to daytime until April 1951.[citation needed]

The show began with the wedding of Chris Thayer and Connie Martin, which lasted for the first week of episodes. The couple settled down in a huge, unkept white elephant mansion, a present from Connie's father.[3]

The series did not succeed due to very low viewership, as few American households had television sets, and fewer still watched during the afternoon.[citation needed]

The series was replaced with the television version of Guiding Light, which would prove to be much more successful,[4] airing for 57 years (72 years total when its 15-year run on radio is taken into account).[citation needed]

  1. ^ Copeland, Mary Ann (1991). Soap Opera History. Publications International. p. 266. ISBN 0-88176-933-9.
  2. ^ Cassidy, Marsha F. (April 20, 2009). What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78272-3. Retrieved February 3, 2024.
  3. ^ Schemering, Christopher (1987). The Soap Opera Encyclopedia (2nd ed.). Ballantine Books. pp. 106–107. ISBN 0-345-35344-7.
  4. ^ McNeil, Alex (1996). Total Television: the Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (4th ed.). New York, New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc. p. 287. ISBN 0-14-02-4916-8.