2: As the World Turns (1956-????)
Set in Oakdale, a fictional Midwestern town, As the World Turns has
been immensely popular since it debuted on April 2, 1956. The show is
more reality-based than other soaps, but people do come back from the
dead and children grow up far faster than in real life, as is the norm
for the soap world. The first soap opera to use a two-family setup, As
the World Turns pitted a middle-class family against a wealthy, but
troubled, family. The Hughes family remains as the middle-class hero,
but the wealthy family that was originally the Lowells is now the
Munsons. After more than 13,000 episodes, the world is still turning,
and this soap is still going strong.
