OMG, THIS drew a bigger audience and outlasted DS?! How in the hell was THAT possible?!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Quite by accident I came across this video on YouTube:

The Guiding Light July 25, 1973

Having been a fan of The Guiding Light when the brilliant Doug Marland was its head writer in the early '80s (until he resigned in protest after one of his storylines (which I personally loved, and not just because it featured Jane Elliot) was abruptly ended by the Executive Producer - but all that's beside the point so far as this topic goes), I was curious to see what the show was like almost a decade before I ever watched it. OMG, I couldn't believe what I was watching! And the more I watched, the more my jaw fell to the floor in shock and utter disbelief that this was an example of a soap that had continually had better ratings than DS and had outlasted it. If this ep is an example of what the show was like most of the time back in those days and while DS was on, it's inconceivable to me how it lasted a week much less as an extremely popular soap!! And I say all this as someone who was quite familiar with soaps other than DS because back in the late-'60s and '70s I regularly watched One Life To Live, General Hospital, Ryan's Hope, Somerset, and The Edge of Night, all of which were nothing like that The Guiding Light ep...

[Uncle Roger]

I vaguely remember watching Guiding Light during this period. Charlotte had been the show's resident bad girl for many years when the character was played by Victoria Wyndham. Wyndham had left to replace Robin Strasser as Rachel on Another World and Charlotte was now playing potential victim to Nancy Addison's Kit Vestid. I think that Vestid eventually poisons Charlotte to get her out of the way.
This must be just before they discontinued the organ music. I know that it was left over from radio soaps but it's very distracting to contemporary viewers and really takes away from the moment. Plus, Carol Burnett showed what a cliche it was.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

This must be just before they discontinued the organ music. I know that it was left over from radio soaps but it's very distracting to contemporary viewers and really takes away from the moment. Plus, Carol Burnett showed what a cliche it was.

Exactly! The organ music is one of the worst parts of the ep. DS was so ahead of it's time in many ways, but producing its own music was definitely one of its most innovative features. I can't even imagine for one second DS with organ music!!

The one thing I did find interesting about the ep was seeing Nancy Addison before she came to prominence on Ryan's Hope, but her scenes were so melodramatic that it was hard to tell if she was actually any good on The Guiding Light. Though I do have to say I love a good murderer.

[Uncle Roger]

Nancy Addison was on Guiding Light for about five years, so I guess that she had established herself as a reliable performer. Kit was accidentally shot during a struggle for a gun, after she tried to poison another character that she felt was in her way. She got cast on Ryan's Hope less than a year later.