THE EDGE OF NIGHT
The Edge of Night is a long-running American television soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble.
It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then aired on ABC from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984. There were 7,420 episodes, with some 1,800 available for syndication.
The Edge of Night (the working title of the show was The Edge of Darkness) along with Procter and Gamble's As the World Turns, which premiered the same day, were the first two half-hour-long soap operas (previously soap operas had been fifteen minutes in length).
EPISODE GUIDE :(Episode # 6292)
The concluding CBS episode, on November 28, 1975, ended with the discovery that Nicole Travis Drake was alive, after she had been presumed dead in an explosion eighteen months earlier while on a boating trip with her husband Adam Drake. On December 1, 1975, ABC aired a special 90-minute episode which picked up where the final CBS episode left off, with Geraldine Whitney still in a coma from an attempted murder by her daughter-in-law Tiffany's second husband Noel Douglas; Nicole, with the help of Geraldine's adopted "son" Kevin Jamison, remembered who she was after suffering from amnesia since the explosion; the final scene of that day's episode was an exciting climax in which Serena Faraday, in her "Josie" split-personality, shot her husband on the steps of the courthouse.
The show was originally conceived as the daytime version of Perry Mason, which was popular in novel and radio formats at the time. Erle Stanley Gardner was to create and write the show, but a last-minute tiff between him and the network caused Gardner to pull his support from the idea. A writer from the Perry Mason radio show, Irving Vendig, created a retooled idea and the show as we know it was born. Gardner would eventually patch up his differences with CBS and Perry Mason would debut in prime time the next year.
Unlike Mason, whose adventures took place in Southern California, Monticello, the city of The Edge of Night, was located somewhere in a generic state in the Midwest — a state so generic that its capital city was "Capital City", it was also explained that it was located somewhere near Chicago.
It was eventually admitted that the city skyline in the opening titles were that of Cincinnati, Ohio, the home of the show's sponsor, Proctor & Gamble. The Cincinnati skyline was used from the show's beginning in 1956 until 1980, when the Los Angeles skyline was used. The skyline was eliminated in the final two years of the show, as was the word, "the". The title was then called "Edge of Night" for the final years of the show.
On both CBS and ABC, the voice of veteran staff announcer Hal Simms would enthusiastically and energetically announce the show's title, "Theee Eeeeeeeedge of Night!" He announced the show until the series ended in 1984. Bob Dixon was the show's first announcer, then Harry Kramer did the announcing from 1957 until 1972, when Simms, who became synonymous with EON, did the announcing duties.
The Edge of Night was unique among daytime soap operas in that it focused on crime, rather than domestic and romantic matters. The police, district attorneys and medical examiners of fictional Monticello, USA, dealt with a steady onslaught of gangsters, drug dealers, blackmailers, cultists, international spies, corrupt politicians, psychopaths and murderous debutantes while coping with more usual soap opera problems such as courtship, marriage, divorce, child custody battles and amnesia. The show's particular focus on crime was recognized in 1980, when, in honor of its 25 years on the air, The Edge of Night was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
(This text comes from Wikipedia)
