The Original Idea:  Irna Phillips had begged Procter & Gamble to expand her soap Guiding Light to half an hour, but instead they allowed her to create a new soap, As the World Turns, which premiered the same day as another drama, Edge of Night.  The two soaps were vastly different, with Edge taking on a cops and robbers format, while World Turns concentrated on the characters.

Rather than having worlds fill every moment, Irna wanted the camera to become dialogue by allowing the face of the actor to help tell the story.  She had the characters protrayed as real people, coming to the tables in robes and pajamas.  Debating their lives over coffee became the norm for Oakdale's characters.  After a year languishing in the ratings, the new soap took off when fans enjoyed this new format and began tuning in in droves, sending the soap to the number one ratings pot in its second year!

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Chris Hughes was constantly urged by his law partner Jim Lowell to join the country club, but Chris and his wife Nancy led the simple life, and didn't want to become part of the rich crowd.  When they discovered Chris's sister Edith was having an affair with Jim Lowell, who was married to Claire, they were understandably distraught.  Nancy and Chris's daugher Penny and her friend Ellen, Jim and Claire's daughter, were also bothered by the dalliance.

Claire, however, had no intentions of letting her man get away so easily.  Jim returned home, but refused to sleep with her.  After Claire accidentally took too many sleeping pills, Jim thought she'd taken the drugs to keep him near her.  Claire confronted Edith, but then became so depressed she was believed to be suicidal.  Her doctor, Doug Cassen, urged Claire to seek psychiatric help and in time granted Jim a divorce.  Jim then went on a father son fishing trip with his dad Judge Lowell, but their bonding was cut short when Jim died while taking out a fishing boat.  Edith found solace in Dr. George Frey.  They married and moved to Seattle.

Ellen, a headstrong young woman, became involved in her own love affair with the married Dr. Tim Cole. She became pregnant, had a son, whom she named Jimmy after her dad.  She left the baby in the care of her friends, Joe and Anne Meadows, and returned home to Tim, but his wife Louise made their life hell.  After Ellen contacted an adoption agency and gave up Jimmy, she learned Louise had granted Tim a divorce, but it was too late.

Against her parents' wishes, Penny took up with the wild Jeff Baker and eloped.  Nancy and Chris had the marriage annulled, but Penny and Jeff continued to meet on the sly at the ice cream parlor.  After Jeff got his act together, The Hugheses gave their blessing and Penny and Jeff tied the knot for the second time.