| The Young and the Restless | |
|---|---|
Title screen, 2003–present |
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| Genre | Soap opera |
| Created by | William J. Bell Lee Philip Bell |
| Starring | List of Cast Members |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 39 |
| No. of episodes | 9,816 (as of January 4, 2012) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | William J. Bell and John Conboy (1973-1982) William J. Bell and H. Wesley Kenney (1982-1987) William J. Bell and Edward J. Scott (1987–2001) William J. Bell and David Shaughnessy (2001-2003) William J. Bell, David Shaughnessy and John F. Smith (2003-2004) William J. Bell and John F. Smith (2004-2005) John F. Smith (2005-2006) Lynn Marie Latham (2006) Lynn Marie Latham and Josh Griffith (2006-2007) Josh Griffith (2007-2008) Maria Arena Bell and Paul Rauch (2008-2011) Maria Arena Bell (2011-) |
| Location(s) | CBS Television City Hollywood, California |
| Running time | 30 minutes (1973–1980) 60 minutes (1980–present) |
| Distributor | Bell Dramatic Serial Company and Corday Productions, Inc. in association with Sony Pictures Television (Columbia TriStar Television 2001 until 2002, Columbia Pictures Television 1974 to 2001, and Screen Gems until name change in 1974) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) (1973-2001) 1080i (HDTV) (2001-present) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original run | March 26, 1973 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Young and the Restless (often abbreviated to Y&R) is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin.[1] First broadcast on March 26, 1973, The Young and the Restless was originally broadcast as half-hour episodes, five times a week.[2][3] It expanded to one hour episodes on February 4, 1980.[4] In 2006, the series began airing weeknights on SOAPnet.[5] The series is also syndicated internationally.[6]
The Young and the Restless originally focused on two core families: the wealthy Brooks family and the poor Foster family.[2] After a series of recasts and departures, in the early 1980s all the original characters except Jill Foster Abbott were written out. Bell replaced them with the new core families, the Abbotts and the Williams.[2] Over the years, other families such as the Newmans and the Winters were introduced.[7][8] Despite these changes, one storyline that has endured through almost the show's entire run is the feud between Jill Foster Abbott and Katherine Chancellor, the longest rivalries on any American soap opera.[9][10]
Since its debut, The Young and the Restless has won seven Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series. It is also currently the highest-rated daytime drama on American television. As of 2008, it has appeared at the top of the weekly Nielsen ratings in that category for more than 1,000 weeks since 1988.[11] The series, along with NBC's Days of our Lives, has been renewed through 2013 with optional 2014.
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To compete with the youthful ABC soap operas, All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital, CBS executives wanted a new daytime serial that was youth oriented.[12] William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell created The Young and the Restless in 1972 for the network under the working title, The Innocent Years![12][13] "We were confronted with the very disturbing reality that young America had lost much of its innocence," Bell said. "Innocence as we had known and lived it all our lives had, in so many respects, ceased to exist."[14] They changed the title of the series to The Young and the Restless because they felt it "reflected the youth and mood of the early seventies."[14] The Bells named the fictional setting for the show after the real Genoa City, Wisconsin, which was located on their way from their then-home in Chicago to their annual summer vacation spot in Lake Geneva.[1]
The Young and the Restless began airing on March 26, 1973, replacing the canceled soap opera, Where the Heart Is.[4] Bell worked as head writer from the debut of the series until his retirement in 1998.[15] He wrote from his home in Chicago while production took place in Los Angeles, California.[6] John Conboy acted as the show's first executive producer, staying in the position until 1982.[4] Bell and H. Wesley Kenney became co-executive producers that year until Edward Scott took over in 1989. Bell then became senior executive producer.[4] Other executive producers included David Shaughnessy,[16] John F. Smith,[17] Lynn Marie Latham,[18] Josh Griffith,[19] Maria Arena Bell, and Paul Rauch.[20]
In the mid-1980s, Bell and his family moved to Los Angeles to create a new soap opera.[6] During this time, his three children, William Jr., Bradley, and Lauralee Bell, each became involved in soap operas. Lauralee Bell worked as an actress on The Young and the Restless. Bradley Bell co-created The Bold and the Beautiful with his father. William Bell Jr. became involved in the family's production companies as president of Bell Dramatic Serial Co. and Bell-Phillip Television Productions Inc.[6] "It's worked out very well for us because we really all worked in very different aspects of the show," William Bell Jr. said. "With my father and I, it was a great kind of partnership and pairing in the sense that he had a total control of the creative side of the show and I didn't have even the inclination to interject in what he was doing."[6]
After William J. Bell's 1998 retirement, a number of different head writers took over the position, including Kay Alden, Trent Jones, John F. Smith, Lynn Marie Latham, Scott Hamner, Josh Griffith, Maria Arena Bell, and Hogan Sheffer.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]
Taped at CBS Television City, studios 41 and 43 in Hollywood since its debut on March 26, 1973,[23] the show was packaged by the distribution company Columbia Pictures Television.[3][24] The Young and the Restless originally aired as a half-hour series on CBS and was the first soap opera to focus on the visual aspects of production, creating "a look that broke with the visual conventions of the genre."[2][3] Similar to radio shows, soap operas at the time primarily focused on dialogue, characters, and story, with details like sets as secondary concerns.[2] The Young and the Restless stood out by using unique lighting techniques and camera angles, similar to Hollywood-style productions.[24][25] The style of filming included using out of the ordinary camera angles and a large amount of facial close-ups with bright lighting on the actors' faces.[2][24][25][26] Conboy said he used lighting to create "artistic effects".[25] Those effects made the series look dark, shadowy, and moody.[2][25] The Young and the Restless' look influenced the filming styles of other soap operas.[2] When H. Wesley Kenney replaced Conboy as executive producer, he balanced the lighting of the scenes.[26]
Due to the success of the series, CBS and their affiliates pressured Bell to lengthen the series from 30 minutes to a full hour. Bell attributed this change to the show's fall from number one in the Nielsen ratings, since the lengthening of the show led to the departure of a number of cast members.[2] "The issue of performing in a one-hour show had not been part of their contracts," Bell said.[2] This forced the show to recast multiple main characters and eventually phase out the original core families in favor of new ones.[2]
On June 27, 2001, The Young and the Restless became the first daytime soap opera to be broadcast in high-definition.[27] In September 2011, The Young and the Restless sister soap The Bold and the Beautiful will become the second-to-last soap to make the transition from SD to HD. On April 24, 2006, SoapNet began airing same-day episodes of the series.[5]
Co-creators William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell centered The Young and the Restless around two core families, the wealthy Brooks' and the poor Fosters.[2][12][14] Bell borrowed this technique of soap opera building from his mentor, Irna Phillips.[24]
While casting for the series, Bell and executive producer John Conboy auditioned 540 actors for the 13 main characters.[28] They assembled the youngest group of actors ever cast on a soap opera at the time, hiring mostly unknown actors[29] who they considered "glamorous model types".[24] Chemistry between actors also factored into the criteria for casting.[25] The stories focused on the younger characters, with an emphasis in fantasy.[2][14] The fantasy element was reflected in the love story between Jill Foster and the millionaire Phillip Chancellor II; the Leslie Brooks, Brad Elliot, and Lorie Brooks love triangle; and Snapper Foster's romance with Chris Brooks.[2][25]
Sexuality also played a major role in the stories.[2][24][26] Formerly, soap operas did not delve into the sexual side of their romances. Bell changed that, first during his time as head writer of Days of our Lives and again on The Young and the Restless.[24] William Gray Espy's Snapper Foster is considered the "first to discover sex on a soap opera."[26] During the story, the character is engaged to Chris Brooks (Trish Stewart) and having a sexual relationship with Sally McGuire (Lee Crawford).[26] Other plots reflected sexual themes as well. For the first time in the genre, the dialogue and the story situations included explicit sexual themes such as premarital intercourse, impotence, incest, and rape.[2] The series also explored social issues. Jennifer Brooks underwent the first mastectomy on a soap opera.[25] Other social issue storylines included bulimia, alcoholism, and cancer.[30] Lesbianism was also touched on with Katherine Chancellor, who flirts with Jill while drunk in 1974 and has a brief relationship with Joann Curtis (Kay Heberle) in 1977.[30]
When the series lengthened from a half hour to an hour in 1980, multiple cast members who portrayed characters from the original core families departed because their contracts only bound them to performing in a half hour show.[2] A number of the characters were recast until one of the few remaining original actors, Jamie Lyn Bauer, who portrayed Lorie Brooks, decided to leave. When she announced her intention not to renew her contract, Bell decided to replace the original core families.[2] "As I studied the remaining cast, I realized I had two characters- Paul Williams, played by Doug Davidson, and Jack Abbott, played by Terry Lester- both of whom had a relatively insignificant presence on the show," Bell said. "They didn't have families. Hell, they didn't even have bedrooms. But these became the two characters I would build our two families around."[2]
The characters from the Abbott and Williams families were integrated into the series while the Brooks and Foster families, with the exception of Jill, were phased out. The continuity of the feud between Jill and Katherine, which began in the early years of the show, smoothed the transition.[2] The relationship between the two characters remained a central theme throughout the series and became the longest lasting rivalry in daytime history.[9]
Another character introduced in the 1980s was Eric Braeden's Victor Newman.[2][7] Originally, the character was "a despicable, contemptible, unfaithful wife abuser" who was intended to be killed off.[7] Braeden's tenure on the show was meant to last between eight and twelve weeks. "When I saw Eric Braeden's first performance- the voice, the power, the inner strength- I knew immediately that I didn't want to lose this man," Bell said. "He was exactly what the show needed. Not the hateful man we saw on-screen, but the man he could and would become."[7] Bell rewrote the story to save the character and put Braeden on contract. Victor's romance with Nikki Reed became a prominent plot in the series.[7]
In the 1990s, core black characters were introduced with the Barber and Winters families. Victoria Rowell (Drucilla Barber) and Tonya Lee Williams (Dr. Olivia Barber) were cast as the nieces of the Abbott's maid, Mamie Johnson, in 1990.[31] The brothers Neil (Kristoff St. John) and Malcolm Winters (Shemar Moore) were introduced as love interests for Olivia and Drucilla.[8] The Young and the Restless became popular among black viewers, which Williams and St. John attributed to the writing for the black characters.[8][32][33] "I play a CEO at a major corporation, that's something we don't see that often," St. John said. "And the show doesn't use the old African-American stereotypes that we have been seeing on TV, like the hustler, the pimp, the drug dealer. We have come a long way."[32] Though the characters held prominent positions in the fictional work place of Genoa City, they had little interaction with other characters outside of their jobs.[34]
The serial has won 111 Daytime Emmys, along with 334 nominations. The following list summarizes awards won by The Young and the Restless:
In Australia, The Young and the Restless airs on Foxtel's W Channel at 12 pm, and on the timeshift channel, W2, at 2 pm. Repeats of each day's episode air the following morning at 7:10 am and an omnibus edition airs at 8:10 am on Saturdays. It previously aired on the Nine Network from April 1, 1974 to February 23, 2007, before joining the W line-up on April 2, 2007. Episodes are 9 months behind those airing in the US at present.
In Belgium, the show airs on RTBF-La Une as "Les Feux de l'Amour" at 12:00 (dubbed in French) and is 3 years behind the U.S.
In Belize, Channel 5 Great Belize Television airs it on schedule with the US at 1:00 pm Central Time. Rival Channel 7 Tropical Vision Limited airs on schedule as well at 3:00 pm, Central Time.
In Brazil, the show aired on Sony Entertainment Television for a brief time during the 1990s.
In Canada, Global TV airs new episodes a day ahead of CBS in the United States. Most Global stations use The Young and the Restless as a late-afternoon lead-in for their local newscasts, but times vary by market. It also airs on NTV in Newfoundland and Labrador which airs the program on a same-day-as-CBS basis. In the French-speaking province of Quebec, a dubbed version airs on TVA, with the title Les Feux de l'amour (Fires of Love), about eight years after initial airing.
In Cyprus the show started from the 1986 season in June 1992 from private channel ANT1 Cyprus and continued until 2002 when ANT1 decided to drop all its foreign soap operas after the end of Santa Barbara.
In the Czech Republic Mladí a neklidní gets about 2/100 of ranking.[60]
In Finland the show airs on MTV3 under the title Tunteita ja tuoksuja ("Senses and scents") since 1998.
In France, the show screens on TF1 as "Les Feux de l'Amour" (Fires of Love) at 2:00 pm, since August 16, 1989. The show started from episode #3263 (aired on CBS on January 10, 1986), so the first 13 years were never viewed. The episodes are currently 3.5 years behind the US. The show is famous in France.
In Germany, the show aired on ZDF from March to December 2008. The network canceled the show because of bad ratings. The episodes were two years behind the US and the show is known as Schatten der Leidenschaft (Shadows of the Passion).
In Greece, the show was aired on ANT1 from 1991 to 1999. On 2000 it moved to ET1 (Public TV Channel) and it was showing until 2011, when it got cancelled due to low ratings. Episodes were six years behind the US. It's known as Ατίθασα νιάτα (Atithasa niata) (literally Untameable Youth).
In India, the show began airing in February, 2007 on Zee Cafe at 20:00. The channel started with episodes from 2004.
In Italy, the show aired till October 2009 on Rete 4, using the Italian title Febbre d'amore (Love Fever). Episodes were three years behind the US. The Young and the Restless' first Italian broadcast was in 1983. In July, 2011 the soap opera started on CanalOne. At this channel the episodes are eight years behind the US (August 2003).
In Jamaica, the show airs on CVMTV at 7pm.
In the Republic of Macedonia, episodes from 1998 and 1999 were shown on Sitel TV a couple of years ago. Currently, reruns are shown.
In Mexico, Cablevision on American Network channel 475
In the Netherlands RTL 8 will broadcast Y&R beginning at the 1st of February 2011. The episodes are almost 2 years behind the US.
In New Zealand, The Young and the Restless used to air on TV ONE. Episodes were four years behind the US.
In Norway, The Young and the Restless aired on FEM (TV channel) from 2007–2008 .
In Poland, The Young and the Restless aired from September 1997 to August 2000 on Polsat, with 780 episodes broadcast. On September 1, 2008 the network began airing the show again, starting with episode 7090 from March 2001. The Polish title is Żar młodości, which translates into Fervor of Youth.
In Philippines, aired from 1987 to 1989 on ABS-CBN.
In Romania, "The Young and the Restless" airs on ProTV as "Tânăr şi neliniştit" ("Young and restless") since July 3, 1996, short after the channel's launch in December 1995. It airs weekdays at 4.00 p.m. with rebroadcasts at 12.00 p.m. The show is used as a lead-in for the channel's newscast. The show first aired in Romania with the 1991 storyline, being 5 years behind the original US broadcast and the first 18 years were never broadcast and a synthesis of those 4000 episodes were broadcast a week earlier to give the viewers a preview of what to expect.
In Serbia, B92 aired the show briefly in 2007, as "Mladi i nestašni". It also aired on TV Palma for a period of time in the 1990s, titled "Mladi i nemirni".
In Slovenia, the show aired on Kanal A as Mladi in nemirni. It was recently moved to its women oriented sister channel POP Brio. It was announced that the show will soon be canceled.
In South Africa, the show airs on e.tv from 16:40 to 17:30. The show was originally aired in South Africa in the early 1990s, dubbed into the Afrikaans language, and entitled 'Rustelose Jare' (Restless Years). In 1999 The Young and the Restless was canceled but the show returned to South African television screens in June 2004, with no overhead foreign translations. Episodes are between 11 and 12 months behind that of the USA.
In Sweden, the show aired on tv4 and tv3 from 2002–2005. The show was called Makt och begär, which means Power and desire.
In Switzerland, the show airs on TSR at 11:10 as "Les Feux de l'Amour" and is 3 years behind the U.S.
In Turkey, the show used to air on TRT 2, atv, SHOW TV, SHOW MAX. It was called "Yalan Rüzgarı", which means "Wind of Lies" between 1988-2005. The name was derived from the initials of The Young and the Restless.
In The United Kingdom the show used to air on CBS Drama
"Nadia's Theme" has been the theme song of The Young and the Restless since the show's debut in 1973.[4][6] The melody, originally titled "Cotton's Dream", was composed by Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. for the 1971 theatrical film Bless the Beasts and Children. The melody was later renamed "Nadia's Theme" after the ABC television network's sports summary program Wide World of Sports lent the music for a montage of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci's routines during the 1976 Summer Olympics;[61] despite the title, Nadia never performed her floor exercises using this piece of music. Instead, she used a piano arrangement of a medley of the songs "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Jump in the Line.”
Botkin wrote a rearranged version of the piece specifically for The Young and the Restless' debut.[6] The song remained unchanged, save for a three-year stint in the early 2000s (decade), when an alternate, more jazzy arrangement of that tune was used, using portions of the longer closing version of the original theme.[6]
The opening title sequence has also become well-known. For many years since the show's debut, it showcased the characters, drawn by an artist, on a white background. For the first year, the character's portraits were seen behind the The Young and the Restless title. For the remaining years until 1984, the characters' headshots were seen to the right of the show's title.
Starting in 1984, the sequence both began and ended with an interlocking Y and R painted on the white canvas in a sweeping brush motion. The logo (and in the earlier years, the drawings) were done by artist Sandy Dvore. The drawings were now sketched with a lighter shade of gray than the previous sketches. The drawings were replaced with live-action shots of the characters in formal or semi-formal wear, still on a white background, in 1988.
Beginning on December 24, 1999, in an unprecedented move for a main title sequence of a daytime soap opera, the names of the principal cast members were mentioned (whereas previously the main title only showed the cast members' faces); however, Y&R continues to include the main cast members' names in an alternate version of the closing credits once a week. In 2005, The Bold and the Beautiful began showing the performers' names in the title sequence, the only other American soap to do so until February 23, 2010, when General Hospital began using the contract cast members' names in the title sequence. The 1999 version also included live-action shots of the characters, but featured in front of a wind blowing satin red curtain as the background. The music was a jazzier version of "Nadia's Theme", using portions of the longer closing music.
On March 31, 2003 the title sequence was given a complete makeover, now featuring black-and-white footage from the series with the actors' names in lower case in red at either the top or bottom of the screen (a possible throwback to the show's early years, when the cast members' sketches were also black and white). Before and after the footage of the actors is the silhouette of a woman in a form-fitting dress walking toward the camera, shown from the neck down. The original "Nadia's Theme" song returned, and while the brush-stroke logo animation remains, the title is all red and all lowercase. In addition, the brush-stroke logo is on the left side of the screen while the title is seen right next to it, instead of being over the logo as seen in the past. Although the producers have never confirmed the woman's identity, cast member Michelle Stafford (Phyllis) has admitted to being the woman in question. The opening was last updated to reflect new additions to the cast in June 2006. In an interview in December 2008, co-executive producer Maria Arena Bell stated that updating the opening is "on our minds, for sure. We’re hopeful we can get to that very soon."[62] On June 3, 2011 the credits were changed to include Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor), Jess Walton (Jill Foster Abbott), Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin), Michael Graziadei (Daniel Romalotti), and Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher).
For over 25 years, the announcer for the show's opening and closing credits was Bern Bennett, who would tell viewers to "Join us again for The Young and the Restless." In 2003, Bennett retired and CBS hired former casting assistant Marnie Saitta for the job of announcer. In 2006, Saitta was replaced by cast members announcing for the show.
Since the very first episode in 1973, the end credits were always featured on the left side of the screen while the right side consisted of art drawings (1973–1984), the familiar brush stroke logo (1984–1994; 1999–), and the live action cast montage (1994–1999) on the right side of the screen. A longer cut from "Nadia's Theme" was played over the closing, along with the aforementioned announcement "Join us again for The Young and the Restless" announced by longtime announcer Bern Bennett from 1973–2003, casting director Marnie Saitta from 2003–2006 and then the show's cast from 2006 to the present. As with all daytime soaps until the late 1990s, the cast and crew were not credited in every episode; sometimes, the only thing featured in the credits was the copyright info with the production companies listed and the fact the show was taped at CBS Television City. In 1999, CBS did away with the classic closing in favor of inserting a network promo with the credits listed on the network billboard at the bottom of the screen (the right side from 1999–2005); this is a procedure that has become standard among most channels. However, most international networks, SoapNet in the U.S., and the online version at CBS.com still broadcast the traditional closing credits.
As of 2010, The Young and the Restless has managed over 1,000 consecutive weeks in the #1 spot for daytime dramas .[63] Despite this, the show reached a record low of 4,380,000 viewers on Friday, June 13, 2008. Other lows were 4,392,000 viewers on Friday, October 17, 2008, 4,487,000 viewers on Friday, September 19, 2008, 4,491,000 viewers on Friday, May 9, 2008, 4,548,000 on Thursday, October 16, 2008, 4,563,000 viewers on Friday, October 3, 2008, and 4,805,000 viewers on Friday, August 31, 2007.
When introduced during the 1972–73 season, the show was at the bottom of the ratings, but rose rapidly: ninth by 1974–75 and third by 1975–76. By 1988–1989 it had dethroned long-time leader General Hospital as the top-rated soap, a position it has held ever since.
Daytime History: Highest Rated Week (November 16–20, 1981) (Nielsen Media Research)
| Serial | Household Rating | (Time Slot) Network |
|---|---|---|
| General Hospital | 16.0 | (3-4pm) ABC |
| All My Children | 10.2 | (1-2pm) ABC |
| One Life to Live | 10.2 | (2-3pm) ABC |
| Guiding Light | 7.9 | (3-4pm) CBS |
| The Young and the Restless | 7.3 | (11:00–12:00pm) CBS |
1995 Daytime Serial Ratings
| Rank/Serial | Avg. Millions Of Viewers (Per Episode) |
|---|---|
| The Young and the Restless | 7.155 |
| All My Children | 5.891 |
| General Hospital | 5.343 |
| The Bold and the Beautiful | 5.247 |
| One Life to Live | 5.152 |
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