The Edge Of Night
| The Edge of Night | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Also known as | ''Edge of Night'' |
| Genre |
Soap opera Drama Crime drama Mystery |
| Created by | Irving Vendig |
| Starring |
|
| Composer(s) |
Elliot Lawrence Paul Taubman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 28 |
| No. of episodes | 7,216 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Erwin Nicholson |
| Producer(s) | Robert Driscoll Rick Edelstein Charles Fisher Freddie Bartholomew, Jacqueline Haber Werner Michel Erwin Nicholson Charles Polachek |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
CBS (1956–1975) ABC (1975–1984) |
| Picture format |
Black-and-white (1956–1967) Color (1967–1984) |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | April 2, 1956 – December 28, 1984 |
The Edge of Night is an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network for most of its run until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984; 7,420 episodes were produced, of which some 1,800 are available for syndication.
The Edge of Night, whose working title was The Edge of Darkness, premiered on April 2, 1956, as one of the first two half-hour soaps on television, the other being As the World Turns. Prior to the debuts of both shows, 15-minute-long shows had been the standard. Both shows aired on CBS, sponsored by Procter & Gamble.
The show was originally conceived as the daytime television version of Perry Mason, which was popular in novel and radio formats at the time. Mason's creator Erle Stanley Gardner was to create and write the show, but a last-minute tiff between the CBS network and him caused Gardner to pull his support from the idea. CBS insisted that Mason be given a love interest to placate daytime soap opera audiences, but Gardner refused to take Mason in that direction. Gardner eventually patched up his differences with CBS, and Perry Mason debuted in prime time in 1957.
In 1956, a writer from the Perry Mason radio show, Irving Vendig, created a retooled idea for daytime television—and The Edge of Night was born. "John Larkin, radio's best identified Perry Mason, was cast as the protagonist-star, initially as a detective, eventually as an attorney, in a thinly veiled copy of Perry Mason."
Unlike Perry Mason, whose adventures took place in Southern California, the daytime series was set in the fictional Midwestern city of Monticello. A frequent backdrop for the show's early scenes was a restaurant called the Ho-Hi-Ho. The state capital, however, was known generically as "Capital City"; the state in which Monticello was located had never been identified. From its beginning in 1956 until roughly 1980, the downtown skyline of the city of Cincinnati stood in as Monticello. Procter & Gamble, which produced the show, was based in Cincinnati.
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Wikipedia