This article is about the history of As the World Turns (ATWT), the second longest-running American television soap opera.

1980 - 1989

Like many daytime dramas of the period, the show entered into a mixed experiment with heavily youth-oriented action-adventure storylines in the early 1980s under producer Mary-Ellis Bunim and writers Bridget and Jerome Dobson. One of their juiciest stories centered around the various and sundry traumas endured by Jennifer's daughter Barbara Ryan (Colleen Zenk Pinter) - during the years of her marriage to the charismatic criminal James Stenbeck (Anthony Herrera) and her starcrossed romance with Gunnar Stenbeck (Hugo Napier ), whom she first met through visions of a past life. Gunnar was revealed to be the true Stenbeck heir with James the son of the nanny. After marrying Barbara, Gunnar learned he had a terminal illness and wanting to explore the world with the time he had left, bid adieu to Oakdale via hot air balloon.

The Dobsons centered the melodrama around a limited set of characters. One of their favorites was John Dixon, who regained his malicious streak after a few years of dormancy. Dixon scandalized the pure-hearted Stewart family when he married Ellen and David Stewart's naive daughter Dee. Dee was in love with another man and one night, believing John was the other man, allowed John to make love to her. When she realized what had just happened, a horrified Dee believed John had sexually assaulted her and took him to trial for rape -- a knockoff of the Dobson's highly successful marital rape storyline on Guiding Light in the late 70's. John also faked his own death, battled blindness, feuded with James Stenbeck, married Stenbeck's conniving sister Ariel, and learned he had a daughter he never knew (Margo) via a long-ago affair with nurse Lyla Montgomery (Veleka Gray , then for a decade, Anne Sward ). Margo began an affair with James Stenbeck which broke up his marriage to Barbara.

The Dobsons' most lasting legacy was pairing Lisa and Bob's strait-laced son Tom with the sluttish Margo. Justin Deas and Margaret Colin thrilled viewers with their witty banter and subtle eroticism (Colin and Deas apparently enjoyed their work -- they married in the early 80's and remain married to this day). The Dobsons departed after a few years but the show managed to remain a strong Emmy contender, while increasing sagging ratings and introducing the world to actress Meg Ryan as well as Marisa Tomei. Tomei played ditzy teen Marcy Thompson, who would go on to marry a real prince and move to England. Ryan was Betsy Stewart, who struggled through a marriage to Margo's bad-seed brother Craig Montgomery (played by heartthrob Scott Bryce , and years later by Hunt Block ) while pining away for blue-colloar Steve Andropolous. When Steve and Betsy married in 1984, the show soared to #1 in the ratings for the week. Some longtime fans were disspirited, however, by the show's dwindling emphasis on the core Hughes and Stewart families, and were angered when Bunim's relentless emphasis on youth storylines at the expense of established characters led longtime favorite Eileen Fulton - once the undisputed star of As the World Turns - to quit the role of Lisa in disgust.

From 1985 to 1993, the show was written by Douglas Marland, whose tenure is widely considered to be the second golden age of As the World Turns. After what had been several years of standoffs between Bunim's production office and the cast over long-term story direction, the program was finally returned to its roots under Marland and executive producers Robert Calhoun and later Laurence Caso . Marland wrote the matriarch and partriarch of the Hughes family back into the storyline, bringing back original cast members Helen Wagner and Don MacLaughlin, who had left after a spat with Bunim. Marland's back-to-emotional basics writing -- characterized by psychological authenticity and a deep understanding of family dynamics -- coupled with the successful integration of a new farm family, the Snyders (based on Marland's own large and close-knit family), brought enormous approval from fans and critics alike, and caused the show's ratings to approach the level they had once reached in the 1970s. Marland's storytelling placed the highest value on character development and realism, and he consistently drew fresh material from the show's rich history. Long-unseen characters like Penny Hughes (with Rosemary Prinz returning to the role after a seventeen-year absence) and Susan Stewart (Marie Masters, returning for the first time since 1979) were seen once again, and new storylines rippled from events far in the show's past. Daytime viewers, notoriously equipped with the memories of elephants, heartily approved of Marland's mining of new twists from storylines and characters they remembered from as far back as the 1960s and 1970s. One history-rich storyline shone a spotlight on Kim, who began receiving notes and flowers from a secret admirer. The attention became more and more threatening as Kim tried to decipher who the mystery person was. Meanwhile, Bob's daughter Frannie, played by future movie star Julianne Moore, fell in love with mysterious resturant owner and widower Douglas Cummings. Cummings was revealed to be Kim's stalker and nearly killed Frannie, but Frannie's boyfriend Kevin (played by later primetime star Steven Weber jumped in front of the bullet. Douglas Marland cited this as his favorite storyline. He then dipped into history yet again to have Kim and Bob track down the daughter they long believed was dead, Sabrina, played by Julianne Moore in a dual role.

Marland breathed new life into ever-distraught heroine Barbara Ryan. She dated boring Brian McColl (played by Mark Pinter, her real-life husband) but when he dumped her for another woman, Marland decided to have her abandon her goody-two shoe ways and become a vixen. She tried to break up Tom and Margo but then became involved with, arguably, the love of her life: police detective Hal Munson (Benjamin Hendrickson ). After a one-night stand with Darryl Crawford, Barbara was forced to admit that the baby that was conceived (Jennifer, named after her mother) was not Hal's, and he divorced her. In the 1990s, however, Barbara and Hal were to be married two more times, though their happiness was never long-lived. For the better part of three decades, Barabara's turbulent personal life has seldom strayed from center stage. If her aunt Kim can be said to be one of the great heroines of As the World Turns, Barbara is certainly one of its great anti-heroines: spoiled, selfish, at times cold and haughty, yet underneath it all a painfully wounded and vulnerable woman, and a deeply loyal and loving parent. Decades later, Barbara would become a cartoonish mini-Medea who drove her children to murder and framed them for various crimes.

In 1988 Marland introduced the first gay male character, Hank Elliot, to daytime. Hank was a masculine man who was introduced to the town before revealing his homosexuality. The characters, particularly young teenagers Paul Ryan and Andy Dixon, then had to struggle with their feelings over being around him. Ultimately, when Hank was shot after saving Paul from his nefarious father James, Paul realized what a true friend Hank was. When Hank was written out of the show, Marland almost gave him AIDS, but felt that would send a stereotypical message. Instead he gave Hank's offcamera partner the virus.

Marland had a rule never to introduce new characters until he had been at a series for 6 months and knew the canvas, but many of the new characters that Marland introduced often became every bit as beloved as the old favorites. Many of the stories during this period revolved around Lucinda Walsh (Elizabeth Hubbard; she had been created shortly before Marland arrived at ATWT), a tough-as-nails businesswoman whose tremendous confidence, savvy and success in the boardroom masked a deep pain and vulnerability over her failings as a mother and romantic partner. Her adopted daughter Lily (Martha Byrne) became, in many respects, the emotional centerpiece of the program, as she entered into a series of star-crossed love affairs that took much precedence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although Lily was raised rich, she'd had quite a tough childhood, having seen the man she'd believed to be her father commit suicide at a young age. One day, Lily was told that her close friend and brother-in-law Craig's plane had gone down. Thinking him dead, Lily ran to a barn at the Snyder Farm and wept. Farm hand Rod Landry found her here and shook her, asking what was wrong. At this moment, Lily's biological mother Iva Snyder happened to enter the room. She thought that Rod (whose real identity was Josh Snyder) was trying to rape Lily as he'd raped her, so she grabbed a pitchfork and blurted out that Lily was Rod/Josh's daughter. Emotionally charged scenes like these were characteristic of Marland's tenure.

One of the more puzzling aspects of the Snyder family involved near-incestuous relationships, the most confusing of which involved Lily and Holden (Jon Hensley). Lily was dating safe, kindhearted Dusty Donovan (Brian Bloom ) in 1985 when brooding stable boy Holden Snyder taught her how to ride horses. Sensing a palpable chemistry between Byrne and Hensley, Marland paired them up. The problem was that if Iva was Holden's sister and Lily was Iva's daughter, then Holden was Lily's biological uncle. To straighten out the mess, Marland had Iva learn she had been adopted by Emma and Henry Snyder at a time when they believed they could not conceive children. Another, more controversial story aspect was Meg Snyder falling in love with Josh Snyder in spite of knowing he had raped her sister. Marland revealed Josh had been brutally beaten by his father for years, but some fans still never warmed to the Meg/Josh relationship. Another Snyder story involved real incest, when fey Angel (Alice Haining ) arrived in Oakdale. She had been Caleb's lover while he lived in Chicago, and aborted his child. On the rebound and angry about Caleb's shoddy treatment of Angel, Holden married Angel and they moved to Europe. When they returned a year or so later, Angel refused to give him a divorce even though everyone knew he was in love with Lily. What seemed to be selfishness was actually abject terror of what her father Henry Lange would do to her if she were alone. Sure enough, one night Henry crawled into Angel's bed and forced himself on her, as he had been doing ever since she was a little girl. When Caleb learned the baby Angel had aborted was her own father's, he confronted Henry, who then killed himself out of shame. Caleb stood trial due to his unwillingness to expose Angel's secrets to the world, but finally Angel took the witness stand and confessed the brutality of her father. A few years later, Angel married the eldest Snyder brother, Seth (Steve Bassett ) and they moved to New York City in 1993.

Marland often delved into realistic portrayals of controversial, socially-relevant topics in his storylines. During his tenure, the citizens of Oakdale encountered AIDS, homosexuality, Native American land rights, incest, euthanasia, and menopause, in addition to the more typical soap opera tribulations. Marland always centered his stories around beloved characters and steered away from preaching. As a result, viewers accepted the heavy emphasis on social issues.