Soap Box: Scandalous De-sudsing at CBS and the Top 5 Fan Reactions

Posted at 1:00 PM Apr 02, 2009

By Kathleen Willcox

The best way to forget your own drama, mama, is to revel in someone else's far more scandal-ridden life. And if you don't happen to have any relatives, co-workers or close pals who have accidentally made out with their siblings, gotten knocked up by their vilest enemy (in disguise!) at midnight on a tempest-strewn beach in what was the most memorably passionate moment of their life, discovered they were angels or attempted to poison their alcoholic fourth husbands by stuffing perfumed kitty litter into their martini-olives every night, well goshdarnit, that's what soap operas are for!

Over here at the Soap Box, we will generally devote this space to keep you abreast (con heaving breasts) of the most ridiculous and sublime plot twists in soap land. However, this inaugural entry is devoted to a suds-related news item so calumnious, so disgusting, its existence can't, nay -- shan't! -- be ignored!

CBS is foolishly putting the kibosh on Guiding Light - the oldest dame on the airwaves, and just a year after giving her a radical facelift. The beloved soap, created by Irna Philips in 1937 after giving birth to a stillborn baby when she was 19 years old and finding inspiration for the tearjerker in the on-air sermons of Preston Bradley, will go dark September 18.

Sob!

The show was responsible for such knuckle-whitening story lines as the love-hate tug o' war between step-sibs/spouses Roger and Holly; Dr. Daniel St. John's murder of his former sister-in-law, Jean Weather, by clapping her in the noggin with a plate she gave him, and Hurricane Katrina. The writers also dragged the specter of post-partum depression, sexual harassment and abuse in all forms out from the shadows, helping countless women grapple with their own demons and realize that, hey, it could always be worse.

During its 72-year run the show garnered 69 Daytime Emmy Awards.

Unsurprisingly, fans are freaking the F out -- here the awesomest reactions from various and sundry online forums (NB: we do not take any responsibility for posters' grasp of grammar and/or punctuation and/or basic spelling):

5. "my first instinct to this news is that it is an april fools joke.

and if by some fluke it actually is true, you're all a bunch of idiots for picking april first to make such an announcement. that's like advertising 101. you don't make branding announcements on april first, because no one is going to believe you.

so...

if it's true, you're jerks for announcing it today.
and if it's not true, then everyone who believes you was a jerk for believing such a story on april fools day."
-- "daunteculpepper"

4. "I'm so disappointed.

This is the one soap that I don't want to miss. If I miss it at the morning time on one station, I watch it in the afternoon on another. These are families that we know, love and identify with. I hope a lot of fans will scream, yell and jump up and down so CBS changes their mind and saves this wonderful program!

PLEASE, we all need to let them know how we feel. This is my first blog about ANYTHING!!"
-- K. Kimble

3. "I have watched Guiding Light since the early 1980's and even runned home from the bus stop to watch.

I record the show when I am not home to watch it. It is my favorite soap on the air. I love the new opening and the new format. It is better than ever. The worst thing that CBS could do would be to cancel it. If they don't want to air it anymore they should try to get another network to air it instead.I think Guiding Light should move to Soapnet. They could air it either during the day or at night. So many current movie stars got their start on the show. There are already too many people unemployed right now. Don't add all these talented people to the rank of the unemployed."
-- DebraAnne1969

2. "I guess that it is time that we cancel a show that isn't truly 'reality' tv...

you know, what fun is it watching deprived lives and storylines about self-destructive people when we can't actually find them telling their story later on on Dr Phil...Guess I still like to play 'pretend'...Guiding Light is my escape from 'reality' as I do hope and pray that my life never gets as bad as my soap characters' lives do...:-) LIVE ON GL!!"
-- grrannimal

1. "NOT FAIR!

this stinks I am so upset about the cancelation of such a great show. There better be babies and weddings not scandles and funerals, let's go out on a happy note please!"
-- Jennifer