Classic Television - Weekdays

Another World

Original channel

NBC

Original run

May 4, 1964 – June 25, 1999

Starring

Series cast

Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC for 35 years from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J. Bell, and was produced by Procter & Gamble Productions at NBC Studios, 1268 East 14th Street in Brooklyn.

Set in the fictional town of Bay City, the show in its early years opens with announcer Bill Wolff (1964–1987) intoning its epigram, “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds,” which Phillips said represented the difference between “the world of events we live in, and the world of feelings and dreams that we strive for.”  Another World focused less on the conventional drama of domestic life as seen in other soap operas, and more on exotic melodrama between families of different classes and philosophies.

In 1964, Another World was the first soap opera to talk about abortion when such subjects were taboo. It was the first soap opera to do a crossover, with the character of Mike Bauer from Guiding Light, which was also created by Irna Phillips, coming from Springfield to Bay City. It was also the first to expand to one hour, then to ninety minutes, and then back to an hour. It was the first soap to launch two spin-offs, Somerset and Texas, as well as an indirect one, Lovers and Friends, which would be renamed For Richer, For Poorer. Another World was also the first soap opera with a theme song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, "(You Take Me Away To) Another World" by Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris, in 1987. In 1999, it was announced that NBC had cancelled Another World. Shortly after its conclusion, it was replaced by another soap opera, Passions.