The Young and the Restless turns 40

The Young and the Restless is celebrating its 40th Anniversary (wouldn’t that mean it is now a bit of a misnomer?).

The CBS soap, which premiered on March 26, 1973, has been America’s top-rated daytime series for more than 24 consecutive years and received 113 Daytime Emmy Awards -more than any other daytime drama.

In the US the cast and producers will celebrate today on the show’s CBS Television City sound stage.

Eric Braeden, who plays Victor Newman and has been on the show for 33 years.

“To be frank, I haven’t taken notice of it,” said Braeden. “You don’t have that luxury when you work as hard as we do. The other day, we did 68 pages. We usually do between 80 and 100 pages a day. This is really the hardest medium there is, and every day we have to deal with an enormous amount of dialogue and pages.”

Melody Thomas Scott, who plays Nikki Newman and has been married 13 times, said the show’s appeal is “due to a combination of things,” said Scott. “It all starts with the writing. Bill (creator William J. Bell) really set the tone there. There has to be a little bit of luck. And then there’s this elusive thing — chemistry. There’s this incredible chemistry between Eric and I that no one can explain.”

The show still airs in Africa weekdays on e.TV (DStv channel 250) at 3:40pm WAT.