50 Fun Facts About The Young and the Restless

On which network has The Young and the Restless aired since its debut?

It is taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood and was created for the network to compete with ABC's youthful soaps.

What is the name of the fictional Wisconsin town where the show is set?

It's named after a real village that lay between the Bells' Chicago home and their summer spot at Lake Geneva.

The real town the show is named after lies on which US highway near the Illinois–Wisconsin line?

The village had a population of just under 3,000 in 2020 and sat between the Bells' Chicago home and their summer spot at Lake Geneva.

Which married couple created the show?

Bell wrote the show from Chicago while it was produced in Los Angeles, and stayed head writer until his 1998 retirement.

What was the show's working title before it became The Young and the Restless?

Bell said young America had 'lost much of its innocence', and the final title better 'reflected the youth and mood of the early seventies'.

The show premiered on March 26 of which year?

It inherited its cancelled predecessor's low ratings before climbing fast.

Which soap did The Young and the Restless replace on the CBS schedule in 1973?

Its later expansion to an hour in 1980 displaced Love of Life, and its 1981 move to 12:30 pushed Search for Tomorrow to NBC.

The show expanded from a half-hour to a full hour on February 4 of which year?

Bell blamed the change for the show's temporary slide from number one, because many actors' contracts only covered a half-hour show and they left.

Which two core families did the show originally revolve around?

The wealthy Brooks and working-class Foster families were phased out in the early 1980s in favour of the Abbotts and Williamses.

Who is the only original character still on the show, having survived the early-1980s clear-out?

Jill debuted as an 18-year-old manicurist. Brenda Dickson originated the role and Jess Walton has played it since 1987.

The feud between Jill Abbott and Katherine Chancellor holds what record?

It began with Jill's affair with Katherine's husband Phillip Chancellor II and ran for four decades.

Which actress played Katherine Chancellor for nearly 40 years, until five days before her death in 2013?

Her real-life son appeared as the priest at Katherine's on-screen memorial.

What real medical procedure did Katherine's actress have on camera in 1984?

It has been called daytime television's first 'extreme makeover'.

Which L.A. Law star is the son of the actress who played Katherine Chancellor?

Cooper won her first competitive Daytime Emmy in 2008, nineteen years after her first nomination.

How long was Eric Braeden's Victor Newman originally supposed to last on the show?

Bell wrote him as 'a despicable, contemptible, unfaithful wife abuser' to be killed off, then rewrote everything after seeing Braeden's first performance.

Eric Braeden was born in Germany under what name?

His early credits used his birth name; he played German officers in Combat! and The Rat Patrol before joining the soap.

Which real-life millionaire did Eric Braeden play in the 1997 film Titanic?

He also played Dr. Otto Hasslein in Escape from the Planet of the Apes and won his Daytime Emmy in 1998.

What is the name of Victor's worldwide conglomerate?

His backstory has him born in Buffalo, New York, and left in an orphanage at seven.

Victor Newman was born under what name, according to his backstory?

His mother Cora put him in an orphanage in Buffalo when he was seven; he left as a teenager and built an empire.

What was Nikki Reed's profession when she was introduced in 1978?

Erica Hope originated the part; Melody Thomas Scott took over in 1979 and has played Nikki ever since.

Melody Thomas Scott's first screen credit as a child was in which 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film?

She later became the last actress to exchange lines with John Wayne, in The Shootist.

Who has played Jack Abbott since November 1989, after Terry Lester quit the role?

Bergman had just been fired from All My Children, where he was Dr. Cliff Warner.

Which two 'insignificant' characters did Bell build the show's new 1980s core families around?

Bell said of them: 'They didn't have families. Hell, they didn't even have bedrooms.'

Which villain, presumed dead in a fire, was crossed over in 1992 to Bell's second soap?

Kimberlin Brown played her for 16 years across both shows. In 2006 the character got plastic surgery to look like Phyllis Summers.

Which sister soap, also created by Bell, regularly shares actors and crossovers with Y&R?

Bell co-created it with his son Bradley Bell. In March 2020 it briefly knocked Y&R off the number-one spot after 32 years.

What is the title of the show's opening music, used since 1973?

It was written for the 1971 film Bless the Beasts and Children and only got its familiar title after ABC used it over footage of gymnast Nadia Comăneci at the 1976 Olympics.

The theme was originally composed under what title, for the 1971 film Bless the Beasts and Children?

Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin Jr. wrote it; Botkin rearranged it for the show's debut.

Nadia Comăneci never performed her floor routine to 'her' theme. What did she actually use?

ABC's Wide World of Sports had simply laid the tune over a montage of her 1976 Olympic routines.

How many Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series has the show won?

In total the serial has collected 165 Daytime Emmys from 360 nominations.

Which long-time ratings leader did Y&R dethrone as the top-rated soap in the 1988–89 season?

It then held the number-one position solo until 2020, more than 1,500 consecutive weeks.

What broadcasting milestone did Y&R reach on June 27, 2001, ahead of every other soap?

Its sister show was the last soap to make the switch, in September 2011.

Which two popular game shows was Y&R scheduled against at noon in 1973, both cancelled by 1975?

Art Fleming's original Jeopardy! and Allen Ludden's Password both fell as the young soap surged to third in the ratings by 1975–76.

Which Desperate Housewives star got her start on The Young and the Restless?

Other alumni include Tom Selleck and Paul Walker.

Which Baywatch actor is among the celebrities whose careers began on the show?

Guest stars over the years have included Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Wayne Gretzky and Enrique Iglesias.

Which Criminal Minds star played Malcolm Winters after being introduced as a love interest in the 1990s?

The Barber and Winters families were introduced in 1990 as the show's core Black characters, starting with Drucilla Barber and Olivia Winters.

Which character is considered 'the first to discover sex on a soap opera'?

William Gray Espy's character was engaged to Chris Brooks while sleeping with Sally McGuire, a plot unheard of in 1973 daytime.

Which character underwent the first mastectomy ever shown on a soap opera?

The show also broke ground with storylines about bulimia, alcoholism and rape told from the survivor's perspective.

How many actors did Bell and producer John Conboy audition for the original 13 main roles?

They assembled the youngest cast ever put on a soap, mostly unknown 'glamorous model types' chosen partly for chemistry.

Under what title does the show air in France, on TF1 since 1989?

In Italy it was Febbre d'amore and in Turkey Yalan Rüzgarı, 'The Wind of Lies', chosen to keep the Y&R initials.

In 1988, what share of Trinidadians and Tobagonians with a television watched the show daily?

It has aired there weekdays since the 1980s and remains a fixture in the Caribbean.

The show aired its 13,000th episode on November 13 of which year?

Episode 12,000 had aired on December 1, 2020, in the middle of the COVID production shutdown era.

What visual innovation set the show apart from other soaps when it debuted?

Producer John Conboy's dark, shadowy 'artistic effects' influenced the look of other soaps; his successor H. Wesley Kenney brightened things up.

The 2003 twist that Jill was Katherine's long-lost daughter was undone in 2009 by which head writer?

Katherine was given a different son, Tucker McCall, and Jill was later revealed to be the daughter of Neil Fenmore.

Which look-alike, played by the same actress, was switched with Katherine Chancellor?

It was Marge, not Katherine, who died in a November 2008 episode.

From which city did William J. Bell write the show while it was taped in Los Angeles?

Bell stayed head writer from the 1973 debut until his retirement in 1998, working from home far from the studio.

Which Australian broadcaster carried The Young and the Restless from 1974 until 2007?

It later moved to W and then to Arena, where it follows Days of Our Lives.

Under what title has The Young and the Restless aired in Italy?

Italian viewers saw it on Italia 1, Rete 4 and Canale 5 at various points between 1983 and 2009.

How does Canada's Global Television Network schedule new episodes relative to the US broadcast?

Most Global stations use the soap as a late-afternoon lead-in to their local newscasts.

Drucilla Barber and Olivia Winters were introduced in 1990 as the nieces of which character?

Mamie was the Abbotts' maid, and the Barber and Winters families became the show's core Black families in the 1990s.

What did the show launch the day before its 50th season premiered in 2022?

The audio episodes went out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Stitcher.