Q 01/05

Which consumer-goods giant produced 20 soap operas, including Guiding Light, and gave the genre its name?

A) Johnson & Johnson

B) Procter & Gamble

C) Lever Brothers

D) Colgate-Palmolive

Answer · why

B) Procter & Gamble

The label was coined by the 1930s press because radio serials were bankrolled by detergent makers; the same company returned to daytime in 2025 as a p...

Q 02/05

Painted Dreams, regarded as the first soap opera, premiered on WGN radio in 1930 in which city?

A) Los Angeles

B) New York

C) Chicago

D) Cincinnati

Answer · why

C) Chicago

It ran in a daytime slot aimed at housewives and was written by and starred its own creator, who played the widowed Mother Moynihan.

Q 03/05

Which creator of Guiding Light and As the World Turns was dubbed the 'Queen of the Soaps'?

A) Claire Labine

B) Agnes Nixon

C) Lee Phillip Bell

D) Irna Phillips

Answer · why

D) Irna Phillips

She also created These Are My Children in 1949, the first serial broadcast on a major American TV network, which lasted just one month.

Q 04/05

Counting radio, roughly how long did Guiding Light run before ending in September 2009?

A) 48 years

B) 85 years

C) 72 years

D) 57 years

Answer · why

C) 72 years

It began on NBC radio in January 1937 and moved to CBS television in 1952, making it the longest-running American soap opera of all.

Q 05/05

Guiding Light's Bauer, Spaulding and Lewis families lived in which fictional town?

A) Bay City

B) Springfield

C) Pine Valley

D) Oakdale

Answer · why

B) Springfield

The 2000s briefly split the action between the town and a fictional island nation called San Cristobel.