Thursday, November 17, 2016

Throwback to...the wedding of Luke & Laura of General Hospital

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Folks…there is a very important anniversary this month. That’s right...Exactly 35 years ago on November 17, 1981, Luke and Laura got married on General Hospital. (Take a moment to absorb that sad reality of this happening 35 years ago and then read on.)

If you grew up in the era when this show was “everything”, then you know what a BIG DEAL it was. Luke and Laura may have been the original "super couple" of the soap opera world. Their wedding was a major cultural event that was covered in magazines like TIME and People. Elizabeth Taylor was a guest star. The…Elizabeth Taylor. The wedding was the culmination of years in the making. There were wild adventures leading up to it, including the evil Cassidines trying to “freeze” Port Charles in the summer, which included a Romancing The Stone-like plot of Luke, Laura and super spy Robert Scorpio on a tropical island as they tried to save the world.

Actually, all of General Hospital was pretty much the bomb back then. Luke and Laura were not the only storyline that fascinated people. Monica & Alan Quartermaine, Dr. Noah Drake (played by the dreamy Rick Springfield who is still pretty hot) and Bobbie Spencer, crazy Heather trying to kill people, hospital shenanigans. There was even a rap about it. Everyone I knew at that time used to race home from school to watch it.


But that wedding…OMG…that wedding was the Best Ever. Looking through videos for this blog, I found a news story that mentioned 30 million people watched the wedding when it aired. It was the largest audience in daytime television history. I think shows today would kill for that kind of rating for one episode. A couple years later, Laura “died”, but she did return a couple years later, alive and well. Even that spawned memorable moments. It featured a song (Think of Laura) that became a huge hit on the radio. The reunion was a full on tearjerker. I admit I actually got a little emotional when I stumbled on the YouTube videos of those episodes and watched them again.  



Do you remember the Big Wedding? Did you watch it? Do you think anything like that could happen today or is TV too spread out over different channels?


Want more Throwback memories? Download my list of the best 80s-90s movies you must watch again. See if yours made the list or feel free to suggest one that I missed.


  
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2016 at 8:39 PM

    Worked at military hospital in Aleutian Islands. The whole building brought food and we had extended lunch so everyone could watch it at work It was great!

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    1. Kristin WallaceNovember 18, 2016 at 10:44 AM

      Now that's cool. The only time I group-watched with other was in college. We'd watch GH in the common room. But that was later after the Luke & Laura era.

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