‘WORLD’ TURNS 10,000 TIMES

“As the World Turns” celebrates its 10,000th episode this month, with an episode that included flashbacks to past shows, which concentrated on AIDS, interracial romance, rape and many other topical story lines. The only remaining original cast member, Helen Wagner, who plays Nancy McClosky, opened the anniversary episode with the line, “Good morning, darling,” which was the opening line on the show’s first air show April 2, 1956 (also delivered by Wagner). At the end of the celebration, everyone partied at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Broadway in New York City.

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It’s baseball season again and Peter Bergman, who plays Jack Abbott on “The Young and the Restless,” is jumping on the bandwagon. After years of coaching his son Connor’s basketball team, Bergman has decided to give little league baseball instruction a try.

Fortunately, there has been no adjusting--nor conflict for that matter--for young Connor having his dad as coach. “Actually, it’s a great asset to Connor, because, of course, he has total support from the bench,” says Bergman.

For me, the great challenge is not to show any favoritism or anything like that, but I haven’t found that very difficult,” Bergman adds. “Connor plays well, although he is a better basketball player than he is a baseball player. I’ve got a couple of baseball players on the team that are real good.”

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The powers that be at Procter & Gamble have done a little shuffling behind the scenes at “Another World” and “Guiding Light.”

During the latter part of April there had been much talk about the sudden disappearance of executive producer Jill Farren Phelps from “Guiding Light.”

While it is true that Farren Phelps had departed “Guiding Light” around mid-April, it was recently announced that she would be taking over as executive producer of “Another World,” replacing John Valente (he joined the show this past January).

Taking over the slot vacated by Farren Phelps is Michael Laibson, who has an 18-year association with Procter & Gamble.

Laibson began his career on “Guiding Light” as coordinator in 1977, and became the associate producer shortly after. He left “Guiding Light” in 1981 to take over as producer of “As the World Turns” (also a Procter & Gamble soap drama).

In 1988, Laibson took over as executive producer of “Another World,” which as far as long-time viewers were concerned, was one of the show’s best periods (he left in 1993).

Phelps began her daytime career as a production assistant on “Guiding Light,” then moved on to become music director on “General Hospital” (1977-84).

She joined “Santa Barbara” in the same capacity when the show debuted in 1984. From there, Phelps became executive producer of “Santa Barbara” (1987-1990) before joining “Guiding Light” in 1991.