Some Impressive Runs

I've recently heard of a couple of long-running programs coming to an end. First off is the NBC series "ER" which began back in 1994. I remember watching this show in 4th grade, yeah that's right 4th grade. It was such an exciting show and at the time you could find no bigger fan than me, even at 10 years old. It launched many careers including the ever-dashing (haha) George Clooney. Once original cast members began to leave, I felt the show started to loss it's luster as the stories at also become somewhat routine. I just sort of lost interest in it all together. I can't remember but I would say that I probably stopped watching it around 1999/2000. After that I forgot about it. A couple of years ago I was watching some TV and heard a commercial for an upcoming episode of ER. I was stunned, I couldn't believe it was still on the air. I thought/assumed it had been cancelled years ago. I was wrong; it was still one of the highest rated shows on television. I was really taken aback when I found out new episodes were being produced. Fast-forward to last night (a bit of a pun) and the final episode of the series aired. After 15 seasons and 331 episodes the show would finally take its curtain call. Because I stopped watching the show years ago, this didn't really make a difference to me, but it has made me think. This show as been on since I was 9 years old, which means it has been on the majority of my life. I remember watching "Must See Thursday Night" on NBC which included Friends at 8, Seinfeld (my unquestioned favorite show of ALL time) at 9, and ER at 10. I just feel sort of like a chapter of my life is ending, despite the fact I stopped watching it long ago. If I think back to events in my life, boom ER was still on, its just a weird thing to think about I guess.

The other show that has announced its finale is the soap opera Guiding Light. This is a show that I have never seen because soap operas make me sick, but I thought it deserved a mention. The show began WAYYYYY back in 1937 on NBC radio until switching to CBS television in 1952. This in effect means that the show has existed for 72 years! It has been on television for 55 years! Those are some pretty amazing numbers, for anything, let alone a program. I really think that soap operas are cheesy and lame but they produced 15,638 television episode alone. Despite the quality of the program, that is a pretty remarkable amount. Think of all the people and man-hours that have gone into this program over the years, it is truly staggering.

I just felt these two programs deserved a bit of a shout-out from yours truly. They both enjoyed long successful runs and that is a pretty hard thing to accomplish these days.