As Young & Restless Speeds Toward a Major Change, One Thing Had Better Stay the Same… or Else!
Friday, September 30th, 2022
We’re used to shake-ups. But there are limits.
As fans excitedly anticipate the debut of The Young and the Restless‘ new opening credits — get a sneak peek here — we’re right there with ’em. Who doesn’t love head-turning new glamour shots of our favorites? That’s what we thought — nobody doesn’t love ’em. But…
Oh yes, there is a “but.” When the new credits roll, we’re going to want… Sorry, make that we’re going to need for “Nadia’s Theme” to remain in place. The instrumental, first used in the 1971 movie Bless the Beasts and Children, has served as a siren song for The Young and the Restless viewers since the show premiered two years later. At this point, it’s so synonymous with the soap that all anyone needs to hear are the first notes, and they go, “Oh! Young & Restless.”
Other daytime dramas have tried to reinvent the wheel by changing their theme songs, to mixed results. Another World struck gold when it started using Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris’ “(You Take Me Away to) Another World.” (Admit it — you’re hearing it in your head right this second, aren’t you?) But is anyone, anyone, enamored of the non-tune that General Hospital now uses as it scrolls through standard-issue cast headshots that could’ve been taken on Picture Day in grade school? Yeah, us, either.
Days of Our Lives, on the other hand, has smartly stuck with its classic intro, including its voiceover by the late, great Macdonald Carey (Tom). And that’s what Young & Restless, we hope, will do, too, sticking with “Nadia’s Theme” and giving us the sense of “home” that the show has for so long provided. (Even if that home is filled with bickering couples and connivers galore!)
Go back in time all the way to the beginning of Young & Restless with the below photo gallery that takes the show from its debut all the way to today.
Video: YouTube/Aussiegay34, paulydpower
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
1/77
<p>When <em>The Young and the Restless</em> premiered in 1973, its focus was Brad Elliot (Tom Hallick), a doctor running from a tragic past… right into the arms of pianist Leslie Brooks (Janice Lynde).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/77
<p>Leslie set up her jealous sister Lorie (Jaime Lyn Bauer) with filthy-rich Lance Prentiss (John McCook, now Eric on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>), only to get mixed up in a delightfully messy love quadrangle with the couple and his brother, Lucas.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
3/77
<p>Oh, no. Leslie (Victoria Mallory here) had every reason to think that she was being watched — she <em>was</em>. Lucas (Tom Ligon) and Lance had a mother (K.T. Stevens) who wasn’t so much a helicopter parent as a bomber pilot. And in <em>this</em> photo, Vanessa is being subtle!</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
4/77
<p>Vanessa so despised Lorie that she not only framed her daughter-in-law for her murder, she used words like “trashy” and “amateurish” to describe the author’s “great American novel,” <em>In My Sister’s Shadow.</em></p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
5/77
<p>Stuart’s daughter Chris (Trish Stewart) developed palpipations anytime med student Snapper Foster was around. Eventually, her condition was diagnosed as lovesickness. (There remains no cure.)</p>
6/77
<p>Then again, can ya blame Trish? Snapper was, after all, played by David Hasselhoff.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
7/77
<p>Snapper’s upwardly-mobile sister Jill (then Brenda Dickson) wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty. In fact, it was her preferred method of social climbing.</p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
8/77
<p>We’d mention that Jill’s mother Liz (Julianna McCarthy) disapproved of her willingness to lie, cheat and steal. But we’re pretty confident that you already know, just from looking at this photo.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
9/77
<p>But lonely Katherine Chancellor (the late, great Jeanne Cooper) wanted something besides her jewelry to keep her company. So she made the mistake of hiring Jill to be her companion.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
10/77
<p>If Jill had pocketed a bauble or two, Kay might have overlooked it. But instead, the mantrap seduced both her benefactor’s husband and son, Brock Reynolds (Beau Kayzer).</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
11/77
<p>Mobster Joseph Anthony (Logan Ramsey) and daughter Alana (Amy Gibson) got the shock of their lives when they learned that she hadn’t married milquetoast white guy Robert Tyrone but Tyrone Jackson (Phil Morris), a Black attorney hell-bent on busting the don’s crime syndicate.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
12/77
<p>Snapper and Jill’s brother Greg (Wings Hauser) didn’t know when he married Nikki Reed (Melody Thomas Scott) that he was just her practice husband. She was only getting started on the marry-go-’round.</p>
Image: TV Guide/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
13/77
<p><em>The Young and the Restless</em> was so hot in the late 1970s that <em>TV Guide</em> put Victoria Mallory (another Leslie), Dickson, Bauer and David Hasselhoff (Snapper) on the cover. But what time is <em>WKRP in Cincinnati</em> on?</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
14/77
<p>As they put the “young” in <em>The Young and the Restless</em> in the early 1980s, Andy Richards (Steven Ford), Paul Williams (Doug Davidson) and Danny Romalotti (Michael Damian) looked like they’d just stepped out of a John Hughes movie.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
15/77
<p>The ’80s ushered onto the soap’s canvas the Abbott family: patriarch John (Jerry Douglas) and his kids, insecure Traci (Beth Maitland), gorgeous Ashley (Eileen Davidson) and scheming Jack (the late Terry Lester).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
16/77
<p>No woman in Genoa City was safe from Jack’s seductive charms, not when he set his eyes on “bedroom.” Thankfully, here they are only set on “gazebo.”</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
17/77
<p>As much as Jack loved the ladies, the ladies loved him. He couldn’t even pose for a picture without being photo-bombed by the likes of Carol Robbins (Christopher Templeton) and Lindsey Wells (Lauren Koslow, now Kate on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
18/77
<p>As Danny’s rock career took off, he found himself with as many groupies as Jack did lovers. Among the singer’s entourage were not only Traci but Lauren Fenmore (Tracey E. Bregman), who was a mean girl before there was even a <em>Mean Girls.</em></p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
19/77
<p>As you can see, Lauren wasn’t keen on sharing Danny. She probably wasn’t too eager to share mousse, either, so we have no idea how both she and her boo managed to pull off their amazing ’80s coiffures.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
20/77
<p>Traci was destined for other adventures, like marriage to her family’s former gardener, a successful career as a novelist and becoming Genoa City’s gentle voice of reason.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
21/77
<p>Danny seemed to go from one love triangle to the next. After vying with Jill’s son Phillip Chancellor (Thom Bierdz) for the affections of teenage Jabot model Cricket Blair (Lauralee Bell), Genoa City’s answer to Rick Springfield wound up battling Paul for her.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
22/77
<p>Danny and Cricket also ran afoul of David Kimble (Michael Corbett), the murderous gold digger who married Phillip’s “widow” Nina Webster for — well, <em>duh</em> — her money.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
23/77
<p>We only wish we looked, never mind <em>were</em>, half as excited about dusting as Katherine’s housekeeper, Esther Valentine (Kate Linder).</p>
Image: CBS
24/77
<p>Did somebody order a doppelganger? Somehow diner waitress Marge Cotroke convinced everyone — for a while, anyway — that she wasn’t Flo from <em>Alice</em> but the inimitable Katherine.</p>
Image: Columbia Tristar/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
25/77
<p>… is another woman’s treasure. Jill thought that she was sticking it to Katherine by dressing up Danny’s no-good father Rex Sterling (Quinn Redeker) as an appropriately fancypants beau. But the couple overcame the lie to find true love.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
26/77
<p>After getting an eyeful of Nikki going all Gypsy Rose Lee at the Bayou, new mogul in town Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) decided to turn her into a society dame. At the same time, his heart was slowly realizing that it had no choice but to also make her his bride.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
27/77
<p>They say that you never forget your first time — and in Victor and Nikki’s case, they mean the first time you marry each other. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the last, not by a long shot.</p>
Image: Courtesy Everett Collection
28/77
<p>For years, <em>The Young and the Restless</em> played Victor’s push/pull between his favorite wives, Ashley and Nikki. How could the show not? It would take a <em>lot</em> of shampoo for either of them to wash that man right outta their hair.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
29/77
<p>As he built up Newman Enterprises, Victor earned a reputation as one of… OK, <em>the</em> most cutthroat tycoon in town. No wonder Jack dubbed him the Black Knight and not, say, Prince Smiles-a-Lot.</p>
Image: Geraldine Overton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
30/77
<p>While presumed dead by his loved ones back in Genoa City, Victor did what any sensible person would — and began a new life for himself in Kansas with blind farmer Hope Wilson (Signy Coleman).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
31/77
<p>Once future Emmy winner Heather Tom (now Katie on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>) joined the cast as Victor and Nikki’s daughter, Victoria made herself comfortable in her new permanent home: the front burner.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
32/77
<p>Victoria was smitten from the start with baby-faced would-be businessman Ryan McNeil (Scott Reeves). But not only couldn’t he tie a tie, he couldn’t commit — and kept gravitating back toward Nina Chancellor, a “widow” with as much money as Victoria and <em>way</em> fewer hang-ups.</p>
Image: Columbia Tristar/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
33/77
<p>Brad Carlton (Don Diamont, now Bill on <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em>) went from tending to John’s garden to marrying his daughters to occupying a corner office at his cosmetics company to… aw. A watery grave.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
34/77
<p>Not all of the attention that Brad got from the ladies — and he got a <em>lot</em> of it — was wanted. For instance, he could have done without being locked in a cage by an obsessed Lisa Mansfield (Lynne Harbaugh). And if ya think <em>that’s</em> bad…</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
35/77
<p>Shawn Garrett (Grant Cramer) became so fixated on Lauren that he buried his favorite singer alive. And it wasn’t like she knew any good funeral dirges!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
36/77
<p>Victor went apoplectic when Victoria (now Amelia Heinle) took up with archenemy Jack’s kid brother, Billy (then Billy Miller). The Mustache even went so far as to have his own daughter arrested on her wedding day!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
37/77
<p>There was no fooling Victor. He didn’t like Victoria being with Billy any more with Jason Thompson playing the part than he had when Billy Miller was.</p>
Image: Monty Brinton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
38/77
<p>Fine, fine, Victor. We’ll move along…</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
39/77
<p>While Victoria was marrying her way through one Billy after another, brother Nick (Joshua Morrow) seemed to have eyes for only one young woman. And she was…</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
40/77
<p>When rich boy Nick fell for poor girl Sharon Collins (Sharon Case), it was all over for him. He was in it for life. Well, except for one thing…</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
41/77
<p>After Nick and Sharon lost daughter Cassie, their marriage frayed… to the point that he didn’t stop at just having eye sex with Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford).</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
42/77
<p>Though introduced as a beach-going himbo, Paul matured into one of the most honorable fellas in Genoa City. And during his time as a private eye, there wasn’t a case that he couldn’t crack like it was a walnut.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
43/77
<p>In 1991, Neil Winters (the late Kristoff St. John) was but an ambitious executive trainee at Jabot. How far he’d go before he was, sadly, gone.</p>
Image: Monty Brinton/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
44/77
<p>When feisty Drucilla Barber (Victoria Rowell) needed to manufacture a boyfriend as part of a harebrained plot to steal her sister’s man, she recruited level-headed Neil — and wound up getting the better part of the deal!</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
45/77
<p>Neil wound up with a rival when he was reunited with long-lost sibling Malcolm (Shemar Moore). So into Dru was the hunk that he had sex with her while she was too high on medication to realize that he wasn’t her husband. Not cool, bro.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
46/77
<p>Though Malcolm turned out to be the father of Dru’s daughter, Lily, they let Neil believe that he was the one who needed to go to all of the girl’s parent/teacher nights. Also not cool, bro.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
47/77
<p>Lily (Christel Khalil) turned out to have a knack for attracting trouble, whether it was Internet predator Kevin Fisher, porn addict Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei) or…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
48/77
<p>Fans rooted like crazy for Lily to make it work with Cane Ashby (Daniel Goddard). But when the Aussie wasn’t being duped (by everyone from Amber Moore to Chloe Mitchell), lying about his identity (Phillip Chancellor… as if!) or playing dead, he was locking lips and then some with a host of women who were not his wife.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
49/77
<p>As big a handful as Lily may have been, she had nothing on her adopted brother, Devon Hamilton (Bryton James), who carried on with ill-fated true love Hilary Curtis (Mishael Morgan) behind the back of her husband — his dad, Neil. Did we mention that Neil was <em>blind</em> at the time? Insert face-palm here.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
50/77
<p>“Evil” wasn’t actually a part of Nurse Sheila Carter’s name, but that was how everyone referred to Kimberlin Brown’s she-devil after she stole both Lauren’s husband and son and attempted to overcook her.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2)
51/77
<p>We couldn’t include a picture of one of Lauren and Sheila’s infamous smackdowns here, because once they got started, their fists were flying too quickly to be captured in a still.</p>
Image: Cliff Lipson/CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
52/77
<p>Or the offense. Either way. Once the erstwhile Cricket dealt with legal mentor Michael Baldwin’s sexual harassment and subsequent obsession, she became a respected attorney. And also, at one point, Michael’s fiancée. We didn’t get it, either. </p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
53/77
<p>Keeping a cake from melting in the heat looked a lot easier for Danny and Christine on their wedding day than it ever does on <em>The Great British Baking Show.</em></p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
54/77
<p>Years (<em>and</em> years) before making hay with Nick, Phyllis was introduced to the canvas as the Danny superfan who went so far as to switch paternity tests to make the happily-hitched rocker believe that he was the father of her son, Daniel. (You remember, the porn junkie on the beach with Lily a few images ago… )</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
55/77
<p>Phyllis was so enraged by the way that the Bug, as she always called Cricket, assumed she was guilty of everything — which, um, she was — that the troublemaker attempted to make roadkill of Christine and subsequent fiancé Paul. Note: This is not a picture of that; all Paul and Chris were in danger of here was getting sand in their nether regions.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
56/77
<p>As part of his sick plan to earn a second chance with Christine, Michael turned loose on Paul seductress Isabella Brana (future <em>Desperate Housewives</em> star Eva Longoria), who turned out to be as mad as a hatter. Assuming that that hatter has serious mental issues.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
57/77
<p>The romance of Billy (then David Tom) and Mackenzie Browning (Kelly Kruger) outraged his mother, Jill, as much as it delighted Mac’s grandma, Katherine. Of course, everyone was mortified during the hot second that it was believed that the sweethearts were related.</p>
Image: CBS/Getty Images
58/77
<p>No, this isn’t Billy, Mac (original portrayer Ashley Bashioum), Rianna Miner (Alexis Thorpe), T.J. Hellstrom (Thad Luckinbill), Raul Gutierrez (David Lago) and Brittany Hodges (Lauren Woodland) accepting an award for Best Synchronized Dressing. The show was recognized for its Raul-centric diabetes storyline.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
59/77
<p>Only when Nina’s son Chance Chancellor (then John Driscoll) returned to Genoa City in 2009 did either of them learn that Phillip hadn’t died all those years ago, he’d merely faked his untimely passing rather than disclose his sexual orientation.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
60/77
<p>That is, unless you’re Keemo Volien (Philip Moon), the son of Jack and his Vietnam War-era sweetheart. Then, you’re just kinda forgotten for decades in favor of flashy new relatives like Theo Vanderway.</p>
Image: CBS/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
61/77
<p>Maybe all these years, Jack (now Peter Bergman) has been too busy waging war with Victor — and sleeping his way up one side of Genoa City and down the other — to keep in touch with Keemo. Heck, for all we know, they Zoom weekly.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
62/77
<p>Taking after dad Jack, Kyle (Michael Mealor) went from being married to Nick and Phyllis’ daughter Summer Newman (Hunter King) to being married to Lola Rosales to being married to Summer again so fast, he was practically roommates with his divorce attorney.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
63/77
<p>Paul’s poor sister Patty (Stacy Haiduk, now Kristen on <em>Days of Our Lives</em>) was so wrecked by Jack’s betrayal in the 1980s that she let Victor buy her plastic surgery in order to resemble her shrink and return to Genoa City to upend her ex-husband’s life.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
64/77
<p>Nah. It’s just another casual moment at home for the Baldwins, mostly reformed bad girl Lauren and semi-reformed pot-stirrer Michael (Christian Jules LeBlanc). We’ll… uh… we’ll close the door on our way to the next photo…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
65/77
<p>Since Michael was reunited with half brother Kevin (Greg Rikaart), he’s done his damnedest to do right by the guy. In turn, Kevin has mostly cleaned up his act and formed a family of his own with occasional scheme queen Chloe (Elizabeth Hendrickson).</p>
Image: Jesse Grant/JPI
66/77
<p>The feud between Jill (Jess Walton) and Katherine spanned decades. Yet, in the end, it turned out that beneath all that hatred was… Who’da think it? A lotta love.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
67/77
<p>It’s always been tough for the Newmans to get this close for a family photo without someone getting stabbed in the back. In this 2012 effort, we’d say that Nick and Sharon’s son Noah (Robert Adamson) and Victor and Ashley’s daughter Abby (then Emme Rylan, now Lulu on <em>General Hospital</em>) were probably safe… and just out of reach were Victor and Hope’s son Adam (then Michael Muhney) and his then-wife Chelsea (Melissa Claire Egan).</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
68/77
<p>If Victor and Jack are looking this chummy, it’s a safe bet that the former has replaced the latter with another identical drug lord, as he did in 2015. Oh, what? Like you’ve never substituted one <em>your</em> nemeses with a pliable alternative?</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
69/77
<p>When Chelsea was reunited with Adam in 2014, he had the face of future primetime star Justin Hartley. The character had had a [bleep] ton of plastic surgery, we were told. But when Adam was reintroduced in 2019 with Mark Grossman’s handsome mug… um… we guess that was just a happy side effect of his stay in Vegas?</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
70/77
<p>Though Adam and Sharon still felt that old pull to one another, their painful past kinda checkmated any chance that they might have had at a future.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
71/77
<p>In 2018, much like when the Abbotts and Williamses stepped in for the Brookses and Fosters, <em>The Young and the Restless</em> thrust into the spotlight the Rosales clan: GCPD detective Rey (Jordi Vilasuso), top chef Lola (Sasha Calle) and contractor Arturo (Jason Canela), whose fling with Nikki will always have been ended too quickly for our taste. The lady loves Victor, but she also likes her boy toys!</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
72/77
<p>To Sharon’s surprise, late daughter Cassie turned out to have a lookalike sister Mariah Copeland (Camryn Grimes), who wound up getting serious with half brother Noah’s girlfriend, Tessa Porter (Cait Fairbanks). The couple eventually gave<em> Young & Restless</em> its first-ever same-sex wedding.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
73/77
<p>The marriage of Victoria and Ashland Locke (Richard Burgi) seemed like a perfectly sensible merger. Aside from the fact that the groom was letting his bride believe that he was dying of cancer when he wasn’t.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
74/77
<p>Devon was committed to Hilary’s twin sister, Amanda Sinclair. Abby was married to Chance. So, of course, they had sex outta nowhere and blew up all of their lives.</p>
Image: CBS
75/77
<p>Diane Jenkins rose from the grave looking not like her first portrayer or her most recent but like her second, Susan Walters. As you can see, this confused Jack a great deal.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
76/77
<p>After being <span style="text-decoration: line-through">written off <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em></span> run out of L.A., Sally Spectra (Courtney Hope) turned over a new leaf and let love blossom between herself and Adam. The bloom was off the rose, however, when he sacrificed their relationship to save her job and sent her running into the arms of…</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
77/77
