Days of Our Lives

History

The Cordays and Bell combined the "hospital soap" idea with the tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital. Storylines in the show follow the lives of middle- and upper-class professionals in Salem, a middle-America town, with the usual threads of love, marriage, divorce, and family life, plus the medical storylines and character studies of individuals with psychological problems. Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters' passion, saying that the characters were not shy about "sharing what's in their gut."

Critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia (in contrast to shows such as As the World Turns) and its portrayal of "real American contemporary families." By the 1970s, critics deemed Days of Our Lives to be the most daring daytime drama, leading the way in using themes other shows of the period would not dare touch, such as artificial insemination and interracial romance. The January 12, 1976, cover of Time magazine featured Days of Our Lives' Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, the only daytime actors ever to appear on its cover. The Hayeses themselves were a couple whose on-screen and real-life romance (they met on the series in 1970 and married in 1974) was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press.

In the 1990s, the show branched out into supernatural storylines, which critics immediately panned, as it was seen as a departure from more realistic storylines for which the show had originally become known. However, these storylines did have the desired effect, making Days of Our Lives the most-watched daytime soap among young and middle-aged women, also becoming one of NBC's five most profitable shows in any time slot. In 2006, when asked about his character, Jack Deveraux, "coming back from the dead"—for the third time—actor Matthew Ashford responded, "It is hard to play that because at a certain point it becomes too unreal...actors look at that and think, 'What is this — the Cartoon Network'?" (Ironically, Jack – with Ashford in the role – would be killed off for a fourth time in an explosion-related elevator failure in August 2012, only to be brought from the dead once more in December 2018.)

In addition to receiving critical acclaim in print journalism, the series has won many awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Best Drama in 1978 and 2013 and a Writers Guild of America, East Award for Best Drama in 2000 and 2013. Days of Our Lives actors have also won awards: Macdonald Carey (Dr. Tom Horton) won Best Actor in 1974 and 1975. Susan Flannery (Laura Horton) and Eileen Davidson (Kristen DiMera) won Best Actress in 1975 and 2014, respectively. Suzanne Rogers (Maggie Horton), Leann Hunley (Anna DiMera), and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won Best Supporting Actress for, respectively, 1979, 1986, and 2009 and Billy Warlock (Frankie Brady) won Best Younger Actor for 1988. In 2009, Darin Brooks (Max Brady) took home the Emmy for Best Younger Actor", and Tamara Braun (Ava Vitali) won for Best Supporting Actress, the show's first acting victories in over 21 and 23 years, respectively

Notable storylines

When Days of Our Lives premiered in 1965, the show revolved around the tragedies and triumphs of the suburban Horton family. Over time, additional families were brought into the show to interact with the Hortons and serve as springboards for more dramatic storylines. Originally led by patriarch Dr. Tom Horton and his wife, homemaker Alice, the Hortons remain a prominent fixture in current continuity. One of the longest-running story lines involved the rape of Mickey Horton's wife Laura by Mickey's brother Bill. Laura confides in her father-in-law Dr. Tom, and the two agree that her husband Mickey should never know. The secret, involving the true parentage of Michael Horton (a product of the rape) and Mickey's subsequent health issues as a result of the revelation, spanned episodes from 1968 to 1975. This plot line was made even more complex with the presence of Linda Patterson (originally Margaret Mason for many years, later Elaine Princi) who claimed that her daughter Melissa had been fathered by Mickey. When Mickey married the lovely Maggie Simmons (Suzanne Rogers), Linda became even more involved in the story line as the show's main villainess, marrying the wealthy Bob Anderson (Mark Tapscott) and taking over the running of Anderson Manufacturing when he became ill. The story line involving Mickey, Laura and Bill was the first to bring the show to prominence, and put it near the top of the Nielsen daytime ratings. Another love triangle, between lounge singer Doug Williams, Tom and Alice's daughter Addie, and Addie's own daughter, Julie, proved to be popular around the same time. The storyline culminated in the death of Addie in 1974 and the marriage of Doug and Julie in 1976.

In the early 1980s, the Brady and DiMera families were introduced, and their rivalry quickly cemented their places as core families in Salem beside the Hortons. Around the same time, with the help of head writers Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, action/adventure story lines and supercouples such as Bo and Hope, Shane and Kimberly, and Patch and Kayla reinvigorated the show, previously focused primarily on the domestic troubles of the Hortons. Since the 1990s, with the introduction of writer James E. Reilly, Days of Our Lives has moved from traditional plots to some supernatural and science-fiction-themed stories, in conjunction with the rivalry of good vs. evil, in a Hatfield/McCoy feud style the Bradys versus the DiMeras. Under the tenure of Reilly, ratings rose to number two, and stayed there until he left in 1999 to start his own creation of Passions. Despite the introduction of new head writer Hogan Sheffer in 2006, ratings failed to revive, which led the show's producers to hire a few past fan favorites to stop the ratings hemorrhage.

Best-remembered stories

In addition to the love triangles of Bill/Laura/Mickey and Addie/Doug/Julie, other memorable storylines include the 1968 story of amnesiac Tom Horton Jr., who returns from Korea believing he is someone else and then proceeds to romance his younger sister Marie; the 20-year tragic love triangle when John Black has an affair with Marlena Brady, who is married to Roman; the 1982 "Salem Strangler" (Jake Kositchek, who was nicknamed "Jake the Ripper") who stalks and murders women; the 1984 Gone with the Wind story line in which Hope Williams Brady and Bo Brady hide out on a Southern plantation and dress up as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler (devised to keep viewers tuned in while rival network ABC's soaps were preempted due to the 1984 Summer Olympics); and "The Cruise of Deception" in 1990, when madman Ernesto Toscano invites all his enemies aboard a ship, the S.S. Loretta, and holds them captive.

In 1992, the show was retooled with additions such as refurbished sets, the debut of the Brady Pub, the addition of new characters such as Vivian Alamain, Lisanne Gardner, Billie Reed, and Kate Roberts. Later that same year, Days of Our Lives introduced its highly popular teen scene with new characters such as Carrie Brady, played by Tracy Middendorf, and then back to Christie Clark again; a SORASed Sami Brady, played by Alison Sweeney; Lucas Roberts played by Bryan Dattilo; Austin Reed portrayed by Patrick Muldoon and later, Austin Peck; Abe Carver's younger brother Jonah Carver, played by Thyme Lewis; Jamie Caldwell, played by Miriam Parish; and Wendy Reardon played by Tammy Townsend. These additions were to appeal to younger viewers. By 1997, the romantic dilemmas of Carrie, Austin, Mike, and Sami, and the Will Horton paternity issue and custody battle storylines had become a focal point of the series.

The shocking and ratings-grabbing 1993 plot when Vivian Alamain buried Dr. Carly Manning alive (the first controversial storyline from head writer Reilly); and the 1994–1995 storyline in which the town's Christmas tree burns down and Marlena becomes possessed in Exorcist fashion.

From 1993 to 1998, actress Eileen Davidson portrayed several characters from the same family in the series. Her main character, the villainous Kristen DiMera, suffers a miscarriage in secret, and in a panic to keep her love John Black away from Marlena, Kristen pretends to still be pregnant with John's child. Stefano hires a doppelganger, Susan Banks, to conceive and bear a child for her (which resulted in the birth of EJ DiMera). Eileen Davidson portrayed the entire Banks family clan, four in total (including one male), as well as her main character. Davidson received her first Daytime Emmy nomination in 1997 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Cast

When Days of Our Lives debuted, the cast consisted of seven main characters: Tom Horton, Alice Horton, Mickey Horton, Marie Horton, Julie Olson, Tony Merritt and Craig Merritt. When the show expanded to one hour in April 1975, the cast increased to 27 actors. By the 25th anniversary in 1990, 40 actors appeared on the show in contract or recurring roles, which is the approximate number of actors the show has used since then.

Original cast member Frances Reid, who played Alice Horton, remained on contract with Days of Our Lives until her death on February 3, 2010, though she made her last appearance on the show in December 2007. Original cast member John Clarke, who played Mickey Horton, left the series in 2004. Suzanne Rogers, who plays Maggie Horton has been on the show since 1973, and Susan Seaforth Hayes has played Julie Olson Williams since 1968 with a few breaks in-between, and also her husband Bill Hayes, who has played Doug Williams since 1970, though neither Seaforth Hayes nor Hayes is employed with the serial on contract.

In recent years, Days of Our Lives has hired back many former cast members. Twenty of the current contract cast members have been with the show, off-and-on, since at least 1999. Since 2005, cast members from the 1980s and 1990s, such as Christie Clark (Carrie Brady), Stephen Nichols (Steve "Patch" Johnson), Austin Peck (Austin Reed), Mary Beth Evans (Kayla Brady), Joseph Mascolo (Stefano DiMera), and Thaao Penghlis (Tony DiMera and Andre DiMera) have been brought back to Days of Our Lives. More additions to the show in recent years have included the returns of Crystal Chappell (Dr. Carly Manning), and Louise Sorel (Vivian Alamain). In June 2010, characters such as Jennifer Horton (Melissa Reeves, who returned to the show full-time shortly afterward), Bill Horton (John H. Martin, taking over the role from Christopher Stone), Shane Donovan (Charles Shaughnessy) and Kimberly Brady (Patsy Pease) returned for a short time and were featured heavily in a tribute to Alice Horton.

In late 2012, the show reintroduced Eileen Davidson in the role of Kristen Blake DiMera – one of six characters Davidson played during her original 1993–98 run on the show – after a fourteen-year absence. In mid-2013, the show debuted new characters such as JJ Deveraux (Casey Moss) and Theresa Donovan (Jen Lilley) to appeal to younger viewers.

In celebration of the soap's fiftieth anniversary in 2015, several cast members returned to the soap, including Peter Reckell (Bo Brady, who was killed off in a decision by Corday and the show's writing staff in a move to provide closure in the relationship of Bo and Hope), Stephen Nichols and Penghlis (as Andre DiMera, as his brother, Tony, had been killed off in 2009).

Executive producing and head writing team

Co-creator and original executive producer Ted Corday was only at the helm of Days of Our Lives for eight months before dying of cancer in 1966. His widow and fellow co-creator, Betty, was named executive producer upon his death. She continued in that role, with the help of H. Wesley Kenney and Al Rabin as supervising producers, before she semi-retired from showrunning duties in 1985, two years prior to her death in 1987. Upon Mrs. Corday's semi-retirement, her son, Ken, became executive producer and took over the full-time, day-to-day running of the show. Ken Corday continues helming the show to this day, and as of August 2023, splits show-running duties with Drucker as co-executive producer.

The first long-term head writer, William J. Bell, started writing for Days of Our Lives in 1966 and continued with the show until 1975, two years after he had created his own successful soap, The Young and the Restless, for rival network CBS. He continued with the show as a storyline consultant until 1978. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many changes to the head writer position occurred. In the early 1980s, Margaret DePriest helped stabilize the show with her serial killer storyline. Later head writers, such as Sheri Anderson, Thom Racina, and Leah Laiman, built on that stability and crafted storylines of their own, temporarily helping to bringing up the program's ratings. Many head writer changes occurred after Laiman left the series in 1989 and the role would not become stable again until James E. Reilly joined the show in that role in 1993. His tenure, which lasted for four-and-a-half years and featured several supernatural-themed plotlines (which would later become the centerpiece of fellow NBC soap Passions, when the Reilly-created series debuted in July 1999), was credited with bringing ratings up to the second place spot in the Nielsens. Other writers who succeeded him, such as Sally Sussman Morina and Tom Langan, failed to keep the ratings success, and additional head writer turnovers continued until Reilly – who would continue in his role as head writer and consulting producer of Passions after rejoining Days – returned to the series in 2003.

Five-time Daytime Emmy winner Hogan Sheffer was named head writer with great fanfare in October 2006, but lasted less than 16 months with the show, with his last episode airing in January 2008. Former head writer Dena Higley was re-promoted to succeed Sheffer in the role, with her first episode as head of the writing staff airing on April 23, 2008; her co-head writer was Christopher Whitesell, who had joined the series following a stint as an associate head writer for As the World Turns and remained with Days until February 2011. On May 18, 2011, Dena Higley was fired, and replaced as head writer with Marlene McPherson and Darrell Ray Thomas Jr. (who had previously worked alongside James E. Reilly as script writers on Passions).

Broadcast

Domestic broadcast

Episodes of Days of Our Lives were first made available on digital platforms in July 2003, when SoapCity, a now-defunct website owned by Sony Pictures Digital Networks, began offering same-day and archived episodes (dating back to the series' 1965 premiere) for streaming or direct download via its SoapCity Download subscription offering (available on either a monthly subscription or on a discounted pay-per-episode basis). In June 2007, episodes of the series began to be offered via iTunes.

Under an agreement reached with Sony Pictures Television in March 2004, cable network Soapnet began airing same-day rebroadcasts of Days of Our Lives each weeknight at 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. (later 8:00 and 10:00 p.m.) Eastern and Pacific Time (with classic episodes sometimes filling the slot during NBC-predetermined preemptions), along with a (usually) five-hour-long weekend block of the past week's episodes; Days aired on the network until its closure in December 2013. On August 24, 2015, Pop began airing same-day rebroadcasts of the show as part of an early-prime-time soap opera repeat block that included CBS soaps The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. (CBS's namesake parent, CBS Corporation, owns the cable channel and operated it as a joint venture with Lionsgate at the time.) Pop dropped Days of Our Lives from its lineup after the April 15, 2016, broadcast.

NBC began making same-day episodes of Days available for streaming on the show's NBC.com subpage on August 10, 2009. The ten most recent episodes are available for viewing, with each episode being streamable for 16 days after their original airdate. Recent episodes of the series were also available on Hulu from 2008 until August 2015, when the streaming service abruptly removed Days from its NBC program offerings, leaving General Hospital as the only remaining American daytime soap among Hulu's offerings.

For its first three years on the air, Days of Our Lives was near the bottom of the Nielsen ratings, and at high risk of cancellation. However, its ascent to the top was rapid; as the 1968–69 television season ended, it became an effective tool of NBC, which attempted to dethrone daytime leader CBS. By 1973, the show – pitted against CBS's popular Guiding Light and ABC's The Newlywed Game at 2:00 p.m. (ET)/1:00 p.m. (CT) – had matched the first-place soap ratings of As the World Turns and fellow NBC soap Another World. Due to the success of the program, NBC expanded Days from a 30-minute timeslot to 60 minutes on April 21, 1975. This expansion had followed the lead of Another World, which became the first hour-long television soap opera 3½ months earlier on January 6. Furthermore, Days of Our Lives' new starting time of 1:30 p.m. (ET)/12:30 (CT) finally solved a scheduling problem that began in 1968 when NBC lost the rights to the game show Let's Make a Deal to ABC, and in its wake, eight different shows were placed into the slot (Hidden Faces, You're Putting Me On, Life with Linkletter, Words & Music, Memory Game, Three on a Match, Jeopardy!, and How to Survive a Marriage) to little to no success.

Nielsen ratings history

End of season number of metered viewers (listed as a Nielsen share in millions) and ranking (against other soap operas) from the first broadcast to the reporting week of August 24 to 28, 2015.

International broadcast

In Barbados the show was popular, though it ran several years behind the U.S. (the series began in Barbados in 1980 from the very first episode), and was aired on the island's lone television broadcaster, CBC TV 8. In 2014, the channel dropped the series.

The series previously aired on Global in Canada; concurrent with the move to Peacock in the U.S., it moved to sister cable channel W Network starting September 12, 2022.

In Australia, Days of Our Lives was initially broadcast on the Nine Network from March 25, 1968, until April 26, 2013, when the network axed the show based on a commercial decision. During its run on the Nine Network in the early 2000s, episodes ended up being nearly five years behind the United States, due to the network's coverage of cricket each summer. In an attempt to get viewers up to date with the US, Nine aired a one-hour special on September 13, 2004, titled, Days of Our Lives: A New Day, which summarized four years of storylines and caused mixed feelings among regular viewers. This special was followed by episodes airing at the same pace as the US. However, the show ended up being behind the US again, and by April 2013, episodes were airing at a delay of 16 months. On June 17, 2013, Days of Our Lives resumed to Australian viewers free and on-demand through Sony's Crackle service, as well as across Crackle's web apps on mobile devices, connected TVs and game consoles. Crackle picked up where the Nine Network left off with 10 new episodes in its first week and seven new episodes every Monday thereafter. From January 20, 2014, Crackle began releasing five episodes each week.

Days of Our Lives returned to Australian television on Foxtel's channel Arena in April 2014. It airs weekdays before The Young and the Restless at 12:00 pm AEST. To bring TV viewers up to date, Arena screened ten catch up episodes, each presented by Days of Our Lives cast members, from April 1 to 14, 2014, featuring key story lines missed during the 11-month Australian television hiatus. Then on April 15, 2014, Arena began airing episodes at the same pace as the US. Arena also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday around 7:00 am AEST.

New Zealand has aired Days of Our Lives since July 7, 1975, debuting on Television New Zealand (TVNZ). Originally airing weekdays on TV One was shifted to TV2 in 1989, where it was put in a 1 pm timeslot. It moved back to TV One in 2003, where it was shown at 2 pm. The soap was approximately five seasons behind the NBC season due to being preempted by holiday and sporting programming. During October 2009, TVNZ announced that they were ending their exclusive contract with Sony Pictures. Despite a national petition from fans Days of Our Lives ended on May 19, 2010. On February 27, 2013, nearly three years the series' final broadcast on TVNZ, ChoiceTV announced their decision to pick up the series; the series began broadcasting on March 11, 2013, weekdays at 1:30 pm. Broadcasting began with the series' 46th season (2011–12), meaning the show would be only 18 months behind the current NBC season in the US. Choice TV also re-airs the last five aired episodes shown as an omnibus catch up edition each Sunday, beginning at 9 am NZST, when due to government broadcasting restrictions are shown without advertisements. By December 20, 2013, Choice TV had removed the show from their schedule for summer hiatus. However, the series resumed airing on February 10, 2014 from episode 11,880.

Opening title sequences and theme song

Almost unchanged since the show's debut in November 1965, Days of Our Lives's title sequence shows an hourglass, with sand trickling to the bottom against the backdrop of a partly cloudy sky, accompanied by the spoken words, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." The title sequence has been modified only three times since the series first premiered:

In 1972, the sequence was updated to display the hourglass against a brighter, cloud-laden background; the camera subsequently zooms toward the bottom half of the hourglass as the original variant of the program's current mixed-case serif logo (which replaced the older-style, all-capital title logo used since the show's debut) fades in;

Beginning with the June 21, 1993, episode, the opening titles were changed to an animated visual of the hourglass (designed by Wayne Fitzgerald and Judy Loren), with its base and columns seen rotating throughout and the object zooming outward from the bottom glass partition to show it in full; the horizon backdrop was also changed to an evolving daylight motif incorporating changing cloudscapes and a brightening sun (as it rises over the horizon) emanating the title logo on-screen via a ripple effect animation;

Beginning with the November 8, 2010, episode, with the show's conversion to HD, an updated widescreen version of the sequence was introduced; although it differs very little from the 1993 version of the sequence, this variant featured slight changes in the coloring of the sky backdrop.

The hourglass sequence was also used during the show's closing credits until November 2001 (when the network replaced it with a split-screen generic credit reel to incorporate video promos for other NBC daytime and prime time programs); it was replaced thereafter with a black background in international and, later, online airings. A sunset variant of the CGI sequence (which had been used for the closing credits from 1993 to 2001) remains in use as Corday Productions' closing credit vanity card.

From the show's debut in 1965 until March 1966, announcer Ed Prentiss spoke the aforementioned opening phrase, following it with the notation "Days of Our Lives, a new dramatic serial starring Macdonald Carey." Carey, who had played Dr. Thomas Horton since the show's premiere, took over reading the opening sequence in April 1966; for the following 28 years, his introductory voiceover added with "This is Macdonald Carey, and these are the Days of Our Lives." After Carey's death from lung cancer in April 1994, the secondary part of the introduction was removed from the sequence out of respect for Carey and his family. At intermission (between 1975 and 2011), Carey also voiced the show's mid-program bumper – which usually preceded a network promo that led into the local ad breaks during the fourth commercial break of each episode – reading, "We will return for the second half of Days of Our Lives in just a moment."

Spin-offs

Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem

In July 2021, Peacock ordered a five-episode limited series titled Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem. The original cast's Rinna and Hall, among others, appeared. Clark, Jackée Harry, Peck, Penghlis, Hunley, and Davidson were also cast. The series premiered on September 6, 2021, and ran until September 10. A second chapter of five episodes was announced in April 2022, scheduled to premiere from July 11 to 15, 2022. The casting of Alfonso and Reckell was announced the same day. On June 2, 2022, it was announced Davidson, Christopher Sean, Vince Van Patten, and Loretta Devine had also been cast.

Days of Our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas

In November 2021, Corday Productions announced a spin-off holiday film titled Days of Our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas with Chandler Massey and Davidson starring. The film premiered on December 16, 2021, on Peacock. Alison Sweeney was also cast.

Parodies

Friends

Days of Our Lives was partially parodied in the 1994–2004 NBC sitcom Friends, in which main character Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) played the fictional Days character Dr. Drake Ramoray in a storyline that began with him being cast in the role in the Season 2 episode "The One With Russ". Incidentally, Friends co-lead actress Jennifer Aniston (who played Rachel Green in the series) is the daughter of John Aniston, who portrayed Victor Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives from 1985 until his death in 2022. The storyline itself, however, was paradoxical as Friends was set in New York City, whereas Days of Our Lives is shot in Burbank, California. Subsequent episodes featured Days of Our Lives storylines invented for the sitcom, and included some guest appearances by real-life cast members from the soap opera.

Joey's initial Days stint came to an end eight episodes later in "The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies," in which his character was killed off by falling down an elevator shaft in retaliation for claiming during a Soap Opera Digest interview that he wrote most of his lines, angering the soap's writers. Later, in the Season 7 episode "The One With Joey's New Brain," the Drake Ramoray character was brought back to life thanks to a brain transplant from the in-universe, fictional Days character Jessica Lockhart (Susan Sarandon, who played Jessica's in-universe portrayer, Cecilia Monroe, in the episode).

Alison Sweeney (Sami Brady) appeared on Friends as fictional Days cast member Jessica Ashley (instead of her real-life series character, Sami Brady), Kristian Alfonso as Hope Brady, and Roark Critchlow as Mike Horton. In the Season 9 episode "The One With The Soap Opera Party," in which Joey hosts a "soap opera party" on the roof of his apartment building, Matthew Ashford and Kyle Lowder (who played Jack Deveraux and Brady Black on the soap at the time of the episode) make appearances as his co-stars. In the episode "Joey and the Wrong Name" from the spin-off Joey, Joey receives a soap opera award nomination for "Best Death Scene," after his character is fatally stabbed while performing surgery.

Other notable parodies

The 1980s sketch comedy series SCTV features a recurring soap opera sketch titled "Days of the Week," which includes Martin Short (as Billy McKay), Catherine O'Hara (in the dual roles of Violet McKay and Sue Ellen), Andrea Martin (Mojo). John Candy (as Dr. William Wainright), Eugene Levy (as Dr. Elliott Sabien), Joe Flaherty (as Rocco), Dave Thomas (as Zach Harrington) and Rick Moranis (as Clay Collins).

Days was parodied as "Light of Our Love", or "LOOL", in the Nancy Drew video game Stay Tuned for Danger.

The Simpsons features a fictional soap opera, "It Never Ends", in the 2000 episode "Pygmoelian," appearing to be based on Days of Our Lives. Moe Szyslak (voiced by Hank Azaria) is cast in the show after receiving plastic surgery to make himself handsome, only to suffer an accident that returns him to his former appearance after being fired from the show.

"I Love Kiki," a 1995 episode of the PBS children's series The Puzzle Place, features a parody of the soap titled "The Times of our Lives".

Days of our Mornings is a long-running radio parody, broadcast weekday mornings on 5FM in South Africa.

"Add a Dad," a 2009 episode of the Nickelodeon animated series The Fairly OddParents, features a parody titled "Dads of our Lives".

The 2001 film Legally Blonde features a reference to the show by the main character, Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon).

The 2003 Totally Spies! episode "Starstruck" features a television set of a parody show "Days of Our Spies".

The 2012 House episode "Gut Check" features Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) hiring a kid (Will Shadley) who plays a fictional character of the fictionalized version of the show to pretend to be the long lost son of his colleague at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).

Notable fans

Days of Our Lives has had many high-profile fans. In 1976, Time magazine reported that then-Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall would call a recess to court proceedings around the 1:00 p.m. hour to watch the show.

Actress Julia Roberts admitted at the 2002 People's Choice Awards that she was a fan of Days of Our Lives, had asked to be seated near the cast, and upon winning her award stated, "I'm freaking out because the cast of Days of Our Lives is sitting behind me." In 2004, during the show's Melaswen storyline, Roberts' interest was considered notable enough that Entertainment Weekly quoted her saying that "the show has gotten a little wacko."

A 1998 Time article mentioned that Monica Lewinsky was a passionate fan of Days of Our Lives, so much so that she wrote a poem about the series in her high school yearbook. The article compared her whirlwind experiences in the White House to a story on the show.

Awards and nominations

Days of Our Lives won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Writing Team in June 2012, April 2018, and June 2022. It also won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in June 2013, April 2015, and April 2018.