General Hospital (commonly abbreviated GH) is an American soap opera broadcast on the ABC television network. It is the longest-running serial produced in Hollywood, having been taped at The Prospect Studios (formerly ABC Television Center West) and the Sunset-Gower Studios, as well as the longest-running entertainment program in ABC television history. General Hospital also holds the record for most Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series, with 10 wins.

Set in the fictional city of Port Charles, New York, General Hospital debuted on April 1, 1963, the same day that rival network NBC launched its own medical daytime drama, The Doctors. General Hospital originally aired for a half-hour, until the network expanded it to 45 minutes in 1976, and then to a full hour in 1978. The serial was created by soap writers Frank and Doris Hursley, a husband-and-wife team.

Launched in 1963, the show initially focused on the lives of the staff at Port Charles General Hospital. Storylines ultimately branched out to cover the relationships of various Port Charles families. General Hospital popularized the concept of the soap opera supercouple in the with characters Luke and Laura, played by Anthony Geary and Genie Francis. Their 1981 wedding was the most watched event in daytime serial history. The series also pioneered action-adventure storylines in the 1980s, which helped keep General Hospital as the highest-rated daytime drama from 1979 to 1988.

The exterior shot of the hospital in the opening and ending credits is the General Hospital of the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, located just east of Downtown Los Angeles. This shot was used from July 1973 to 1993, and remained relatively unchanged between those years. The sequence's theme song was led prominently by George Wright's piano theme from no later than April 1975 until July 23, 1976, with the ambulance entering the hospital, then the show's title zooms towards us. Then, on July 26, 1976, the theme music was changed to "Autumn Breeze" by Jack Urbont, with the horns throughout the opening sequence (the 1975 opening sequence would remain the same). The graphic details of the opening would not see any alterations until 1978, when the lettering of the show's zooming title became smaller. It is one of the longest running soap opera theme/visuals in history, with only the 1970-1990 theme/visuals of All My Children and Days of our Lives' 1972-93 package ahead of it. The sequence was used until the last episode of General Hospital with the Autumn Breeze theme aired on March 31, 1993.

The closing credits during this long era were done over nearly the same exterior of the LA County-USC, the main difference here being a blue-sky/cloud visual, as opposed to the opening having a clear, sunny sky. Occasionally a closer pan of the hospital was used, but it became more common in the early 1980s and was used almost exclusively from 1983 until 1993. The Craw Clarendon Condensed credits continued the tradition of carding dayplayers one at a time on most days, with the actors' name on top, the "as" on the middle line and character name below. On Fridays or during special storylines, a long crawl credits format also remained. Copyright notice first appeared at the end of all episodes in 1980, in a small capitalized font. By late 1981, the notice began appearing in Arial font, and would remain this way through the spring of 1983.

With the major ending sequence modernization in 1983, the end credits became smaller, and the carded dayplayer setup now used the long-crawl formatting with the actors' name followed by periods, with character below.

Best Moments on General Hospital:

Part I

Part II

Part III

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Julie Marie Berman, who plays Lulu Spencer, the troubled daughter of Luke and Laura Spencer on the popular daytime soap General Hospital, married commercial real estate broker Michael Grady in Los Angeles on August 15.  This is the first marriage for both.

Jason saved Claudia and Carly from gunfire, unaware that it was Jerry who was shooting at them. Alexis believed that an insanity plea was Lulu's only defense. Carly encountered Karpov alone at the docks.

It seemed, at long last, that ABC's daytime phenomenon, General Hospital, had found a miracle cure for the soap opera blues—that nagging feeling, epidemic among soap stars, that they just don't get no respect from their pricey prime-time peers. GH, after all, reaps the highest daytime ratings in TV history (14 million addicts). It earns more than $50 million a year in profits (double that of nighttime's costlier-to-produce Dallas). And in next week's wedding of erstwhile rapist Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) and smitten victim Laura Baldwin (Genie Francis), it boasts the most ballyhooed TV event since J.R. ate lead.