Last Episode Of All My Children Says Goodbye To Pine Valley

All My Children is over — at least as a daytime television show. The soap opera will continue online as a property of the Prospect Park production company, but after forty years on ABC daytime it is sayonara.

Susan Lucci, who played Erica Kane for most of her career on the show, hosted a special All My Children-themed episode of The View on Friday, interviewing cast members and discussing archival footage of the show that made her, and many others, household names. In recent weeks, some of those stars — Sarah Michelle Gellar, Carol Burnett, and Josh Duhamel — guest-starred on All My Children to pay homage to the show, which has been beloved for many reasons.

In addition to cross-connecting love affairs, murders, evil twins and lost memories, All My Children has been a beacon for many progressive cultural movements. It featured the first same-sex kiss on daytime TV, as well as the first coming-out confession of a transgendered person, the Huffington Post notes.

To much disappointment, ABC announced this summer that it would cancel All My Children and its sister soap, One Life To Live (which will stay on air until January 2012). Lucci has said she was not happy about the decision nor that she had to read the hear news of it indirectly.

All My Children's time slot will go to The Chew and The Revolution, daytime talk shows about food and health.