The Gem: The Ice Princess

Romancing The Stone: Luke Spencer, Laura Baldwin, Robert Scorpio, Mikkos Cassadine, Tony Cassadine, Victor Cassadine, Alexandria Quartermaine

Innocent Bystanders: Tiffany Hill; Nigel Pennysmith; Gen. Konrad Kaluga and his girlfriend, Corinne; Maximillian Van Stadt; Noel Van Stadt

So The Legend Goes: The Ice Princess, as we discovered in 1981, was the world's largest uncut diamond. Alexandria had painted it black and mounted it on a pedestal before having it shipped to P.C., but quickly learned that it had been stolen. Off went Robert, Luke, Alex and Tony Castle (a.k.a. Tony Cassadine, who was secretly in cahoots with Ms. Q) in search of the rock. It turned out that aside from the diamond's obvious value, in the base was a formula for creating synthetic diamonds.

Disaster Strikes: Luke, Laura and Robert stowed away on the Cassadine yacht, bound for the family's private island. There, Mikkos unveiled his true master scheme: Using the formula in the statue's base, he planned to build a huge machine capable of producing carbonic snow, which he would use to freeze the world (unless global leaders paid him big bucks). Luke, Laura and Robert teamed up to foil the plan (Max, Noel, Alex, Tony and Mikkos lost their lives in the process) and not only saved P.C., which was Mikkos's first target, but the rest of the world from the biggest snow jobs ever seen.

The Real Gem: This never-before-seen-on-soaps, high-flying adventure solidified the supercouple stature of Luke and Laura and introduced to the canvas fan faves Robert and Tiffany. In addition, GH has managed to keep alive the Spencer/Cassadine feud through the decades, and it remains among the most compelling of rivalries today.

Alas, not all that glitters is gold. Here's a plot that left us....

Stone Cold
In 1989, Ned's bon vivante father, Lord Larry Ashton, popped onto the P.C. scene in search of an ancient dragon bone purported to be the key to a long-gone Chinese civilization and untold riches. What ensued was a mind-numbing mish-mosh of silly searches for a bone that wound up getting accidentally buried by Robert's dog, Friday. Ultimately, Larry gave up his quest -- which proved to be for naught, anyway -- and lost the title of Ashton heir to his half brother. Needless to say, viewers did not dig this dog of a tail...uh, tale.