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Joan Lunden attends Good Morning America’s 50th anniversary celebration (left); Joan Lunden on ‘Good Morning America’ in 1987 (right)NEED TO KNOW
Joan Lunden was an anchor on Good Morning America from 1980 to 1997
As the ABC morning show celebrated its 50th anniversary on Nov. 3 in New York City, Lunden, 75, returned to the show and reflected on the show’s success
“The only thing that freaks me out is: I was here almost from the beginning!” she tells PEOPLE
Joan Lunden was reflective as she returned to Good Morning America to celebrate the morning show’s 50th anniversary.
On Monday. Nov. 3, the 75-year-old veteran journalist joined current anchors Robin Roberts, Michael Strahan and George Stephanopolous, as well as her former colleagues Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson, for a special GMA broadcast to mark the milestone.
“Fifty years! Of course, the only thing that freaks me out is, I was here almost from the beginning!” Lunden told PEOPLE of how it felt to be on hand to celebrate.
“I never dreamed, in 1979 when I was asked to be the host, that I would’ve been there for 20 years,” she said. The journalist anchored the show, alongside David Hartman and then Gibson, until 1997.
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Joan Lunden attends Good Morning America’s 50th anniversary celebration on Nov. 03, 2025
Lunden added, “I look back on it now — this morning when I woke up, I said, ‘I did this for 20 years? Are you kidding me?’ “
“But I’ll tell you, Charlie and I always said it was the best seat in which to view the world,” she said of her tenure as anchor. “It really was, because whatever was happening in the world, that’s where you are.”
Reflecting on how GMA has managed to stick around for so long with such success, Lunden said the show was “really a kind of alternative program in a way” when it first premiered in 1975.
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“Instead of a desk with a blue background, it was a home, and it had browns and oranges and golds, and our logo was a rising sun,” she explained. “We had Marvin Hamlisch music to ease you into the day, and the whole sensibility was, ‘From our home to yours.’ “
“We even called all the reporters on the show family members. That’s how I started — I was a GMA family member,” she continued. “I think it made us all — each and every one of us — it made us realize what we’ve been a part of, [something] much bigger than us.”
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From Left: Charles Gibson, Joan Lunden and Spencer Christian on ‘Good Morning America’ in 1989
Lunden has also recently realized that “there [are] not that many of us who have had the job” over the course of the show’s half-century.
“It makes you kind of stop and step back and say, ‘Wow. I was one of the few people [who] got to say, ‘Good morning, America,’ to millions of Americans every morning.’ It’s amazing,” Lunden said. “It’s an elite club, yeah, that we’re all, I think, really proud of and really honored to have been a part of.”
Good Morning America airs weekdays on ABC. Check local listings.
Read the original article on People