NEW YORK — ABC’s “Good Morning America” celebrated its 40th anniversary Thursday with a studio jammed with the men and women who hosted the wake-up broadcast through its long history.

“Every one of your favorite faces from ‘GMA’ is back,” host Robin Roberts told viewers at the top of the alumni-packed telecast.

Starting with original hosts David Hartman and Nancy Dussault, producers cleverly moved through the hosts chronologically as they raised coffee mugs and looked into the camera with the show’s signature greeting, “Good Morning, America!”

For many years the No. 2 morning show behind “Today” on NBC, “GMA” has been on top the past few years with current hosts Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, although its ratings have sagged a little this season.

The hosts reminisced about times good and bad. Hartman remembered taking a trip to the Soviet Union with the show in the waning days of the Cold War and returning home to kiss the driveway in front of his house.

Charles Gibson recalled how he felt going to work on Sept. 12, 2001, following the terrorist attacks, knowing it would be the most important broadcast of his career. Seated beside then co-anchor Diane Sawyer watching long-ago coverage of those dreadful attacks on a monitor, the pair, unseen by viewers, clasped each other’s hands for support as their eyes welled.

Mostly, though, the show kept things light. A blooper reel revealed the viewers’ vote for the show’s funniest moment: when veteran host Joan Lunden showed a Vanna White doll where the dress had slipped a little too far down the plastic, with Gibson laughing as Lunden attempted a quick toy cover-up.

Kathie Lee Gifford, now a host on the rival “Today” show, recalled her time on “GMA” during the 1980s, including meeting future husband Frank Gifford backstage.