Soap

I watched the re-runs of this hilarious show when they came on on Comedy Central (which they may still, who knows) and loved it. The show actually has an ongoing plot, which carries from the first episode through the end of the series (which, btw, is rather sad). The characters all have their own quirks or

characteristics that make them unique. Mary and Corrine were my favorites :)

When this show first started in 1977 it was touted as "controversial". It was a comedic parody of the day time soap operas based on the families of two sisters, Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) and Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon). Jessica's husband, Chester, makes a personal hobby out of infidelity in spite of the fact that he says he loves Jessica. Mary is in her second marriage, married to Burt (Richard Mulligan) who actually killed Mary's first husband - but nobody knows, including Mary.

Mary's grown children include Danny (who is working for the mafia), and Jody who is gay (this is not a secret). Chuck is Burt's grown son, and his problem is that he channels his personality through a ventriloquist's dummy who says all kinds of hateful prejudiced things, taking no responsibility himself because "the dummy said it". Probably the most enduring character in the show is Benson who is the African American butler in the Tate household. He takes no guff and has funny passive aggressive ways of dealing with those who cross him. But he finds Jessica endearing if not very bright and is kind to her.

Jessica has three children with their own problems. So the story lines include the mafia, a forced marriage that turns to love and then turns tragic, the issue of child custody when one party is gay, UFOs and aliens, South American rebels patterned after the Sandanistas, an adult woman having an affair with a teenage boy, religious cults like the Moonies, oh, and there is the old trope of the murder whodunnit.

This all works well for about two years. During that time the country was becoming more socially liberal, and what once shocked was becoming standard TV fare. That is probably what did in the show - normalcy caught up with it and the characters and their storylines were played out.

This show is on DVD and is worth watching mainly to see where we have been as a society in just a few short decades, and plus there is a human element of the show that is still quite compelling and timeless.

I began watching this show when I was rather young - elementary-school aged, really, & because of its episodic nature (for I read comic books voraciously, & loved "to be continued" storylines) - well, probably because I liked the guy with the puppet - I was hooked. I watched it weekly & remember praying to God that it wouldn't be cancelled. The magic of the show was that it taught me so much. I knew little or nothing about homosexuality, infidelity, racism, hell, even the Mafia or Central American revolutions, until I watched this show. It was genuinely funny - Bert thinking he could turn invisible, Benson's "I ain't getting that," everyone talking to Bob when they knew damn well Chuck was throwing his voice - I laughed & laughed.

As I watch TV now, I really miss the topicality of this show - the fact that, with a simple parody of soap operas, they managed to bring important issues of the day to the forefront. No one was safe - even alien abductions were lampooned, years before there was an X-Files that could stand a bit of ribbing.

Yeah, it's dated, & when I saw a few episodes in repeats a while back, I was more moved by my old feelings - these were friends I hadn't seen in ages! - than by the story & the jokes. But the point was, it was brave - like "All In The Family," like "Good Times" - though not a Norman Lear creation - braver than anything on right now. Someone else suggested you watch from day one - that's not all that important, because you'll catch on soon enough (it's a soap opera, after all), but I do believe you'll come to care for the characters & their ridiculous predicaments soon enough. & you'll be amazed at how utterly clever it is.

Be warned, though - like "Twin Peaks" it doesn't really end, & if you're coming at it for the first time, you'll be sad when you get to season four's end & there's nothing following. I was.

This is a show that everyone deserves a chance to see. A more brilliant cast and crew was never assembled for anything! These days, they talk about how "Friends" and "Seinfeld" have such great ensembles--"Soap" wrote the book on great ensembles! The only ones since which even come close are, first and foremost, the cast of "Remember WENN," and possibly the cast of "Frasier."

Everyone was great. Jay Johnson as demure Chuck and his daffy doll Bob, and Ted Wass as dim bulb Danny were always hilarious. Enigmatic but always worth a belly laugh was Arthur Peterson as the shell-shocked Major, forever trapped in his own little war. Anyone who's seen the episode with Sigmund, the Major's long-dead, moth-eaten stuffed dog (that he still believes to be alive) knows why the Major was so funny. Billy Crystal brought an understated air of dignity to his role as homosexual Jodie. Robert Guillaume won an Emmy beffore departing into his own spinoff as back-talking, "I-ain't-getting-that," tell-it-like-it-is butler Benson. His show, "Benson," ran longer than "Soap," and he won a Best Actor Emmy there. But the main part of the show--the planets the other characters revolved around--were Katherine Helmond, Cathryn Damon, Richard Mulligan, and Robert Mandan as the Tates and Campbells. Richard Mulligan was sidesplitting as Burt Campbell, a nervous, rubber-faced ball of energy. His physical comedy scenes were way out there, especially one where he stumbles in drunk, accidentally steps up onto a table, and is afraid to come down. Equally funny is a scene in which he and Danny are playing "police chase" while sitting in chairs in the living room. He was a great balance for the late Cathryn Damon, who beautifully and elegantly portrayed Mary Campbell. though some of her best stuff was when she really let loose (check out the third season), Damon's Mary was always a little more down-to-earth than the other characters, and one of the best-played on the show. They couldn't have matched up a better couple than these two, and it shows. Mulligan won an Emmy for "Soap" in 1980, and was nominated again the following year. Damon also won in '80, and was nominated each of the four seasons except the second, where Mary had less to do than usual. Surely, the episode she won for had to have been the one in which Mary thinks she has seen Burt disappear before her very eyes. She goes over to the Tates' house and, trying to explain it all, lapses into insanity. By the time it's done, she's saying that she's crazy and laughing hysterically. That is classic television.

Robert Mandan was big fun as pompous, skirt-chasing Chester, and was a great balance to my favorite, Katherine Helmond, as loony and delightfully dim Jessica Tate, Mary's sister. Helmond was dynamic, making the most of every second of screen time. She had a lot of top moments during the course of the show. Once, Jessica was being kidnapped by guerillas, and she has them put down their guns and help her move some furniture first, then asks if she can call "the nail lady" to cancel her appointment tomorrow--it seems that she charges anyway if you don't show up--then pulls the soldiers' own guns on them. Jessica's murder trial provides some of the show's most hilarious events. There's the time Jessica and her lawyer were in a small room outside the courtroom before the verdict is read, and her lawyer grabs her and tells her he loves her. At this moment, in comes Chester, and Jessica (fearful of what Chester would say) launches into a a waltz with her lawyer. She claims that they're learning the Hustle, and invites Chester to join. In a matter of seconds, the three are strutting around and dancing. To this day, it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The first day of the trial is one of the show's best scenes. Jessica, late along with her family and already having made a bad impression on the judge), bursts into the courtroom and begins hugging and greeting people as if hosting a party. She walks up to the judge and explains her tardiness, managing to unwittingly toss in an insult to "the idiotic inefficiency of the judicial system." She then looks over and gasps. She asks proudly, "Is this my jury?" She goes over to them, arms open, before she is pulled to her seat. She then has a friendly conversation with the prosecutor before getting up and trying to pull the defense and prosecution tables together. "It creates an almost antagonistic atmosphere," she says. "So 'them vs. us." She is later appalled by the slanderous words of the prosecutor and stands. "I don't have to take this--I'm going." Her attempt to storm out is stopped, but she warns: "All right, but if he continues in this manner, I will not come back tomorrow." Than, to the prosecutor: "Go ahead. But be nice." She could be dramatic, too, though; once, in one of her best moments on the show, Jessica single-handedly exorcises the Devil from her baby grandson in a bravura performance. Even after watching only one episode, it's easy to see why she was nominated (but, oddly enough, never won) for an Emmy every season that "Soap" was on the air. With a cast like this, what show could go wrong?

"Soap" is one of the funniest of America's exports to the U.K. It may have been considered risque back in the late seventies but all the hullaballu about the show's contents seems silly twenty-odd years on.

The programme has been shown in it's entirity a few times in the U.K. most recently on our Paramount comedy channel. It had the most outrageous storylines and the characters were played brilliantly by all concerned - especially Katherine Helmond, Richard Mulligan and Cathryn Damon - who really were the essence of the show! Chuck & Bob, Benson and The Major were always good for a laugh whenever they were on screen.

Susan Harris wrote the entire series which has made me a great admirer of her work ever since. Of course she scored big again in the eighties with the equally brilliant Golden Girls. Some might not be aware that Susan actually appeared in two episodes of Soap as a hooker, believe it or not! My favourite storylines included the murder of Peter and the subsequent trial of Jessica, the abduction of Burt by aliens, Corinne's possessed baby and Burt trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records when he thought he was dying!

The "unique" comedy series still holds up well by todays standards and is truly worthy of the label "cult classic".