Soap

SOAP is this hilarious serialized saga about two completely Zany sisters and, their madcap families were awesome. This show from day one never ever took itself seriously and that's its greatest claim to fame. Soap dealt bluntly and honestly about a great many pressing social issues like homosexuality, veterans, treatment of the mentally ill.... of course it also in the same breath dealt with rubber suit wearing space aliens and, psycho's with wood puppet fixations.

SOAP for as madcap as it was has a heart of gold. The whole family is welded together in a very unique but strong love. I am a gay man and yet I loved Jessica Tate she was a woman of utter charm and, bearing and she was as off and ditzy but sweet as Gracie Allen. Burns & Allen I would have loved having Jessica Tate as a mom. SOAP was a perfect fusion of the Addams family and the Three Stooges meet Dallas. When I was young SOAP was another of my hiding places on the TV landscape.

SOAP had great moments of fun but SOAP could easily as well be moving and thought provoking. You just can't go wrong buying these tapes you will definitely laugh and, you will learn many things and, get many awesome insights as well! These too are on my highly recommended list of must see items.

This has to be one of the best casts ever. Just revisited this series and haven't laughed this hard in ages. It's sad that so many of the cast have passed on. This series was underappreviated. Hilarious spoof of soap operas...so brilliant.

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.

Soap was and is great. It has to be one of the best comedies ever on t.v. The lampooning and parodying of daytime t.v. was one of the best ever. It dealt with topics ranging from homosexuality to possession. The humor and one liners were classic. Some of the funniest bits and scene stealing was done by Benson, the butler. It was outrageous, funny, comical,haughty, biting satire at it's very best. There has been nothing like since, that even measure up to it. It's a classic from the seventies, that still has a bite!Daytime t.v. should look so well!