I missed Soap the first time around.
I have a vague recollection of my parents watching it when I was a child, and a better one of seeing ads for it on morning TV when I was growing up. Between then and now, it simply sat there in the back of my mind along with the other bits and pieces of my youth.
Then in 2008, Bear Manor Media head Ben Ohmart asked me if I had any interest in writing a book about the series. He wasn’t sure what, if any, cooperation might be forthcoming from the cast and crew, but it was a show that he had greatly enjoyed, and felt it worthy of an unofficial official history.
I was just finishing up my first book for Bear Manor at the time, and jumped at the chance to do another. The problem was I had no idea just what Soap was about.
Since then I’ve watched all four seasons, had the tremendous good fortune to speak with many, many members of the cast and crew, and have come to realize just how important a part of television history Soap has become.
Too often it seems that television is given little recognition for the contributions it makes to our shared culture as Americans, and as human beings. Despite the death of newspapers, plunging reading rates and several other signs to the contrary, there remains a sniffy, snobbish, and terribly unjustified attitude aimed at television.
The truth is that Soap, along with many other television programs and movies past and present, are our culture every bit as much as the great operas and the finest novels are the culture of the last great age. The medium may have changed, but the great truths communicated in this electronic artform have not.
Soap had its moments of farce and insanity, but it also addressed a lot of home truths seldom tackled in any other medium: homosexuality, child custody battles, the price of philandering spouses, and so much more. It is for this reason that I believe Soap remains one of the greatest contributions to our shared culture. After reading Soap! The Inside Story…, I hope you will to.
-A.S. Berman
First let me say that I am glad to see anything written about Soap. It was and always will be my all-time favorite comedy show.
In the fall of 1977 I had heard only a word or two about the show. It was my freshman year in college so I didn’t have much time between going to class and working nights to pay tuition. But one night I happened to be in front of the TV when the episode of Danny about to Kill Burt aired. When the announcer said “Danny took Burt to a cabin in order to kill him.” something clicked. It was a mild, warm North Texas evening and I watched the show. From that moment forward I was hooked on the show. Over the four seasons it aired I watched it often and always remember how funny the plots were. Many a time my friends and I would watch the show and laugh until we cried.
It went off the air and I had too many other interests to know what we lost. Years later in 1985 while I lived in Houston the show was in re-runs and I had just bought my first VCR. I recorded several episodes and again laughed at the comedic antics that this show presented. It was years later in 2004 while I was trapped in my home in Miami during a hurricane that I had bought the first season DVD. It was so nostalgic to watch and remember all those shows that I saw in the time of my life which was uncomplicated and so easy-going even though at the time I thought differently. The characters and the lines I remembered so vividly. And the comedy that will always be timeless because this show was about human relationships. Not to mention in 1977 it tackeled what were highly controversial subjects of homosexuality, infidelity, sex, race relations, etc….
And who would have ever thought about all the careers the show launched. Robert Guillaume as Benson, Richard Mulligan in Empty Nest, Katherine Helmond in Who’s the Boss… although these shows, in my opionion, never could hold a candle to Soap.
Soap can never be equaled because of the time it came out. To make a show about these topics today would be tame compared to what’s on the tube. And my step children think of it as something only old people want to watch. Like so many other things in this world, classic rock, modern jazz, the movies from the 1970′s and 1980′s I think these kids missed out on something very special that cannot and never will be repeated or equaled.
I anxiously await the completion of your book. And please feel free to inquire with me on the content. I would love to be a part of it.
Hi Bill. Thank you so much for your recollections about how you discovered Soap, and what it meant to you over the years. Good catch on seeing that it’s available on Netflix!
I forgot to mention that all of the Soap episodes are now available for instant viewing on Netflix. It’s easy to think back on the first night in 1977 when I watched my first episode. If only I could have had insight on that night what the future was going to become.
soap was one of my fave shows ever. OK so they confused sexuality and sexual orientations, but the way I see it was soap was a skit at modern soaps were that did happen and gay folk changed sexualities……..but then how amazing to show a gay charicter in 1977 on prime time TV in America! I now have all 4 box sets of soap and STILL find it funny even now after watching it so often. I just wish we had had a series 5, like all soap fans must………and why they couldn’t have at least given us 1 last 1 hour ep to end it all in 1981 after series 4 I don’t know. The mean sods. Can’t wait for Aarons book!!!!!!!!!!!
BRIAN MATTOCKS
You’re very kind, Brian. I feel the need to point out that your side of the pond gave us Are You Being Served’s Mr. Humphries in 1972, but yes, darn it, he spent the whole series denying his sexuality. (And let’s not even get get into what they did with him in the follow-up series!)