Soap (TV Series, 1977 - 1981)

DIrishB

DIrishB

The Timeline Guy
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You are all just obstacles on my path to Nirvana.
So way back when I was a teenager I discovered a TV show from the late 1970s/early 1980's called Soap, as Comedy Central used to air reruns of it in the afternoons after I'd get home from school.

Its a half hour comedy show, a satire of soap operas, and its really quite funny. It also helped give Billy Crystal a break (he played the gay son). The ventriloquist son Chuck (and his rude puppet Bob) are hilarious. Katherine Helmond (who later went on to play Mona on Who's the Boss?) plays the flighty Jessica (she's hilarious), and Richard Mulligan plays Burt and does a pretty good job with physical comedy. It also stars Ted Wass (who'd later go on to play the dad in Blossom).

But hands down, the best character is Benson, the cantankerous African American butler. Robert Guillame killed it in the role, so much so they spun him off into his own show (Benson) after Season 2.

Seriously, if you've never heard of this show, give it a try. Its extremely funny, and was extremely ground breaking for the time.
 
Oh my God this is one of my all time favorite shows. I used to love the opening and ending scenes when the nararator would say, "confused you won't be after this next episode of Soap" and they would do a freeze frame of something ( usually a slapstick) scene that highlighted the episode. I actually have the Chuck and Bob mind reading sound bite on my iPod. And the scene when they where drunk in the bar is classic. The Major, Ha! When Chester got amnesia. "I'm Lester Plate and I have a beautiful boy named Benson. Ha!
 
drvshft dazy said:
Oh my God this is one of my all time favorite shows. I used to love the opening and ending scenes when the nararator would say, "confused you won't be after this next episode of Soap" and they would do a freeze frame of something ( usually a slapstick) scene that highlighted the episode. I actually have the Chuck and Bob mind reading sound bite on my iPod. And the scene when they where drunk in the bar is classic. The Major, Ha! When Chester got amnesia. "I'm Lester Plate and I have a beautiful boy named Benson. Ha!
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Lol. All classics! Jessica is hilarious too. Kathryn Helmond was great in that role, and Mulligan's over the top approach (which might annoy some people) I found very funny. He's great at physical comedy.

I just started watching the spin-off Benson also. It too is very funny, but with a more classic sitcom formula, but Guillame is easily able to carry the show, and his scenes with the German housekeeper are very funny.
 
So I just started Season 3 (I'm switching off between Soap Season 3 and Benson Season 1). The Burt alien clone thing is hilarious. Also noticed that Robert Englund plays one of the Sunnie cult members trying to brainwash Billy.

Loving these shows.

I think the only downside of the show is how they keep trying to turn Jodie (the gay character played by Billy Crystal) straight. First, he was going to have a sex change and become a woman. Then, he was "tricked' into sleeping with Carol and getting her pregnant. Then, he meets the lesbian Alice, they become roommates, and then they start dating.

I'm not sure if this was some dismissive attitudes of the writers or if it had to do with network and public opinion pressure (of which there was plenty aimed at the show early on), and the writers trying to have it both ways (including a gay character, but constantly applying "straightness" to him to appeal to the religious conservatives who protested the show).
 
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Funny I never really saw that to much of them trying to "straiten out " Jody, but your right.
 
drvshft dazy said:
Funny I never really saw that to much of them trying to "straiten out " Jody, but your right.
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It's a recurring thing, at least during the first couple seasons. I figured it was a way of them balancing the religious conservative backlash at the gay character, while still keeping him on the show. I wonder even if the suicide plot line for Jodie was a way of appeasing religious conservatives who would be comforted by the idea of the "godless homosexual driven to suicide by his perversion" (even though he was just upset about his breakup).
 
Susan Harris is an underrated TV icon. Not only with Soap which was groundbreaking but later with The Golden Girls and its spinoff Empty Nest which starred Soap vets Richard Mulligan and Dinah Mannoff.
 
drvshft dazy said:
Susan Harris is an underrated TV icon. Not only with Soap which was groundbreaking but later with The Golden Girls and its spinoff Empty Nest which starred Soap vets Richard Mulligan and Dinah Mannoff.
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Yup. I may have to check out Empty Nest after this. I'd seen it before on TV occasionally as a kid (I was probably around the age of 8-13 while Empty Nest aired), but I just don't remember it being anywhere near as funny as Soap was. I'll give it a try and see what I think.

Golden Girls was great.
 
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Empty Nest doesn't stand up to the same caliber as Soap orThe Golden Girls but it was still a likable show. Really I am just a fan of Richard Mulligan after Soap for all the reasons you've already stated. Also his role as Custard in Little Big Man. He plays a different role in Empty Nest. More of a strait role.
 
drvshft dazy said:
Empty Nest doesn't stand up to the same caliber as Soap orThe Golden Girls but it was still a likable show. Really I am just a fan of Richard Mulligan after Soap for all the reasons you've already stated. Also his role as Custard in Little Big Man. He plays a different role in Empty Nest. More of a strait role.
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Yeah, I remember that. He played a doctor on Empty Nest, didn't he?
 
Yes. And he's widowed with 2 grown daughters. It's funny because it was piloted as a spinoff to the Golden Girls, but has nothing to do with that series. He just lives in the same neighborhood as they. I think it was just marketing to get people to tune in. Maybe Betty White or one of them had a cameo the first episode but after that nothing was ever related.
 
It's too bad they never got the chance to wrap up the various plot lines left hanging at the end of Season 4. There was a Benson episode (in its fourth or fifth season) where Jessica Tate appears to Benson and they touch on what happened, but without any actual closure.
 
wyokid said:
You guys are much older than I thought you were.
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Seriously, wyo, watch the first three episodes and tell me you're not hooked. It's hilarious, reliably so, just about every episode. It's so over the top, and right on the nose in terms of satire/poking fun at the daytime soap genre (ridiculing their over the top plot twists by mimicking them and playing with the formula... in a sitcom formula). It was meta way ahead of its time.

And seriously, it's hilarious. Guillaume's Benson, Helmond's Jessica, Mulligan's Burt Campbell, Billy Crystal's Jodie, Jay Johnson's Chuck and Bob... all classic characters.

Helmond's air-headed Jessica is so much fun to watch. The actress' facial expressions are done so incredibly well, extending the dialogue jokes and laughs through truly memorable reactions at the outlandish things said (including by herself). She was excellent.

Guillaume's verbal sparring with Chester Tate is legendary. His dry, perfectly timed delivery was masterful (so much so he got his own spin-off after Soap Season 2, in which he went to help the cousin of Jessica and Mary, who happens to be governor--I'm not sure of which state).

And Mulligan's Burt is so much fun to watch. I can see some people being annoyed by his over the top approach, but it was perfect for the show and offered that old school approach to physical comedy, to add to the variety of other forms.
 
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