CliqueClack Flashback – Soap

Back when Soap premiered on ABC in 1977, you could say I was a little too young to watch it. So young in fact, that I hadn’t even been born yet. Hell, even when when the series ended its run in 1981, I still had not made my way into existence.

So how is it that this show found such a special place in my heart? Well, reruns of course, but that’s not the point. For one thing, many of the actors and actresses on the show were already familiar to me from TV shows and movies I watched growing up in the ’80s and ’90s.

There was Katherine Helmond who I knew as Mona from Who’s the Boss, the late great Richard Mulligan from Nurses and Empty Nest, Ted Wass (Blossom’s dad!) and Billy Crystal, whose name speaks for itself, really. One first things to draw me into watching Soap was the novelty of seeing all these familiar faces. It was one of those things where you’re flipping through the channels, and look! Is that Billy Crystal?! He’s so young! What is this show…?

Of course, that alone would not have kept me watching. If you’ve ever watched Soap, you know that not only is it hilarious, it was way, way ahead of its time. Billy Crystal’s character, Jodie Dallas, was one of the first openly gay regular characters on TV. Danny Dallas, played by Ted Wass, dealt with racial prejudice on both ends as he dated a black woman. And you can’t help but love Robert Guillaume as Benson, the snarky butler.

The magic of Soap though, was that in dealing with these controversial issues and others, they never took themselves too seriously, and never bothered with silly things like continuity. Pregnancies could go from conception to birth in a matter of months or even weeks, and kids could go from the age of 14 to 18 in the space of a couple seasons where other characters do not age at all.

There was also a baby possessed by a demon, complete with objects flying around the nursery and an exorcism, and Burt’s (Richard Mulligan) alien abduction. He was replaced with an alien that looked like him, who impregnated his wife, who then gave birth to a silver alien baby. This really only touches on a few of the very complicated plots that the writers of Soap came up with.

The announcer, Rod Roddy, would begin each episode with a rapid-fire recap of the previous weeks events and then say, “Confused? You won’t be, after this week’s episode of Soap.” Really, this show gives Lost a run for its money where serialization and cliffhangers are concerned. And finally, it would be shameful of me to neglect the mention of the show’s theme. Every time I hear it, it makes me smile. Its almost like it’s saying, if you can’t laugh at this show, then the joke is on you.

Here’s a quick clip of the wonderful opening sequence. Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane as much as I did!

Clacked by Cate Cropp
on Feb 25, 2009 @ 17:00 EST5EDT