My favorite sight gag from Soap:
WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I’ve posted before, it’s the all time best comedy show ever on television. Yes, it got too wacky at the end, but sitcoms often have that trouble as they reach out farther and farther. Yes, the portrayal by Billy Crystal poked fun at the stereotype of gays, but the portrayals of the other characters poked fun at other stereotypes as well. In reality, there is nothing funny about homosexuality, but Soap made America face up to how it felt about the issue of homosexuality, unlike, say, Will and Grace which just yucks the issue up.
I’ll always remember Bert arguing with the grapefruit.
Here is a link that has all the episode synopses: Soap
I just bought the 1st season, too! I am an avid fan of this show. Are the other seasons available? I noticed TV Land has only been running 1st season, so I assume they only bought the 1st season DVD as well. Love it, and thirsty for more “Soap”! All the characters are classic and hysterical! But, I have to go with Bert as my all-time favorite. I was so sad to learn of his death a few years ago now. What was his real name?
- Jinx
That’s just crazy, Grady. They oughta call you Crazy Grady.
My favorite moments on SOAP:
When Jessica was defibrillated (one of the times she died) as Chester, the detective and the psychiatrist who loved her were all holding her hand. (The shock sent them across the room.)
Mary when the baby (who might be half-Bert or might be half-alien) was born saying, in front of a black nurse: “Oh thank God! He’s white!”
The Major.
Jodie’s past life regression.
From the episode synopses DSYoungEsq linked to:
“Jodie is gay . . . Jodie learns that his boyfriend, Dennis the quarterback, has been dating a woman to protect his media image . . . Jodie tells Dennis that he plans to solve the problem by becoming a woman . . . The hospital calls the Campbells about Jodie’s suicide attempt . . . Jodie promises that he won’t try it again, and abandons the sex change operation . . . Jodie finds himself in bed with Carol . . . Carol convinces Jodie that they should live together . . . Jodie proposes to Carol . . . Jodie befriends Alice, a suicidal lesbian . . . Jodie and Alice decide to date each other . . . Jodie and Maggie admit that they’re attracted to each other . . .”
This is why I hated that goddam show.
and you watched it why?
Just to see what annoying crap they’d pull next, I guess. I actually stopped after the first season, so much of the recap above was news to me. He had alot of girlfriends for a gay guy!
Eve, I totally understand your criticism of the show. As a young gay boy I had a different reaction. This was the first continuing non-heterosexual character I was aware of ever in the history of television, and for me, any affirmation of a queer sexual identity on TV was a Good Thing. It did piss me off mightily when they pretty much turned him straight in the last season and I condemned the show loudly and long when I was doing college speakers’ bureaus in which SOAP was being used as source material about homosexuality. As I’ve cooled off from my militant phase I have put that aspect of the storyline into some perspective. The producers definitely could have done a better job about presenting Jodi as having a fluid sexuality rather than labeling him “gay” (did he ever actually say in the show that he was “straight” or was it just that he found himself attracted to one specific woman in a stressful situation?). But they were working without precedent. So now that I’m older and a bit wiser I’m willing to cut them a little more slack on Jodi. Not, however, on how they presented Bert’s reaction to the news (dancing and celebrating that his stepson was attracted to a woman).
Chester has discovered Danny (recently discovered to be his biological son) in bed with Chester’s wife (“Alice”, I think - Danny’s post-coital comment: “We’ve committed inquest!”). Chester decides to shoot them both, since he’s to face “El Puerco” (Jessica’s South American revolutionary boyfriend) in a duel in the morning, and Chester doesn’t expect to survive.
My parents forbade us from watching it. My brothers and I had to sneak upstairs to the attic and watch it on the old b&w tv.
My favorite storyline on “Soap” was the baby possessed by the devil. it led to one of the funniest coffee conversations on the show:
Corrine: This happened because I’ve slept with every man in town!
Jessica: Oh don’t be silly, there must be lots of men you didn’t sleep with; the Mayor for instance…
Corrine: I did him.
Jessica & Mary together: YOU slept with the MAYOR?
It doesn’t seem funny just to read it, but it was hilarious when the cast performed it.
Another fav…
[The Major] “Mind? I’ll have you know my mind is as sharp as a tack, knock on wood.” knock knock knock “Come in.” [/The Major]
I loved the episode where the women were all sitting around talking about sex. It was the first time it was ever addressed in such a realistic way.
I never thought about the gay/trans aspect the way Eve described it. It was just so bizarre to see the subject brought up at all, the inaccuracy of it blew right past me. I guess it would be maddening, but I’d still give it one for the “small victory” column. And knowing that Billy Crystal is really a good guy and very pro-human rights, I wouldn’t hold this against him. Whatever misinformation he was part of on that show probably has been made up for in the subsequent 30 years.
I really liked that show and I think it was Billy Crystal at his finest.
We’ve just been watching the DVD, and it’s laugh-aloud funny. But Bob is my favorite, and genuine fall-off-the-chair with laughter funny.
Coincidentally, friends of ours were just in Las Vegas, and Jay Johnson (is that his name? I’m not looking it up) and Bob were the lead-in comedians for the Smothers Brothers.
Eve, sorry you had a bad time with the Billy Crystal character, but the whole thing was such a send-off. The show tried to break stereotype molds – old people on TV are supposed to be quaint and amusing and fiesty, and the Major is … well… a loon. Priests are supposed to be Bing Crosby like, and the priest on SOAP was … ah… different. So, Billy Crystal wasn’t meant to be “typical” gay (whatever the hell that means), and it’s too bad if some numb-nuts took it that way.
I blame the suits at the network for the Billy Crystal fiasco. They got such a reaction to having a gay character that they backpedaled so quickly that the wind blew out birthday candles in seven adjacent states. They finally demanded and got a gay character who kept describing himself as gay while acting completely heterosexual. Cowardly, yes, but it was the 1970s.
Susan Harris bought the compromise because it kept the show on the air while she was battling the network on a hundred other issues every week. Remember, she wrote the entire first season by herself. That was unheard of for the time. The pressure she was under must have been unbelievable.
Does this make it forgivable? Decide for yourselves, I guess.
My vote for the bit that made me laugh the longest and loudest: when the Campbell boys were out getting drunk, Bob announces that he is going to spew - and everybody else pulls their chairs away from the table to give him room.
The second season had one of the saddest moments on TV:
Elaine (who has slowly been converted from being a spoiled rich bitch to a decent likable person) had been kidnapped by a couple of idiots. She manages to escape, but is shot while running away. She manages to make it home only to collapse and die in Danny’s arms.
On a brighter note: Burt’s reaction to finding Bob in the refrigerator. Richard Mulligan was a genius at facial expressions and physical humor.
For some reason, Chester, Benson, the short little private detective gy, and someone else were gonna sneak in to where Billy Crystal’s baby (or someone), ((man, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it…)) was being held captive…
Anyways, they go over the plan and as they do, the short little detective guy realizes they’re one person short for their plan:
SLDG: “We’re a man short.”
Chester: “YOU’RE a man short.”
SLDG: “You’re a man FAT!”
I got the season 1 box recently and I have had a few Soap marathons since, I love “groundbreaking” tv (early SNL, the Gong Show, early Letterman, etc.). Soap is hilarious!.
unclviny
The Jody story lines made me very uncomfortable, for the same reasons Eve mentioned. But the rest of the show was so funny that I couldn’t stop watching it.
Burt’s reaction the refrigerated Bob is priceless.
The recently deceased Gordon Jump has two of the best sitcom lines ever.
As Mr Carlson on the Thanksgiving WKRP episode, “God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
As Police Chief Tinkler in Soap ". . . or I am not the Piece of Chilief’
I guess you have to see the whole scene where he accuses virtually the entire cast of Peter Campbell’s murder.