I too, am a fan of this excellent satire. Luckily for me, Comcast runs Soap in the Tube Time section of On Demand, so I get to indulge to my heart’s content. Hard to believe Billy Crystal was once that young, isn’t it? Who ever dreamt he became the successful star he is today? And I truly think the show went downhill after Robert Guillaume’s Benson got his own show. He had that snarky attitude that the Tates deserved. He showed caring and concern towards Jessica, but didn’t he just give it to Chester at every opportunity? Roscoe Lee Brown just couldn’t measure up.
I hated it, because Billy Crystal’s character kept bouncing back from straight to gay to transgendered and back again, at a time when his was the only putatively “gay” character on TV.
You have a point, but they had to start somewhere. It broke some ground.
Me, I liked Chuck and Bob. And Burt.
It was a very, very funny show, but I have to agree with you here. I was pretty young when it was on (5th-6th grade, maybe?), and I remember my mom explaining that the Jody character’s plotline was stupid, because (and I’m using the kind of language you would have used in the 70s, explaining this to a 12-year-old, so forgive some outdated terminology, please…) gay men don’t want to have sex changes, and their boyfriends DEFINITELY don’t want them to have sex changes, and that wanting to be the opposite sex isn’t the same thing as being gay, etc.
As a kid, I always thought it was odd that mom didn’t like us to watch Three’s Company, but she not only let us watch Soap, she would actually explain stuff like this to us. She explained later that what she didn’t like about TC was the “jiggle humor,” but that she thought the satire of Soap at least had some substance. And, she did tend to be open enough to explain when we heard stuff that was wrong, like the gay/transgendered stuff above.
I had vague memories of watching this with my dad when it was originally on, and then had some cash to blow and found the box set. It’s rare you see a show that is still that funny twenty-five years later. My roommate insists I just have a soft spot because I happen to be a redhead named Jessica. 
I agree with Eve that the character of Jody bounced around the Kinsey scale far too much. Although my absolute favorite moment of all time was a joke based on that exact premise.
Mary: Jody is going to be a father.
Jessica: (After a long, bewildered pause) Dennis is pregnant??
Makes me cry laughing, every time.
I loved this show. I don’t remember much about the Billy Crystal character going through all that – it probably just went over my head (I couldn’t have been more than 10, and I haven’t found it “On Demand,” but I’ll look!) I remember loving Burt, and his disappearing thing, and the guy with the ventriloquist dummy. I think that’s where I found my sense of humor.
My favorite episode was when the women were all sitting around talking about sex and addressing it realistically for the first time evah. It was hilarious!
Yes, what a great show. My favorite scene was when they stole Bob and hid him in the refrigerator to get Chuck to talk normally, and he started freaking out and ventriliquizing anything he could pick up.
Well, as for the Jody character, since Soap was a satire, the writers weren’t aiming for total realism, but exaggerating aspects of his character. Look at Mr. Garrison on South Park (yeah, I know, totally different show, but bear with me on this). Garrison started out a closet gay, then came out of the closet, then decided he was a woman after all, (after donating his testicles so Kyle could get taller {knee implants}). Yeah, pretty out there but some similarities apply. Feel free to flame me if I’m wildly off-target.
I just watched that episode, I love Tube Time, Last summer it was Barney Miller and this summer Soap.
To ‘find it’ on On Demand, go to the TV Entertainment menu item, then go to Tube Time and Soap is the second to last show listed after Three Stogges, One Day at a Time & Carson Classics. The other show is Charlie’s Angels.
Benson and Jessica had such great lines. It was weird watch the first season and see Gordon Jump and Howard Hesseman together pre-WKRP days.
I forgot how cute Diana Canova was. THe show did an incredible job bring in great character actors to support the show. Doris Roberts as Flo Flotsky, Father Tim’s mom, stoled episode 23.
Jim
“'ello, I am an English muffin!”
I wanted to thank you for telling me this was “On Demand”. I was pretty young when it was on, but I remember loving it. Katherine Helmond is always, always Mrs. Tate to me.
Yeah, that bugged me, too. I want to show the series to my boyfriend, but I think we’ll be skipping a lot of the Jody bits. They just make me cringe.
I wanted Corinne. I was jealous of any and every boyfriend she got. Danny made Joey (Friends) seem smart. The dummy and Chuck were always good for a laugh.
Yes, I know that the Chuck was the doll
But Danny was way funnier than Joey ever hoped to be. 
When I started watching the DVDs, my roommate got sucked in and somewhere around the third episode suddenly said “Hey–is that Blossom’s dad?” I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed. (Not that I spent a lot of time watching Blossom.)
What I truly enjoy about the show now are those moments that aren’t funny. Sometimes it got serious, and it really took you off guard, and really hit home. There’s a scene in the second season (after Jessica gets put away for killing Peter) where Benson and Jessica just about make me cry. And Elaine’s death … sitcoms should not upset me so much.
I always liked the scene when the guys all went out and got drunk. Bob said, “I think I’m gonna throw up” and they all backed up. 
I’ve been watching it on OnDemand, too, and it’s still pretty funny.
No, Bob is the doll.
That the scene I came in to recount. I was literally rolling on the floor.
IIRC, he takes an orange and cuts a slice it, which, when he squeezes the edges, becomes a mouth.
And at the end, when he takes Bob out of the fridge, Bob says, “When the door closes, the light stays on.”
I loved Soap.