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Even before it premiered on September 13, 1977 (Tuesdays at
9:30 pm on ABC), Soap was mired in controversy (including 32,000 letters
of protest) and primed to make television history. Conceived as a
primetime satire of daytime melodramas openly addressing a variety of risky topics (homosexuality, infidelity,
impotence, familial murder) with a deft combination of irreverent wit, wacky
slapstick, supreme stupidity and--key to its success--engaging drama from
characters you could really care about, regardless of their rampant quirks and
foibles. As a friendly announcer informs us, "this is the story of two sisters" in
suburban Connecticut--wealthy dimwit Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) and
blue-collar housewife Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon)--whose class-divided
families are bound by tons of scandalous secrets. The integration of plot and character is flawless and dirty laundry was rarely
this absurd: Jessica's cheating on her cheating husband (Robert Mandan, the
show's underrated lynchpin); stepson Jodie (Billy Crystal) is (gasp!) openly
gay and brother Danny (Ted Wass) has Mafia connections; daughter Corrine (Diana
Canova) is in love with a priest; Mary's husband Burt (manic genius Richard
Mulligan) is a would-be killer who thinks he's invisible and all of them are
suspects in a murder case that fuels the first season's cliffhanger finale.
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