SOAP

Will anyone ever know the truth about 70's television? What was television like before HBO and Cable? Was Billy Crystal's character on SOAP the first openly gay television sitcom character?  Was it economics or the religious right that finally ended SOAP? How many times did the producers recast the part of Mary Campbell?  What is the connection between SOAP, Broadway and the Tony Award? Who really killed Peter Campbell? How did a show like SOAP get on the air in the first place? CONFUSED... you won't be after reading this:
The Unauthorized Inside story of the sitcom that broke all the rules.... SOAP  by A.S. Berman *

A new book with a new perspective on the controversy of a decade.

This book catalogues all the SOAP episodes complete with plot synopsis, laugh lines, air dates, cast list and credits. It also tells the story of how SOAP came to be in the words of the people who were there. But most importantly the book reminds us of the what was happening  off camera in the world of the late 70's.

No show is created in a vacuum; every attempt at art is the product of its time.  To understand how SOAP broke the rules and pushed the envelope, one must also understand the envelope. The connection of SOAP scripts and air dates to news headlines of the day, shows art and life imitating each other.

This book is a candid look at television show business without make up.  It says unauthorized on the cover and it is most certainly not a fan magazine treatment of the SOAP story, nor is it a tabloid hatchet job. It doesn't pull punches but there are no round house sucker punches either. It is the story of people just trying to do their job never realizing that 40 years later someone would be asking questions about it.  

Perhaps it took forty years and an independent outsider like A.S. Berman to realistically look at the tempest that surrounded SOAP as the 1970's came to an end.  It is a familiar tale of how things change but remain the same as attitudes and morés are the last to update themselves. 

Thanks Aaron Berman. For me this was like finding a high school year book hidden away for almost half a century.  With the perspective of looking back I got to experience those years all over again with the assurance that everything would turn out all right a half century later. 

Buy the book... this one is mine.

As you were,

Jay

*I can't read this paragraph without hearing the voice of Rod Roddy, the announcer on SOAP.  He was a Dallas radio personality when I was going to college at the University of North Texas. I would listen to him on KLIF while commuting to school. 

Years later Rod and I met on the set of SOAP and became friends.  Before he went on to be the voice of "The Price is Right" he was my Ed McMahan on a show called "So You Think You Got Troubles". The last time I saw Rod we did the SOAPesque tag to an episode of "That 70's Show".  He was recreating those iconic voice overs and I was once again Chuck and Bob. For a moment we were thirty years younger but much wiser. Rod passed away soon after. I wish he could have stayed around to read this book.