Friday, 10 December 2010
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Friday, 17 September 2010
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Soap
Soap
Yes, the show was kind of different... a spoof of a soap opera
and probably by now... its become a cult show .... !
Bet there could be some great caps of Katherine... taken by
anyone with the shows on dvd disc.
Quite a triumph for 'Susan Harris' the lady who created, wrote and
produced the show.
Seen as controversial in its time, Soap featured bizarre plot twists, campy farce, and even an alien abduction.
Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.
The show was a weekly half-hour long primetime comedy and its format was similar to that of a daytime soap opera.
It aired for four seasons and 85 episodes, some episodes of which were one hour long.
(The hour-long episodes were later split in two, yielding 93 half-hour episodes for syndication.)
The show was created, written, and produced by Susan Harris. The final four episodes of the series aired as one-hours during the original run on ABC.
Each returning season was preceded by a 90-minute retrospective of the previous season.
Plot
Soap is set in the fictional town of Dunns River, Connecticut, and each episode begins with a shot of two women chatting over lunch as announcer Rod Roddy intones, "This is the story of two sisters: Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell".
The first season ends with Jessica convicted of the murder of Peter Campbell. The announcer concludes the season by announcing that Jessica is innocent, and that one of five characters - Burt, Chester, Jodie, Benson or Corinne - killed Peter Campbell.
The interest over this cliffhanger precursored interest over the "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger on Dallas. Chester later confesses to Peter's murder and is sent to prison.
Major plots of later seasons
Other plot lines include Jessica's adopted daughter Corinne courting Father Tim Flotsky, with the two eventually marrying and having a child who is possessed by the Devil;
Jessica's other daughter, Eunice, sleeping with a married congressman, and then falling in love with Dutch; Mary's stepson Chuck, a ventriloquist whose hostilities are expressed through his alter ego, a quick-witted dummy named Bob;
Jessica's love affairs with several men, including Peter Campbell, a private investigator hired to find the missing presumed-dead Chester, her psychiatrist, and a Latin American revolutionary known as "El Puerco"
Billy Tate's confinement by a cult called the "Sunnies" (a parody of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement, called the "Moonies" by its critics), and then his affair with his school teacher who becomes unhinged;
At the beginning of each episode, off-camera announcer Rod Roddy gives a brief description of the convoluted storyline and remarks,
"Confused? ................You won't be, after this episode of...Soap".
At the end of each episode, he asks a series of life-or-death questions in a deliberately deadpan style --
"Will Jessica discover Chester's affair...? Will Benson discover Chester's affair? Will Benson care?" and concludes each episode with the trademark line,
"These questions - and many others - will be answered in the next episode of ...................."Soap."
The series ended abruptly on April 20, 1981; the final episode contains several cliffhangers that are never resolved.
These involve a suicidal Chester preparing to kill Danny and Chester's second wife after catching them in bed, Burt preparing to walk into an ambush set up by his political enemies, and Jessica about to be executed by a communist firing squad.
However, a 1983 episode of Benson mentions Jessica's disappearance, noting the Tate family is seeking to have her declared legally dead.
In this episode, Jessica appears as an apparition whom only Benson can see or hear, revealing to Benson that she is not dead, but in a coma somewhere in South America.
The other two cliffhangers are not referenced, leaving it to the viewers' imagination as to what might have happened.
Controversy
The show was controversial for its time, dealing openly with the topics of homosexuality, marital infidelity, impotence, interracial marriage, and gay parenting.
Soap was among the earliest American primetime series to include a regular gay character (Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal).
Soap is commonly cited as the first series to do this, but it was preceded by at least three other such shows: 1972's The Corner Bar, 1975's Hot L Baltimore, and 1976's The Nancy Walker Show.
The confusion may result from the fact that none of those shows achieved the ratings success of Soap.
Much of Soap's controversy preceded its September 1977 premiere. In June of that year, a review of the show's pilot by Harry F. Waters stated:
A number of organizations mobilized against Soap, including the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the International Union of Gay Athletes, and the National Gay Task Force.
Also mobilized were the National Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the National Council of Catholic Bishops, although they asked the members of their 138,000 collective churches to watch the show first, and then inform ABC of their feelings about it.
Nonetheless, the network reportedly received 32,000 letters of complaint before the show's premiere, and eight out of 195 ABC affiliates refused to air the show.
Reception
On Tuesday, 13 September 1977, Soap premiered to an audience of 19 million homes (39% of the national audience).
Executives at ABC described initial public reaction as "mild," even though Vlasic Foods pulled their sponsorship of the program shortly after the episode aired.
Yes, the show was kind of different... a spoof of a soap opera
and probably by now... its become a cult show .... !
Bet there could be some great caps of Katherine... taken by
anyone with the shows on dvd disc.
Quite a triumph for 'Susan Harris' the lady who created, wrote and
produced the show.
Seen as controversial in its time, Soap featured bizarre plot twists, campy farce, and even an alien abduction.
Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.
The show was a weekly half-hour long primetime comedy and its format was similar to that of a daytime soap opera.
It aired for four seasons and 85 episodes, some episodes of which were one hour long.
(The hour-long episodes were later split in two, yielding 93 half-hour episodes for syndication.)
The show was created, written, and produced by Susan Harris. The final four episodes of the series aired as one-hours during the original run on ABC.
Each returning season was preceded by a 90-minute retrospective of the previous season.
Plot
Soap is set in the fictional town of Dunns River, Connecticut, and each episode begins with a shot of two women chatting over lunch as announcer Rod Roddy intones, "This is the story of two sisters: Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell".
The first season ends with Jessica convicted of the murder of Peter Campbell. The announcer concludes the season by announcing that Jessica is innocent, and that one of five characters - Burt, Chester, Jodie, Benson or Corinne - killed Peter Campbell.
The interest over this cliffhanger precursored interest over the "Who shot J.R.?" cliffhanger on Dallas. Chester later confesses to Peter's murder and is sent to prison.
Major plots of later seasons
Other plot lines include Jessica's adopted daughter Corinne courting Father Tim Flotsky, with the two eventually marrying and having a child who is possessed by the Devil;
Jessica's other daughter, Eunice, sleeping with a married congressman, and then falling in love with Dutch; Mary's stepson Chuck, a ventriloquist whose hostilities are expressed through his alter ego, a quick-witted dummy named Bob;
Jessica's love affairs with several men, including Peter Campbell, a private investigator hired to find the missing presumed-dead Chester, her psychiatrist, and a Latin American revolutionary known as "El Puerco"
Billy Tate's confinement by a cult called the "Sunnies" (a parody of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement, called the "Moonies" by its critics), and then his affair with his school teacher who becomes unhinged;
At the beginning of each episode, off-camera announcer Rod Roddy gives a brief description of the convoluted storyline and remarks,
"Confused? ................You won't be, after this episode of...Soap".
At the end of each episode, he asks a series of life-or-death questions in a deliberately deadpan style --
"Will Jessica discover Chester's affair...? Will Benson discover Chester's affair? Will Benson care?" and concludes each episode with the trademark line,
"These questions - and many others - will be answered in the next episode of ...................."Soap."
The series ended abruptly on April 20, 1981; the final episode contains several cliffhangers that are never resolved.
These involve a suicidal Chester preparing to kill Danny and Chester's second wife after catching them in bed, Burt preparing to walk into an ambush set up by his political enemies, and Jessica about to be executed by a communist firing squad.
However, a 1983 episode of Benson mentions Jessica's disappearance, noting the Tate family is seeking to have her declared legally dead.
In this episode, Jessica appears as an apparition whom only Benson can see or hear, revealing to Benson that she is not dead, but in a coma somewhere in South America.
The other two cliffhangers are not referenced, leaving it to the viewers' imagination as to what might have happened.
Controversy
The show was controversial for its time, dealing openly with the topics of homosexuality, marital infidelity, impotence, interracial marriage, and gay parenting.
Soap was among the earliest American primetime series to include a regular gay character (Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal).
Soap is commonly cited as the first series to do this, but it was preceded by at least three other such shows: 1972's The Corner Bar, 1975's Hot L Baltimore, and 1976's The Nancy Walker Show.
The confusion may result from the fact that none of those shows achieved the ratings success of Soap.
Much of Soap's controversy preceded its September 1977 premiere. In June of that year, a review of the show's pilot by Harry F. Waters stated:
A number of organizations mobilized against Soap, including the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the International Union of Gay Athletes, and the National Gay Task Force.
Also mobilized were the National Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the National Council of Catholic Bishops, although they asked the members of their 138,000 collective churches to watch the show first, and then inform ABC of their feelings about it.
Nonetheless, the network reportedly received 32,000 letters of complaint before the show's premiere, and eight out of 195 ABC affiliates refused to air the show.
Reception
On Tuesday, 13 September 1977, Soap premiered to an audience of 19 million homes (39% of the national audience).
Executives at ABC described initial public reaction as "mild," even though Vlasic Foods pulled their sponsorship of the program shortly after the episode aired.
Benny Hill Babes
Benny Hill Babes
.
How did Benny keep doing it year after year ?
surrounded by some of the foxiest babes around
like the awesome Corrine Russell below .....
I read that Benny first saw Louise English when she was 16 and dancing
with 'Pans People' !
maybe theres some vid of Louise on Top of pops out there somewhere !
Diana Rigg and the Avengers
Diana Rigg
Emmas first appearances on the show were in black and white.. but soon Emma was seen in glorious colour.
The switch to colour was primarily because the Avengers had been sold in the US.
At the time the first colour series' were made colour TV didn't even exist in the UK forthegeneral public.
Lew Grade was keenly aware of how much money could be made on overseas sales,
hence many mid 60s ITV (mainly ATV) series were made in colour
(e.g. Avengers, Thunderbirds, Champions, Prisoner)
while their BBC contemporaries (Adam Adamant, Forsyte Saga) were still being made in B&W.
Emma was kinda perfect... but she got bored with the show and the fact that the cameramen were getting more money
than she...... even though she was... the "star " of the show.
Wonder if Emmas cat suits were lycra ?
maybe that show was the first TV appearance of lycra...?
lycra was to become the big thing in the 70s with disco, hot gossip and all the dance clubs that were springing up everywhere
....the Pineapple Dance Studio in London for eg.
guess they must be lycra !
[
[/url] 
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)