Soap (sitcom)

Soap was a sitcom which ran on the ABC network from 1977 through 1981. The show was designed as a weekly, nighttime half hour comedy whose format was similar to that of a soap opera. The show was controversial for its time, as it included the first homosexual character who starred in a prime-time network television series in the United States. The gay character, Jodie Dallas, was played by actor Billy Crystal. Many stations refused to air the series because of this character.

The program centered around two sisters, Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell. The Tate family were wealthy, and employed a sarcastic butler, Benson, played by Robert Guillaume[?] (the character of Benson was spun off into his own series, Benson[?], in 1979.) Jessica and her husband, Chester, were hardly models of fidelity, as their various love affairs resulted in several family mishaps, including the murder of Mary's stepson, Peter (Robert Urich), in the early days of the show. Mary's family, the Campbells, were more middle-class, but had the problem that Mary's son Danny Dallas was a junior gangster in training.

Other plot lines involved Jessica's daughter's love affair with a priest (another controversial subject which caused many stations to refuse to air the show); Mary's stepson Chuck, a ventriloquist whose alter ego was his dummy Bob, who voiced all of the negative comments that Chuck was too repressed to say; Jessica's love affair with a Latin American revolutionary; and Mary's husband Burt being replaced by an alien look-alike.

Major characters the actors who portrayed them

• Katherine Helmond[?] - Jessica Tate
• Cathryn Damon[?] - Mary Campbell
• Robert Mandan[?] - Chester Tate
• Richard Mulligan[?] - Burt Campbell
• Diana Canova[?] - Corinne Tate Flotsky
• Jennifer Salt[?] - Eunice Tate-Leitner
• Jimmy Baio[?] - Billy Tate
• Robert Guillaume[?] - Benson
• Arthur Peterson[?] - The Major
• Billy Crystal - Jodie Dallas
• Ted Wass[?] - Danny Dallas
• Jay Johnson[?] (II) - Chuck and Bob Campbell
• Rebecca Balding[?] - Carol David
• Roscoe Lee Browne[?] - Saunders
• John Byner[?] - Detective Donahue
• Donnelly Rhodes[?] - Dutch Leitner
• Robert Urich - Peter Campbell
• Sal Viscuso[?] - Father Timothy Flotsky
• Edward Winter[?] - Congressman Walter McCallum

The show was created, written, produced and directed by Susan Harris[?].