On later occasions, it becomes clear that Jess has always known on some level about Chester's affairs but never allowed herself to process the information. Heartbroken, Jessica sobs in her sister's arms. While out to lunch with Mary, Jessica spots Chester necking with his secretary, Claire (Kathryn Reynolds). Even though everyone tells Jessica about Chester's continual affairs, she does not believe them until she sees his philandering with her own eyes. Jessica Tate ( Katherine Helmond) and her husband, Chester ( Robert Mandan), are hardly models of fidelity, as their various love affairs result in several family mishaps, including the murder of Peter Campbell ( Robert Urich), the stepson of her sister Mary ( Cathryn Damon). The Tates live in a wealthy neighborhood (the announcer calls it the neighborhood known as "Rich"). In the opening sequence of the first installment, the announcer says "This is the story of two sisters-Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell". Soap is set in the fictional town of Dunn's River, Connecticut. Seated: Billy Crystal, Cathryn Damon, Katherine Helmond, Jennifer Salt.
Back row, L-R: Robert Urich, Ted Wass, Richard Mulligan, Robert Guillaume, Robert Mandan, Jimmy Baio, Diana Canova, Arthur Peterson Jr. John Ruthledge in the radio version of Guiding Light.Ĭast of Soap (1977). Robert Mandan (Chester Tate) had previously appeared on Search for Tomorrow as a leading man for Mary Stuart, and Donnelly Rhodes (Dutch Leitner) had played the first husband of Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless. The cast also included three former soap opera actors. The show starred Katherine Helmond and Cathryn Damon as sisters and matriarchs of their own families.
The series has rerun in syndication on local channels as well as on cable. There is a box set of season 1 on region 2 DVD. All episodes are available on region 1 DVD in four box sets. Like most sitcoms of the era, Soap was videotaped rather than filmed, but this coincidentally helped further its emulation of the daytime soap opera format, as most such productions were also videotaped. These hour-long episodes were later split in two, yielding 93 half-hour episodes for syndication. Eight of these (including the final four) aired as one-hour episodes during the original run on ABC.
The show aired 85 episodes over the course of four seasons. Two of these retrospectives were made available on VHS in 1994, but were not included on any DVD collections. Each returning season was preceded by a 90-minute retrospective of the previous season. The show was created, written, and executive produced by Susan Harris, and also executive produced by Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas. In 2007 it was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All- TIME", and in 2010, the Tates and the Campbells ranked at number 17 in TV Guide 's list of "TV's Top Families".
Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format, and featured melodramatic plotlines including alien abduction, demonic possession, extramarital affairs, murder, kidnapping, unknown diseases, amnesia, cults, organized crime warfare, a communist revolution and teacher-student relationships. The show was created as a night-time parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Soap is an American sitcom television series that originally ran on ABC from September 13, 1977, until April 20, 1981.