You remember being a little kid and your mother, grandma or even great-grandma saying that she needed to “watch her soaps”? I do, and for those old enough, sometimes they would tape them. For you new babies, that meant you would put a VHS tape that looked like this…
Put it in a device called a VCR that looked like this…
And schedule it to record your momma’s soaps and pray she wasn’t taping over anything important like your first steps or that NBA finals with Jordan (that’s reference to my household).
We, as children, had no control over the TV, and since we couldn’t watch our cartoons until after the soaps because there was only one big TV in the house, we watched too. This 2-hour special will be a deep dive into where soaps can from and how soaps have evolve and lend themselves to modern day shows like “Empire”, “ER” and reality shows like “Real Housewives” (Andy Cohen is fittingly in this special).
What should be noted and recognized is the fact that a lot of our favorites got their break on a soap and many say that working on a soap gave them a leg up on other actors who hadn’t been through the rigor of filming a daily soap. Remember, our favorite shows came on on a weekly basis, not a daily basis like on soaps. Actors like John Stamos, Vivica A. Fox and Denzel Washington have all cut their teeth on the set of a soap and look at them now? Been entertaining us for years effortlessly.
Does anyone know why they’re called “soap operas”? Questions that need answers. I feel like I remember hearing why but I don’t remember why.
“The Story of Soaps” airs tomorrow the 19th at 8:00 p.m. EST on ABC and I’ll be watching! I hope there’s a montage of slaps!
BLACK WATCH 