The brilliant and talented cast of Soap consists of the luxuriously wealthy Tates with Jessica Tate who lives in her own reality because its much more pleasant than real life; her womanizing husband Chester (Robert Mandan), who has a long-term affair with his blackmailing secretary who is coercing him into leaving his fragile wife; daughters, indecisive Corinne (Diana Canova), who is having an affair with tennis pro Peter Campbell, but secretly pursuing Father Timothy Flotsky (Sal Viscuso); uptight Eunice (Jennifer Salt), who is having an affair with a Washington D.C. congressman; and finally, young son Billy (Jimmy Baio), who is totally frustrated because he's too young to sit in on adult conversations. A senior member of the Tate family is The Major (Arthur Peterson), a grandfather who thinks he's still in the war and harrasses the relatives and neighbors with his sporadic violence. This family has the good fortune of being attended by that famous sage butler, Benson DuBois (Robert Guillaume who starred in his own spin-off by the same name).
Now, the Campbells are a more modest family in lifestyle and finance. Mary Dallas Campbell is Jessica Tate's sister and confidante, and the adoring wife of second husband Burt (Richard Mulligan), who shelters the secret that he killed her first husband which causes him to be impotent to Mary's advances; with sons Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal), who is homosexual and quite a challenge to his homophobic step-father; and mobster Danny Dallas (Ted Wass) who wants to go straight but has a contract to kill the man who killed his father. Then there's Burt's own sons: Peter, the lascivious tennis pro and instructor having affairs with both Jessica and Corinne Tate; and Burt's long-lost son who has returned from Hawaii, ventriloquist Chuck (Jay Johnson), who happens to be "attached" to a puppet named Bob who is accepted by everyone as a real person and not a dummy.
You'll enjoy all the drama of a regular soap opera with soft, sensitive tones that might bring you to tears and especially to sympathy with the characters. You'll watch the families as they struggle with blackmail, adultery, murder, invisibility, alien abduction, kidnapping, plus a bout of demonic possession. You'll watch Jodie vascilate between heterosexuality and homosexuality, but never "finding himself" as the show ends with him stuck somewhere in a hypnotic state as an elderly Jewish man named Julius. Jessica and Mary have their struggles with the family and with their own relationship, but in the end mend their differences and cement their family bond.
You won't be disappointed with Soap: The Complete Series. This is unparalled adult humor at its best! It is the perfect antidote for a hard day's work and a classic soap opera parody that makes fun of life, but makes our everyday problems seem insignificant and melt into oblivion. Soap is timeless humor which touches on controversial issues and is as fresh and funny today as it was in the 70's. I must comment on Richard Mulligan's mastery iof physical expression, he was a complete delight. The only negative in this series would be the inept packaging. The discs are packed one on top of the other that could cause disc surface damage.
