From Mary Noble to Mary Hartman : The Complete Soap Opera Book

by Madeleine; Rounds Edmondson, David Rounds

A new edition of The Soaps (1973), a bubbly examination of television serials as a continuing feature of American life. From the first breathy episodes to the sophisticated formats of today, successful soap operas have shared a basic premise: men may be the titular heads of households but everyone knows who runs the show. Within this housewife-centered universe, the problems can be overwhelming; despite an increased attention to social concerns, certain situations tend to recur--skeletons in the closet, illegitimate children, ailments with mysterious etiologies--and the authors discuss these as well as the people who create them and act them out. The ""revisions"" are slight and predictable: those chapters on the past remain unchanged; Mary Hartman gets a chapter to herself (""Soap du Jour"") plus scattered references; statistics and the beginning quiz have been updated; and the conclusion has been reworded to take post-1973 programs into account.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[The Celtic Rebel (Richard) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice overview of the television and radio genre -- the soap opera. This was originally released in 1973 as The Soaps. This is the updated version and more material was added including a whole chapter on the cult primetime soap opera, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman which was very popular at the time. The authors do a nice job in presenting what made soap operas popular and an okay overview of the history of them.

[Nick Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining, if a bit highfalutin at times, exploration of the evolution of soap opera from radio to the syndicated satiric serial, ‘Mary Hartman.’