05/28/03’s illustrious band:

Soap Bits

Brought to you by cutting-edge TV, or what passed for it in the late 70s.

Soap aired from 1977 to 1981 on ABC. With an ever-changing list of weird characters and impossibly convoluted story lines, the show parodied the twists, turns and melodrama of soap operas. It was considered shocking in its day for discussion of homosexuality, marital sex, infidelity, cults, alien abductions, student-teacher affairs, interracial marriage and terminal illness. In fact, Soap was one of the first, if not THE first, network television shows to feature an openly gay character: Jodie Dallas, played by comedian Billy Crystal. The 80s sitcom Benson, featuring Robert Guillaume as the wise-cracking black butler to a governor, was a spin-off based on the actor's Soap character.

That's really about all I remember. I know I liked the show and was proud that my parents thought me grown-up enough to watch it. But I probably haven't seen an episode since the 80s. If it's running in reruns on Comedy Central or something, I'm missing out, since I don't get cable. But maybe that's OK.

Thinking about Soap got me thinking about other childhood favorites. Does anyone else remember such short-lived gems as The Renegades (1982), which I believe starred a very young and pompadoured Patrick Swayze playing a character named Bandit? Or The Phoenix, featuring the often shirtless Judson Scott, who later went on to die a grisly death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . . . and very little else?

Those are just a few that stuck in my craw. What about yours?

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