Soap opera

Character	Actor	Soap opera	Duration
Alf Stewart	Ray Meagher	Home and Away	1988-
Sally Fletcher	Kate Ritchie	Home and Away	1988-2008
Harold Bishop	Ian Smith	Neighbours	1987-1991, 1996-2008, 2008- (recurring thereafter)
Lou Carpenter	Tom Oliver	Neighbours	(1988; Guest) 1992-
Irene Roberts	Lynne McGranger	Home and Away	1992-
Donald Fisher	Norman Coburn	Home and Away	1988-2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008-
Susan Kennedy	Jackie Woodburne	Neighbours	1994-
Karl Kennedy	Alan Fletcher	Neighbours	1994-
Frank Gilroy	Brian Wenzel	A Country Practice	1981-1993
Dr. Terence Scott	Shane Porteous	A Country Practice	1981-1993
Ailsa Stewart	Judy Nunn	Home and Away	1988-2000, 2002, 2003
Esme Watson	Joyce Jacobs	A Country Practice	1981-1994
Toadfish Rebecchi	Ryan Moloney	Neighbours	1996- (recurring:1995)
Helen Daniels	Anne Haddy	Neighbours	1985-1997
Bob Hatfield	Gordon Piper	A Country Practice	1981-1992
Rosemary Daniels	Joy Chambers	Neighbours	1986-1998, (recurring:2005)
Paul Robinson	Stefan Dennis	Neighbours	1985-1992, 2004- (1993; guest)
Libby Kennedy	Kym Valentine	Neighbours	1994-2003, 2004, 2007- (2005; cameo)
Pippa Ross	Debra Lawrance	Home and away	1990-1998, 2000-2008 recurring
Shirley Dean-Gilroy	Lorrae Desmond	A Country Practice	1981-1992
Madge Bishop	Anne Charleston	Neighbours	1986-1992, 1996-2001
Vernon "Cookie" Lockie	Syd Heylen	A Country Practice	1982-1992

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Canada

Due to the economics of television production in Canada, relatively few daily soap operas have been produced on English Canadian television. Notable daily soaps that did exist included Family Passions, Scarlett Hill, Strange Paradise, Metropia, Train 48 and the international coproduction Foreign Affairs. Family Passions was an hour long, as is typical of American daytime soaps; all of the others were half hour programs. Short-run soaps, including 49th & Main and North/South, have also aired.

Notable prime time soap operas in Canada have included Riverdale, House of Pride, Paradise Falls, He Shoots, He Scores, Loving Friends and Perfect Couples, North of 60, and The City. The Degrassi series of youth dramas also incorporated some elements of soap opera.

On French language television in Quebec, however, the téléroman has been a popular mainstay of network programming since the 1950s. Notable téléromans have included Rue des Pignons, Les Belles histoires des pays d'en haut, Diva, La famille Plouffe, and the soap opera parody Le Cœur a ses raisons.

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Indonesia

The modern soap opera in Indonesia takes the form of series of complex intense highly emotional drama with a simple solution, known as sinetron. The sinetron productions are among others made by Rajawali Citra Televisi (RCTI) and Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI).

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Soap opera parodies

A few soap opera spoofs have been made. Two of the most famous U.S. spoofs were Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Soap. Fresno was a 1986 spoof of the primetime serials of the period. Australia also produced a spoof of glamorous beach-side soap operas in the form of Shark Bay, which featured many former Australian soap stars from Sons and Daughters, Prisoner, Home and Away and Neighbours. From 1990 to 1994, Australian medical dramas, such as A Country Practice and The Young Doctors as well as other soaps, were spoofed in Let the Blood Run Free set in St. Christopher's Hospital.
Within the story of Australian soap opera Prisoner two characters in the 1985 season became addicted to daytime serial Days of the Week and would eagerly discuss plot twists within the fictional show.
On British television, comedian Victoria Wood had a long-running spoof soap entitled Acorn Antiques on her sketch show (loosely based on ITV's Crossroads).
In the United States, Carol Burnett frequently ran a soap opera spoof on her show, called As the Stomach Turns, modeled in name after As the World Turns. Dramatic coincidences and missed cues (parodying a time in which soap operas were broadcast live) were seen frequently, as well as the melodramatic welling of organ music, which was a staple on American serials until the 1970s.
David Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks featured a soap opera called Invitation to Love, of which clips were shown occasionally.
A frequent staple of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was a soap opera spoof involving unsuspecting members of the studio audience called The Edge of Wetness, the title of which is a takeoff on The Edge of Night.
Futurama frequently features scenes from an almost all-robot soap, called All My Circuits. The robot Calculon is the show's star.
The U.S. comedy team of Bob and Ray produced regular spoofs of many different radio programs, and later of several television programs, all presented on their long-running (1946-1987) radio programs. The best-known, which included a new episode with a cliffhanger ending daily, was Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, a play on the radio soap Mary Noble, Backstage Wife.
In the episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends entitled "Berry Scary", the plot twists in the episode resemble those in a spoof of The Young and the Restless entitled The Loved and the Loveless.
Australian sketch comedy series Fast Forward featured the recurring Dumb Street skit, which parodied soap operas in general, but in particular the then current shows Neighbours, Home and Away, E Street and A Country Practice. Fast Forward also featured Rampant Stupidity a recurring skit which spoofed melodramatic series in the Dallas and Dynasty mold.
"Moody's Point", a soap spoof appearing on several episodes of The Amanda Show.
U-Pick Live's "As The World Picks" segments.
Queer as Folk's show-within-a-show Gay as Blazes which humorously parodies Queer as Folk itself.
The Muppet Show parodied medical serials such as General Hospital and The Doctors in the skit Veterinarians' Hospital.
Tootsie centered around a fictional soap opera Southwest General, a spoof of General Hospital.
SCTV featured the soap opera parody Days of the Week (an obvious reference to Days of our Lives). The intricate storyline, which ran as a recurring segment on the sketch show, featured such soap opera clichés as amnesia, terminal illness, the return of long-lost relatives, disastrous weddings, and court-room trials.
Sitcom Moesha featured an episode that parodied The Young and the Restless. Entitled The Mo' and the Restless, this episode spoofed Y&R even to its opening.
On the sitcom The Parkers one episode consisted of a Dallas/Dynasty parody.
"Palm Beach", a skit on Saturday Night Live which lampooned the 2000 US Presidential election, featured an opening titles sequence that parodied that of The Young and the Restless.
Sunset Beach featured a parody within itself. During one of the Thanksgiving episodes, the soap did a nod to VH1's Pop-Up Video by conveniently pointing out to viewers that a turkey baster used to baste a turkey wasn't the same one used in a storyline where one of the characters was impregnated by a turkey baster.
The musical comedian and parodist Spike Jones recorded the spoof track "None But The Lonely Heart (A Soaperetta)" in the 1940s.
In the That '70s Show episode entitled "Vanstock", an out-of-work Red becomes addicted to soap operas and has a dream in which he and his wife play roles on a soap called Point Place. The soap parody pokes fun at stereotypically "cheap" production (boom microphones peeking into the camera shot), "cheesy" soap dialogue and crying, and organ music.

Red: Oh, Kitty. What have I become?

Kitty: I don't know! You're not the man I married! And I'm not Kitty!

In the Red Dwarf episode "Kryten", Kryten watches a soap named Androids, a parody of Neighbours.
The Sally Field/Kevin Kline comedy Soapdish was a soap opera parody with a soap-within-a-soap, The Sun Also Sets.
The 1990s sitcom Martin featured references to Pam and Gina's favorite soap opera, "All My Young'ns", whose title is spoofed from All My Children.
In the music video for the Queen song I Want to Break Free the band are dressed in a manner inspired by the dress and aesthetic of Coronation Street.
In the television show The Simpsons there is a recurring soap opera called Search For the Sun, including such satirical situations as a man entering a room dressed as a reverend, followed by a naked blonde woman, who was in the middle of love making, saying "Father McGraff, I thought you were dead!" while trying to cover her naked body, to which he replies "I was."
The radio show The Cumberland Sausage Show, on the British commercial station CFM Radio, parodies British soap operas with 'Thongsbury', their very own soap named after a fictional Cumbrian town.
On Blue Collar TV, an episode featured a segment of "White Trash Days of our Lives".
In 1958, the American composer Douglas Moore wrote the soap opera parody "Gallantry" which centered around love between an anesthetist and a patient. In keeping with the style of the early soaps, the opera is introduced as being sponsored by "Lochinvar soap" and "Billy Boy wax".
madTV parodied Korean soap operas with their sketch "Attitudes and Feelings, Both Desirable and Sometimes Secretive", starring Bobby Lee.
In an episode of South Park in which Eric Cartman tries to find out who his father is, the episode ends with melodramatic narration ("Who is Eric Cartman's father?"), close-ups of each character and organ music, before the narrator says "the answer on a new episode of South Park in four weeks", to which Eric replies "son of a bitch".
In the series Friends, in a recurring storyline, Joey gets a role in Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Spoof scenes from the soap featuring Joey in this role are shown in a number of Friends episodes.
"Trapped in the Closet" from R.Kelly is a song series that has soap opera traits.
In Ballykissangel, Fitzgerald's pub gets satellite television installed and some of the regulars become addicted to a South American soap - despite not understanding a single word of dialogue.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer bad boy vampire Spike is a frequent watcher of Passions and becomes very upset when he misses it.
In Sunset Beach the character of Annie Douglas Richards summises that her life is becoming 'like a soap opera', this led to numerous 1960's soap opera inspired sequences entitled Search For Dignity, the title being a nod to Search for Tomorrow.
On the final episode of The Elephant Show, Sharon, Lois & Bram did a parody of All My Children entitled All My Doctors.
In 1994, Anthony Geary & Genie Francis were invited to make a cameo as their General Hospital roles as Luke & Laura Spencer on Roseanne. In return, Roseanne Barr was cast to briefly play Jennifer Smith on GH. That same year, One Life to Live's Robert S. Woods, John Loprieno, & Clint Ritchie made a cameo as Bo, Cord, and Clint. Roseanne was watching an episode of OLTL while she visualized being involved in a storyline with those particular OLTL characters.
The writers of The OC created a fictional show called "The Valley", which was basically the in-show equivalent of The O.C.. Characters frequently made ironic (and perhaps self-mocking) comments about "The Valley" and its fictional reality TV counterpart, "Sherman Oaks: The Real Valley" obviously referring back to the show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and its bold claim to be real.
An episode of talk show Jerry Springer was dubbed "Gays of Our Lives" and dealt with several young people from the same small town, some of which were gay.
One episode of The Golden Girls centered around the women of the house suffering from the flu, and during an argument over who would get to watch which TV show, Blanche (Rue McClanahan) wanted to watch Another World. This was somewhat ironic as McClanahan had actually appeared as Caroline Johnson (1970-1971), a nanny with eyes for the father of the kids she was supposed to watch over, on Another World.
A 2008 episode of The Big Gay Sketch Show featured a sketch parodying the 1980s prime time soap opera, Dynasty, in which the sketch referenced several plotlines of the serial as well as parodying other characteristics of the show including the use of blurry cameras to hide the actress' aging, stunt doubles during the on-screen catfights and shoulder pads as fashion accessories.

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See also

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References

^ ^a ^b ^c Bowles, p. 118
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Bowles, p. 119
^ ^a ^b ^c Bowles, p. 121
^ Geraghty, p. 30
^ Bowles, p. 119-120
^ Geraghty, p. 34
^ Geraghty, p. 35
^ Bowles, p. 123
^ James Tapper. "The biggest TV audience ever... it is now", Daily Mail, May 1, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bowles, p. 120
^ Mercado, p. 231
^ Kilkelly, Daniel. 'Neighbours' ratings a cause for concern" Digital Spy. 18 March 2007. Accessed 2007-05-19.

Bowles, Kate. Soap opera: 'No end of story, ever' in The Australian TV Book, (Eds. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham), Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000. ISBN 1-86508-014-4
Geraghty, Christine. The Aesthetic Experience in Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991. ISBN 0-74560-489-7
Mercado, Andrew. Super Aussie Soaps, Pluto Press Australia, 2004. ISBN 1-86403-191-3
Timeline of daytime soaps

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External links

Soap Opera overview - Museum of Broadcast Communications
SoapCentral.com - Portal for US soap operas
Soapdom.com - Portal for US soap operas
Soaps.com - Portal for US soap operas
Soaps of the Past page on MySpace (US soap operas)
What's on TV - Portal for UK soap operas
The Aussie Soap Archive - Classic Australian soap operas
The Soap Show Interviews and news on UK and Australian soaps
Latest Indian soaps on Mypopkorn.com Catch upon latest Indian soaps

v • d • e U.K. soap operas currently on the air
Casualty (BBC One)	Coronation Street (ITV)	Doctors (BBC One)	EastEnders (BBC One)	Emmerdale (ITV)	Heartbeat (ITV)	Holby City (BBC One)	Hollyoaks (Channel 4)	River City (BBC Scotland)	The Royal (ITV)	The Royal Today (ITV)