Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - No Soap Radio

No Soap Radio aired from April until May 1982 on ABC.

No Soap Radio might best be described as the Twilight Zone of situation comedies. There was a story of sorts in each episode , but it was frequently interrupted by slight gags, blackouts , and surrealistic skits that might or might not have anything to do with anything else. The setting was the seedy Pelican Hotel in Atlantic City, where you might open the door to your room and find yourself standing in the woods, or pass a glass-enclosed fire station in the corridor and notice a live fireman inside. Riding in the elevator was always interesting as you could never tell what would be revealed on each floor as the doors opened; Miami Beach, perhaps, or a coronation ball?

Presiding over this house of sequiturs was the pleasant young manager, Roger ( Steve Guttenberg), assisted by Karen ( played by Hillary Bailey. Brianne Leary had played Sharon the assistant in the first episode ) and Tuttle ( Stuart Pankin), the house detective. They hardly batted an eye at such goings-on as they chase after a man-eating chair, the little old lady who was attacked by a submarine, the frustrations of a gunfighter whose opponent overslept, or the pause for a preview of the new science-fiction movie" The Day Everyone's Name Became Al."

Rounding out the cast was Bill Dana as Mr. Plitsky, a guest, Fran Ryan as Mrs. Belmont, another guest; Jerry Maren as Morris, the bellhop, Edie McClurg as Marion and Phil Rubinstein as Rico.

As for the series' title, No Soap Radio-why should that make any more sense than anything else? ( According to columnist William Safire in You Could Look It Up, the phase originated many years ago as the punch line of the following gag: A lion and a lioness were taking a bath together. The lion said,' Please pass the soap,' and the lioness replied ,No soap, radio.'" Doesn't make sense? That's the point; it isn't supposed to. If you laugh, you obviously don't get it.)

A Review from The New York Times

TV: 'NO SOAP, RADIO' COMEDY

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: April 15, 1982

SAY this for ''No Soap, Radio'': it's different. In the cookiecutter world of situation comedies, the new series, on ABC-TV Thursdays at 8 P.M., is making an almost desperate effort to be zanily unconventional.

Most of the action takes place at a rundown hotel in Atlantic City. Roger (Steve Guttenberg), the young owner, is getting offers to sell the Pelican Hotel to a group called the Tarantula Brothers. The place is falling apart; some of the older residents are just about certifiable; the staff, especially the midget bellhop, is questionable -but the place has been in Roger's family for three generations and he tends to be sentimental.

So far, this might sound like a replay of ''The Hot l Baltimore,'' the short-lived series that Norman Lear adapted from a Lanford Wilson play several years ago. But the producers of ''No Soap, Radio,'' Les Alexander and Dick Smith, have spiked the proceedings with a slew of jokes and routines that fall somewhere between the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges on the one hand, and between ''Laugh-In'' and ''Monty Python'' on the other.

The opening credits, taking a swipe at public television, note that the program is being underwritten by ''Trans National Petroleum and Rico's Boom-Boom Room.'' The central plot, such as it is, is stopped frequently for totally unrelated asides. A ''Special Report'' announcing that Mr. Potato is missing ends with the news that the President has asked families around the nation to put a French fry in their windows. In a special interview, the cartoon character Elmer Fudd, ''one of Hollywood's most beloved actors,'' confesses that ''cartoons aren't weal.'' The interviewer gasps, ''You mean you can't tie your head into a knot.''

The rest of the cast includes a flashy blonde, who is roughed up and contemptuously thrown money by a puppet called Harry the Hippo (his voice belongs to Sheldon Leonard), a nasty young man whose head is transformed into a basketball, and a doctor who shows signs of serious psychosis after offering a tribute to the ''health and happiness of the American family.''

Back in the hotel lobby, Roger is beginning to weaken before the persistence of the lawyer for the Tarantula Brothers, who enters the picture with a chorus of boos from the soundtrack. It's not the money that tempts Roger, as he explains, ''it's what I can buy with the money.''

His assistant, Sharon (Brianne Leary), is unimpressed with the possibility of vacations abroad. ''Europe needs a painting,'' she argues. And the whackiness spins on at an impressive pace in this premiere episode. The future will face the more difficult problem of maintaining the momentum.

For a Website dedicated to Steve Guttenberg go to http://www.steveguttenberg.bravehost.com/

For another Site dedicated to Steve Guttenberg go to http://pages.matmice.com/home/harbridge1/