Baloney On A Hot Tin Roof

EXCERPTS FROM A FAN’S NOTES: Greg Mullavey appears on Break the Bank and Rhyme & Reason ... Dody Goodman pushes homegrown morality on Take My Advice ... Louise Lasser poses for People ... Mary K. Place does Jimmy Carter one better on Merv Griffin ... Debralee Scott fantasizes about screwing Donny Osmond in Rolling Stone .. . the Dody Goodman catfood commercial appears every 30 seconds . . . David Susskind & Dinah Shore jump on the bandwagon . .. even the J awsmania media blitz was never like this!

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT: “Mary Hartman has been dissected and analyzed by every clod and his pet poodle. Whether it’s the pulp or the academic approach, every angle has ignored the basic fuel of the series itself. For Mary Hartman can only function by feeding upon television. Not only do teevee rays bombard the Hartman home and the Fernwood cast of characters, but they also penetrate the pores of the writers and producers. It’s quite evident that Mary Hartman uses the medium to its full capacity by exploiting the unconscious state of television itself. The show is primarily successful when it is parodying other TV genres (e.g. talk shows: Loretta’s appearance on Dinah was a touch of class) or when it focuses upon the inherent “fantasy” of the video image (e.g. Mary Hartman’s assertion to Heather that My Little Margie would never smoke pot). Through this process, the series gradually erases the ' fine line separating the image behind the TV screen from the image of the everyday shoppers’ world. An extreme paradox is that Soap Op Digest (a zine devoted to the art of daytime sudsviewing) includes Mary Hartman along with the other umpteen serials, publishing monthly plot summary installments. To S.O.D.. the distinction Mary Hartman has set up for itself (a tunnel through which television concepts pass and merge into a focal point of “living room reality”) is silently ignored. Furthermore, fhe huge success of the series is based upon this ever reliable level of ignorance, or rather, the unseeing eye of the beergut masses who cannot distinguish between their own lives and I Dream of Jeannie. -Dr. Taco Wazoo, reprinted from TV and Your Smelly Socks (Boscobrain Press).

POUNDING THE MARY HARTMAN BEAT: Gossip has been flying through the Hollywood Hotline regarding Louise Lasser’s alleged affair with Muhammad Ali. Additional reports are that following Ms. Lasser’s Saturday Night guest stint guys and dolls alike swamped her with dirty, suggestive letters. Most were attracted by her “long legs” and were “willing to do anything” to meet her. Without a doubt, Ms. Lasser has suddenly become the fastest rising young sex symbol since Linda Blair. Louise Lasser enthusiasts, however, can unite by subscribing to the Mary Hartman Monthly, a fanzine dedicated to “the seductive pleasures of the Divine Ms. L." What's the latest piece of noteworthy news from this sickie rag? Louise’s favorite cereal, darling: it’s Wheaties!

UPCOMING MONDO BIZARRO EPISODE: Loretta and Charlie Haggers buy a CB, Tom Hartman can’t find his shoes, Martha Shumway waters her plants, and Heather and Mary discuss feminine hygiene. Etc.

A GOURMET GUIDE TO TASTY DINING: Hopefully, Mary.Hartman fanaticism has finally peaked. TV’s biggest craze has produced every marketable gizmo from paper hats to rubber novelties. Restaurant entrepreneur Tony King of Toledo probably made the ultimate profiteering venture. This reporter was sent to Ohio’s famed city to interview Dr. King regarding his exploitative enterprise*

“Tony. I understand you’ve built yourself quite a restaurant here. What’s your big attraction?”

"Well, sir, it has to be our worldfamous sandwiches.

"They’re that good?"

"No, no. They taste alright, I guess, but it’s the names that attract the customers. Like there’s the Loretta Haggers Deluxe. which is piles and piles of grits on a sesame seed bun. Then there's the Dody Goodman Special, a'yummy treat composed of bacon, lettuce, tomato, and tuna. And, of course, the always popular Grandpa Larkin P-Nut Butter Delite, which speaks for itself. Heck, we got a sandwich for every character that’s ever been on the Mary Hartman series.”

“But what about the Big One, Tony? What about the Mary Hartman sandwich? I bet that s a real crowdpleaser!"

“No. not really. Most people don’t go for it. It's simple enough to make, though. We just take a thick slab of baloney, slap it on a tin roof, and let it sizzle under the hot sun. Then it’s served, piping hot, on burnt toast’’

"Blech! That sounds terrible, Tony.”

"Don't knock it, bud, til ya tried it.”

Bite The Bitter Bubble

By Rick Johnson

Scott: Face it, Jennifer, when something’s over, it’.s all over.

Jennifer: But is it . . . really over?* It’s over, all right. Soap operas are all over the place, and not just on the daytime screen either. From talk shows to Time covers, soaps are big biz, and it won’t be long before they completely take over the tube and weld it into one continuous celebration of the same elemental American stupidity that created the hula hoop and rock music. Soaps even have their own Elton J ohn figures now, people you wouldn’t want to meet walking down the street. They’re on deodorant, roach spray and carpet stain-remover commercials. They get leading roles in obscure TV movies like Village Of The Damaged and A Night On Ant Farm. They get busted for coke. But most important of all, they’re on game shows all the time! True status.

The reason this long-and-deservedly-maligned genre is finally getting media support is the old Coming Out Of The Closet syndrome. The ops daily present true murky slices of everyday moronity condensed into a form that leaves the viewer alternately drooling and whimpering like an adolescent puppy in pre-heat. Big deal if all the characters are either lawyers, doctors or illegitimate. They fuck up just like the rest of us bag-brains if riot more so. Anybody that says they don’t lead a soap-like existence is either a liar or a dead liar. As one loaded-butgreat suds critic put it: “If you lived in the ghetto and sat around watching soaps all day, would you want to watch one about somebody who lived in the ghetto and watched soaps all day?” Case dismissed.

Deranged, convoluted plots also help to make soaps lifelike. They read like a police show that takes three months to catch the killer. Take your typical All My Children story line. Cool fox Margo fakes a pregnancy as part of a fiendishly long-range adoption plot and ends up divorced and locked in the laughing academy . That’s the breaks, Margo! Now the standard prime time Cannon episode: fat man gets up, eats, meets pretty girl. The show is half over. He proceeds to get her out of trouble, then cooks her a dinner. She pecks him on the pig and then splits. Now, would you rather kiss a fat man or commit your wife to the nut factory?

So the soaper (no wise remarks) has no place to go but over the Maytag lid. There’ll be suds-quenchers on prime time this season, probably even Valley Of The Dolls or Peyton Place. Anew career for Mia Farrow! Now that soaps have attained the “legitimacy” of such other sub-attuned life forms as skateboards, tuna casseroles and rock ‘n’ roll, will they follow those trashy footprints into the oblivion of Art? Will we see the first serialized Sgt. Pepper? Can we expect J ames William Guercio to covertly produce his way into the picture?

Stay tuned fans. Following the ops in general is almost as much fun as ritualistically staring at any one of them. All we can do for now is scope the scoreboard on what we’ve already got, so here’s CREEM’s guide to the best and the rest. After the following announcement.

BOY HOWDY’S GUIDE TO SUDS ABUSE

THE HEAVIES (AAA)

• All My Children—The #1 biggie across the land, AMC is truly doltstrewn but attracts bubble-suckers that ranging from college kids to shuffleboard champs. Marks all. Too many old folks on the show, but there are great moments, like the aforementioned Margo freakout, where she finally gets out of the yo-yo farm and her hubby cuts out five minutes late to Go Fly A Kite. Nice one, Phil! Better yet was the brutal murder of wimp Mary so that she could leave the show and do pantyhose commercials. Why stop there, kid? How about vaginal deodorant?

• Mary Hartman—The soap for people who hate soaps. Louise Lasser’s parody of the “typical” bricknode housewife is so excessively condescending it’s mundane. Fans of MH claim that it’s “really real,” but if reality is that drab for them, they should just go crawl in front of a semi. Some good jokes, lots of flat ones, and a visual dullness that’s an insult to anyone not blind. Wish she’d got the chair for that media-hype coke bust.

• Days Of Our Lives—As soon as MacDonald Carey does that military voice-over while the sand pours through the hourglass, you know it’s going to be good. Plus there’s the First Couple of daytime TV, Bill and Susan Hayes of Time cover fame. And then there’s several beautiful young women wearing little clothing and an amnesia sub-plot that’s the most unbelievable ever created. Unforgettable.

UP AND COMERS (AA)

• Search For Tomorrow —This one’s mine, so shut up. Many Fleeting Affairs; a divorce a week and a murder a month. The head writer of this show also acts in it and she just had herself gunned down and paralyzed. You should see her scoot around in her electric wheelchair. Bzzz bzzz! What guts.

• The Young And The Restless—A slinky one based on the sketchy lives of four sisters, two of whom are real hot numbers and the others ain’t bad either. Lots of rape and disease in this one, so it’s a great way to start your day. Conveniently scheduled next to Let’s Make A Deal, so you can easily switch over when they start on one of their anti-booze sermons.

• Ryan ’s Hope—Ryan better keep hoping, because the ratings on this reek of cancellation. It’s so over-glossy and nearly (oh no!) Arty ... It’s OK though, and the cast of lovable but malicious ethnic Irish politicians keep things moving. The recent marriage episode was tremendous—the groom had to be put through three cold showers and an Irish Ramrod up the ass before he’d go to the church.

LOSERS (D)

All the good soaps have been covered now, and the rest of the afternoon tube fare are strictly candidates for the dogfood factory. What it gets down to is too many doctors (like on The Doctors), too many middle-agers half-hornedly attempting affairs (The Guiding Light) and too much of nothing at all like Somerset, which from the title on treads on thin toilet tissue. Worst of the crud though, is As The World Turns, where-everybody is either ugly or Grandpa. A true pain in the eye.

That about covers it. Soaps are the finely putrid lifeblood of the unemployed, and we all deserve to plant ourselves in front of some unreal reallife situations from time to time. It helps you to learn the correct way to make snide comments about people when they leave the room. J ust like Scott and J ennifer explained on another episode:

J ennifer: But Scott, didn’t you ever really lope me?

Scott: Not really. *

Some things are better left said.

* Search For Tomorrow. CBS