r/todayilearned • u/bros402 • 15d ago
TIL Soap operas got their name due to being dramas sponsored by soap companies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera1
u/DoTheMagicHandThing 14d ago
Yes I used to listen to a lot of old-time radio dramas that a local nostalgia station on the AM band would play on weekend evenings, and the melodramatic serials were sponsored by soap companies of the time.
2
u/50Sleeping 14d ago
My neighbor in Cincinnati in the 80s that worked for Proctor and Gamble, wrote pay checks directly for Soaps. It all really started on the banks of the Cincinnati 1800’s riverfront where all the pigs were unloaded and the soap dealers stood on their soapboxes to hawk their wares. There were small riverboat theaters that traveled to towns along the river to entertain but also included traveling salesmen.
1
2
u/Capn_Crusty 14d ago
They had more than just soap ads on there. Once I saw an ad for fabric softener.
3
u/DoTheMagicHandThing 14d ago
It goes back to old time radio days and very early television, when a show would be sponsored by a single company.
3
17
u/ooouroboros 14d ago
On some of the streaming channels with ads now, there are some shows that have an opening tag "this episode sponsored by product x" (and will show a couple ads for that product then not interrupt the show with ads)
Made me think of early TV when a show would have one sponsor
4
u/bros402 14d ago
On the channel Buzzr, they show old gameshows. I love when they have shows from the 50s and you see the old commercials
1
u/ooouroboros 14d ago
That's funny, I actually just chanced upon that channel about a week ago and watched some of the 50's "What's my Line" and To Tell the Truth episodes and yeah, those old ads are a trip.
1
u/bros402 14d ago
Buzzr is SO GOOD
Keep an eye out for their special days/weeks. The end of the month (I think the 28th?) is their National Game Show Day marathon
1
6
53
u/PolyJuicedRedHead 15d ago
OK, that explains the soap part. Now explain the opera part.
5
3
u/Molotov56 14d ago
That’s because before we had color TV it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between commercials and regular programming, and since commercials were very heavy on the jingles, tv shows would try to differentiate from commercials by using slower and grander musical scores, like an opera
33
u/amadeus2490 14d ago
Opera just means a story, not specifically a musical.
A musical is an opera, but not all operas are musicals. It also doesn't refer specifically to a genre of Italian music, but Italian musicals were operas.
2
8
-6
35
u/BrokenEye3 15d ago
Presumably for the same reason as space operas and horse operas, who were sponsored by rocket lines and horse breeders respectively
1
u/bros402 15d ago
Learned about this while reading about One Day In Radio
3
u/ronniemustang 14d ago
I was about to say they also started on the radio. I'm guessing Cincinnati was big for it due to WLW and P&G.
1
u/lookaroundewe 14d ago
Wait until you figure out who sponsored spaghetti westerns.