When Soap arrived on ABC in September 1977, it looked like little else on television. Created by Susan Harris, the outrageous comedy borrowed the serialized storytelling and melodrama of daytime soap operas, then pushed both to absurd extremes.
Among its sprawling ensemble was Jimmy Baio, who played Billy Tate, the teenage son of Jessica and Chester Tate. Baio was just 15 when Soap premiered, having landed the role at 14, and the series would become the defining credit of his acting career.
The Brooklyn-born actor wasn’t entirely new to television.
Baio had started acting professionally at 13 and appeared on the short-lived CBS sitcom Joe and Sons beginning in 1975. He also appeared in the 1977 movie The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training before joining Soap. But playing Billy put him alongside an ensemble that included Katherine Helmond, Robert Mandan, Richard Mulligan, Cathryn Damon, Robert Guillaume, and another rising young performer, Billy Crystal.
The series centered on two related but very different families, the wealthy Tates and working-class Campbells. Murder, infidelity, kidnapping, organized crime, amnesia, and countless other twists were treated with the exaggerated drama of the daytime programs Soap was parodying.
“I wanted to do a series where you weren’t confined to a beginning, middle, and an end in 23 minutes,” Harris told Entertainment Weekly. “And that really was the appeal. We would change the storyboard around, we could shift things, kill people, bring them back. If it didn’t work out, [the character] was gone, or if we had only scheduled this person for two episodes, they could become regulars. There was a lot to play around with. And that was my favorite show.”
Its willingness to tackle controversial subjects generated attention before the first episode even aired.
ABC added a viewer-discretion warning during the first season, while religious organizations and other groups protested the series. The controversy didn’t keep audiences away. Soap finished its first season as the 13th most popular network program of 1977–78, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
The show also became an awards contender. Guillaume won an Emmy for his performance as Benson DuBois, a character popular enough to receive his own spin-off, Benson. Mulligan and Damon later earned Emmys as well.
Its reputation has endured beyond its four-season run. Soap has subsequently appeared on retrospective rankings of television’s best sitcoms, including Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 best sitcoms of all time.
Baio remained with the series through its 1981 conclusion and later appeared on shows including Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Facts of Life, and Matlock. Yet Billy Tate remained his signature role.
For a young actor barely into his teens when he landed the part, Soap proved to be an unusually memorable break, a controversial ABC experiment that became both a hit and a television comedy classic.
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