No Soap, Radio was a rapid-fire Sitcom Sketch Comedy Short-Runner that aired on ABC in April 1982. It was a brazen attempt to bring Absurdism and Surreal Humor to American audiences, and is often compared to Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers.
Superficially, the show revolves around the Pelican Hotel, a once-glamorous lodge in Atlantic City, New Jersey that's now in its fading years. It is owned and managed by the youthfully optimistic Roger (Steve Guttenberg), who tries to please his visitors with the help of his assistant Karen (Hillary Bailey). Other characters include Morris (Jerry Maren) the bellboy; Al Tuttle (Stuart Pankin), a local tough who is trying to get Roger to sell the hotel; and longtime residents Mrs. Belmont (Fran Ryan), Mr. Plitzky (Bill Dana), and Marion (Edie McClurg).
In reality, this was all a Framing Device to feature a nonstop barrage of sketches, gags, and skits. Transitions included hotel doors opening to improbable locales, cameras zooming into background props, or the show itself being interrupted for a "Special Report". The stories actually involving the Pelican Hotel could also veer into the nonsensical, especially when the elements from the skits crossed over.
Between the random non-sequiter humor and a horrible timeslot,note it's not a surprise that the show was canceled after five episodes.
Not to be confused with the Work Com NewsRadio.
No Soap, Radio demonstrates the following tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The House of Lies sells perjuries, alibis, innuendos, tall tales, short tales, fibs, fabrications, contradictions, vicious rumors, and ladies' luggage.
- Behind the Black: Used in one skit; a homeless man wanders into a closed building and finds a grand piano in a darkened room. He proceeds to play Mozart flawlessly, then turns to his right and sees a theater packed with enthusiastically applauding patrons.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Roger's assistant Sharon (Brianne Leary) appears only in the first episode. She is replaced with Karen (Hillary Bailey) in later episodes without any explanation.
- Exact Words: Demonstrated in the public service announcement for the Distrosis Foundation.Alan: "You said I had a cold!"
Doctor: "You do have a cold... and Distrosis."
Alan: "You said you had a cure!"
Doctor: "Yes, but the mouse died."
Alan: "I saw him this morning! He looked fine!"
Doctor: "So do you!" - Excuse Plot: The happenings at the Pelican Hotel are clearly a Framing Device to go from one gag to another.
- Failed a Spot Check: In "Curse of the Chair", a man-eating chair is delivered by a uniformed deliveryman from the Cursed Chair Company. No one pays him any mind.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In-universe example — one episode opens with a commercial for "Raisin Flakes" cereal, where a hand reaches out of the box, grabs the eater, and drags him into the box. Cut to Roger watching the commercial while reaching into a box of "Raisin Flakes", whereupon he pulls out the slipper of the just-captured victim...
- Framing Device: The events at the Pelican Hotel are used to introduce and separate the various sketches... except when it's funnier to have them cross over.
- Gallows Humor: Seen in the "Distrosis Foundation" sketch, where the doctor informs Alan that he'll die within two weeks as part of a cheerful charity pitch."So please, send whatever you can. Send your money to 'So Long, Alan'!"
- Giant Foot of Stomping: The "Basketball Head" sketch begins with a giant shoed foot falling into a hotel hallway. It turns out to be dad stepping over his son's playset.
- Green-Eyed Monster: In one episode, Roger becomes jealous when Karen starts showering extra attention on a handsome and wealthy guest.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Invoked in the "Deer Hunter"
sketch, where the deer... well, you can guess. - Literal Metaphor: "House of Lies" features a store that sells falsehoods.
- Little People Are Surreal: Morris the bellboy (played by Jerry Maren) is a little person, which simply emphasizes the absurdism of the show.
- Losing Your Head: Seen in the "Job Interview" sketch, where the president of a hat company is a disembodied head waddling around a desk."I think a hat is the most important piece of clothing you can wear."
- The Mafia: The Tarantula Brothers, who want Roger to sell the hotel so they can build a parking lot in its place.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: In one episode, a homeless man is mistaken for a famous hotel critic in disguise. The staff ends up giving him extra-special treatment as a result.
- Model Scam: The episode "Miss Pelican" has Roger fall victim to a fake beauty contest at the hotel.
- No Inner Fourth Wall: The characters and events from the various sketches will interact with the people at the Pelican Hotel whenever it's funny.
- A box of cereal that appeared in a television commercial saves the Pelican Hotel from being sold.
- A man-eating chair from an in-universe movie ends up in a police standoff in the hotel.
- No-Tell Motel: Discussed when Roger is trying to convince a telephone caller that the Pelican is a suitable venue for a Shriners' Convention:"No, sir, no wild women here— what do you mean, 'why not'?"
- Painting the Medium: After Elmer Fudd confesses on national television that "cartoons aren't weal", he starts crying out of fear that "they" are going to retaliate. Sure enough, a hand reaches from the top of the frame, then grabs and crumples the page that Elmer is drawn on...
- Planet of Steves: One skit has a 1950s horror movie spoof called The Day Everyone's Name Became Al, which was a scheme from invading aliens attempting to cause chaos on Earth.
- Portal Door: The Pelican Hotel is full of these, which open to whatever locale is relevant for the next sketch.
- Public Service Announcement: A regular target of parody, such as the announcements for the "Inverted Speech Foundation" and the "Distrosis Foundation"."People. Many speech are with Inflicted Syndrome Inverted."
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: The jokes may be weird, but they sure do come fast.
- Enforced when the series was shown in Britain, which removed the commercial breaks and made everything even faster as a result.
- Rule of Funny: The ONLY reason anything happens in this show.
- Sitcom: There's ostensibly a conventional sitcom about a New Jersey hotel buried beneath the pile of random routines.
- Shout-Out: Several bits are clear nods to Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- "Basketball Head" begins with a giant foot falling out of the sky.
- Remember "The Argument Clinic"? Here's "House of Lies".
- Sketch Comedy: When the show is not focusing on the hotel, then it's this.
- Skewed Priorities: When the man-eating chair attacks and the housewife cries for help, a neighbor angrily demands to know what type of chair is on the rampage.
- Sleeping Dummy: In "Basketball Head", Junior builds one of these so he can sneak out of the house. When it is found by his parents, they are horrified and immediately call the paramedics to save it.
- Sub Story: This sketch has a little old lady reading the newspaper in the park... while she's being targeted by a Japanese submarine.
- Stealthy Teleportation: Invoked in one sketch, where a man enters a steam room and inexplicably ends up in the middle of the Baltic Sea with a British police officer.
- Surreal Humor: If the comedy isn't coming from a skit, then it's coming from being inexplicable and bizarre.
- TV Telephone Etiquette: The regulars at the Pelican have no qualms about injecting themselves into Roger's phone calls.Roger (on telephone): "This is a really nice hotel."
Tuttle: "A DUMP!"
Mr. Plitzky: "A fancy dump!" - Viewers Like You: Spoofed in the opening of the first episode, which credits the show to Trans National Petroleum, The Updyke Foundation, and Rico's Boom-Boom Room.
- Visual Pun: A fire extinguisher cabinet has a fully-suited fireman inside.
- We Interrupt This Program: Some skits are introduced with a news bulletin interrupting the hotel's story. One was an announcement that Mr. Potato Head was kidnapped, with the President asking families to show their support by putting a french fry in their windows.
- Witness Protection: One episode has the Pelican being used as a hideout for Carmine Turner, a notorious gangster who is planning to testify against his colleagues.
