Mary Hartman's Parody: Paodies Soap Operas

Parody is like walking a tightrope, it’s incredible hard to succeed, but if you can make it to the other end it can turn out to be downright hilarious. Most full-blown parodies are found in films, like the gut-busting films like Spaceballs (1987) and The Naked Gun (1988), on the flip side TV rarely delves into this territory. Although one of the greatest examples comes from the show Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a show from the 1970’s that parodies soap operas. This is a fondly remembered show, which leads to a big question why did this show succeed? There are two big reasons why the show succeeds and these are the way Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman parodied soap operas in their form and industrial aspects.

When it comes to soap opera form this
Most soap operas will end a scene on a cliffhanger before they cut to commercial break, and this show does the same thing in a comedic fashion as either something off topic will be said before they cut to commercial break or they more prominently they will use a silly transition to black, with a still shot on a characters goofy expression. Technically the show also spoofs the “next time on…” format many serial melodramas and soap operas use to help promote the next episode for audiences. It shows what will happen next time by focusing on the continuing storylines, but most deliver the jokey nature of the ridiculous storylines. The final technical aspect the show spoofs is the low budgets of many soap operas, as seen through the sets. Many soap operas use only a handful of sets for each episode (to help keep production costs low), for example most characters are never seen doing anything important out on the porch of a house, which this show directly parodies. At the end of the pilot episode of the show Mary walks outside as the credits role and looks around as if there is literally nothing to do out there, and questions why she walked out there to begin