Soaps

Professor Wants to Raise His Own Clone

In a draft of his upcoming book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, the economist Bryan Caplan mentions that he'd like to clone and raise himself: I confess that I take anti-cloning arguments personally. Not only do they insult the identical twin sons I already have; they insult a son I hope I live to meet. Yes, I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son. Seriously. I want to experience the sublime bond I'm sure we'd share. I'm confident that he'd be delighted, too, because I would love ... (read more)

2010/04/21

Dismembering the Eighties

SoapNet airs reruns of the cancelled soap Another World, digging 16-year-old episodes out of the Procter & Gamble archives. They've reached June 1989, and every time I hit this show during a channel surf I can't find my way back out -- it's a hypnotic time capsule of excruciatingly bad '80s fashion. Movies that mock the decade, such as The Wedding Singer and 200 Cigarettes, don't come close to how ridiculous we looked. There may be no more unseemly spectacle than men in feathered mullets, ... (read more)

2005/05/18

Don't Tune in Tomorrow

On March 31, SoapCity is cancelling a great TV subscription service: commercial-free program downloads. The service, which required Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, offered shows from the last four weeks for download over the Web, charging $9.95 a month or $1.99 per episode. Digital-rights management expired the files after four weeks. Considering the popularity of TV show DVDs and illegally traded episodes on file-sharing services, it seems like a no-brainer to milk a few more ... (read more)

2005/02/25

Routh, Justice, and the American Way

Hoping to recreate the legendary casting of little-known, lantern-jawed soap actor Christopher Reeve as Superman in the '70s, the producers of a new Superman film have chosen Brandon Routh, a little-known, lantern-jawed soap actor, as the next actor to don the cape. Routh grew up in Iowa and looks the part, but as someone who saw his work as "Seth Anderson #1" on One Life to Live, I'm surprised at this casting. Perhaps he's gotten better since he was fired from that soap in 2002, but back then ... (read more)

2004/10/20

Brandon Routh (Seth, OLTL) announced on his web site that he was fired last Thursday. How is he taking the news? Routh: "I will leave God to judge those who have wronged me." ... (read more)

2002/03/24