Radio Soap Opera Quiz

This will test your knowledge of OTR domestic daytime dramas. The degree of difficulty, while not intended to be severe, generally increases as the list progresses.

QUESTIONS

1. In the soap Just Plain Bill, what is Bill Davidson's occupation?

2. One of the most popular radio soaps of all time features a heroine who "sets out to prove . . . that because a woman is thirty-five, or more, romance in life need not be over." What is it called?

3. Only one of the radio soaps which made the transition to a television soap is still on the air today. Can you name it?

4. What famous soap features "a sweet young girl from Iowa" who marries an actor called the "matinee idol of a million other women"?

5. What soap asks the question, "can this girl from a little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?"

6. In which soap does Dr. Jim Brent work at the Theodore Wheelock Memorial Sanitarium in Merrimac?

7. Ma Perkins was the mother of two girls and a boy. Her son died young. How did he die?

8. The soap Joyce Jordan, M.D. evolved into another famous soap whose principal characters are the Reverend Richard Dennis and his daughter Liz. Can you name it?

9. What real-life big city provides the setting for the soap Stella Dallas?

10. What is the significance of the date November 25, 1960?

ANSWERS

1. Bill was a barber, famously known as "the barber of Hartville."

2. The Romance of Helen Trent.

3. The Guiding Light.

4. Backstage Wife.

5. Our Gal Sunday.

6. Road of Life.

7. Ma's son John was a soldier killed in action in World War II.

8. The Brighter Day.

9. Boston.

10. That was "the day the radio soap operas died." The few remaining soaps (such as The Right to Happiness, The Second Mrs. Burton, Young Dr. Malone and Ma Perkins) all broadcast their final episode on that date.