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Should Dick have suspected that the baby was not his own—especially as he had been married to Kathy for only seven months? After all, the doctor, to protect Kathy, had said that the baby was premature. Then a nurse who was trying to woo Dick away from Kathy tipped him off that the infant was a full-term child. What Dick didn't know was that Kathy had been married before—for only a week (her husband was killed in an auto crash). Kathy, who thought her first marriage was all a mistake, nevertheless felt so guilty about not telling Dick that she could hardly bear to face him, instead started lavishing all her affection on the baby. And Dick, feeling neglected, began to respond to the advances of the nurse. Will the marriage be shattered? Or will Dick learn the truth in time to save it?
As millions of housewives tuned in The Guiding Light this week at the same time (1:45 p.m., E.S.T., weekdays), same station (CBS), most were sure—or almost sure—that things would come out all right, as they eventually do in the sweet-sad world of soap opera. There was also no doubt that things would come out all right for the program's sponsors: Procter & Gamble Co.'s Duz soap and Ivory Flakes. As any junior advertising executive can explain, soap operas "get more advertising messages across to the consumer"—and sell more soap—simply because the housewife can absorb the messages for hours on end while she goes about her household chores.
No soapmaker is more aware of this theory than Procter & Gamble's President Neil Hosier McElroy, as handsome, ruddy-faced and well-scrubbed as one of his own radio heroes. P. & G. was in the advance guard of soap opera, helped start it on its interminable way more than 20 years ago with The Puddle Family. P. & G. writers were among the first to learn that the trick is to spin the story out to fantastic lengths, with a flood of tears to wash away every smile. This year, with 13 soap operas on the air, P. & G. is the biggest advertiser in the U.S., will spend an estimated $30 million in network radio and TV, $15 million in newspapers and magazines.
On the Soapbox. The addition of soap operas to American culture has been under constant attack for years. To every complaint, the soapmakers have a crisply pragmatic answer: they are written as they are because that is what their audience wants. When asked what he thinks of his soap operas, P. & G.'s President McElroy, no steady listener himself, is apt to get up on one of his own soapboxes: "The problem of improving the literary tastes of the people is the problem of the schools. The people who listen to our programs aren't intellectuals — they're ordinary people, good people, who win wars for us, produce our manufactured products and grow our food. They use a lot of soap."
By soap, he also means synthetic detergents*—the fast-growing competitor of old-fashioned soaps. And the way the selling spiels of P. & G.'s soaps and detergents deride each other's qualities is often completely bewildering.