WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Introducing WBEZ's latest podcast series, Making: Stories Without End. Host Natalie Moore takes you on a journey to learn about daytime soap operas and their broad reach on television. From the early radio days in the 1930s through the invention of TV to streaming, this way of telling immersive stories has endured. There are intergenerational family stories, discussions about divorce and abortion, groundbreaking storylines dealing with queer representation. And all these threads go back to one Chicago woman, Irna Phillips. The queen of soaps originated, wrote or supervised more than a dozen daytime serials for more than 40 years… and left a lasting mark on the television industry. You’ll hear the story behind the stories from scholars, actors, writers – from the past and now – as well as fans.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hi, it's Erin Allen, and I'm excited to share a new series we just launched at WBEZ.
0:05.8	It's called Making Stories Without End.
0:09.0	This is a limited series podcast, and it takes a deep dive into the history and lasting impact of daytime dramas, which started here in Chicago.
0:19.4	These shows didn't just entertain.
0:21.6	They shaped conversations around culture and society in ways that still resonate today.
0:27.1	I hope you enjoy the first episode, and don't forget to subscribe to making stories without end wherever you get your podcasts.
0:35.4	I've been a reporter for a long time.
0:37.7	And for much of my career here in my hometown of Chicago, I've reported on race.
0:41.7	I've done stories on housing, segregation, food injustice, economic development.
0:46.6	It's been so fulfilling.
0:49.0	But something you likely don't know about me and maybe don't expect, I am a huge soap opera fan. And I mean huge.
0:58.6	You might be thinking so what? Soaps are known for the absurd, people returning from the dead,
1:04.6	amnesia as a popular plot device. Possession by the devil. Sometimes the acting is overwrought
1:11.1	chalk it up to all the lines that must be memorized
1:13.7	There are no reruns, therefore stories without end
1:17.7	250 episodes a year
1:20.8	I argue that there is a deeper picture of the daytime drama
1:24.8	An important part of American television history and popular
1:28.5	culture. Not to mention the social issues soaps tackled before other shows, abortion, divorce,
1:35.2	and queer representation have been front burner stories with flushed out characters and storylines
1:41.6	played out over months, not just one very special episode.
1:47.3	Soap operas are a part of families and childhoods.
	...

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