Vine Street

Genre

soap opera

Country

United States

How it feels

This daily 15 minute serial from 1938 was the first American TV soap opera. It follows characters trying to make it in Hollywood while dealing with the ups and downs of show business.

lighthumorousdramaticdatedexperimentalupbeatseriocomicgroundbreaking

What happens

Vine Street, considered the first American television soap opera, was first broadcast on 15 April 1938 by W6XAO in Los Angeles, as a daily 15-minute serial, and was listed as a comedy-drama. The storyline involved Hollywood life on the lowest rungs of the "ladder" to success. The light humor drama shows the struggles to make it big in Tinsel Town. The stars were Broadway and radio character actors John Barkeley and Shirley Thomas, neither of whom appeared on television again. The writers, Maurice Ashley and Wilfred Pettit, were brought in from the radio networks to experiment in this new medium. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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