Soap Comes to TVPathfinder News Magazine
February 9, 1949
Last week television caught the dread disease of radio–soapoperaitis. It happened in Chicago, which holds, rather bashfully, undisputed claim as originator of radio's daytime serials.
What Chicago viewers saw over station WNBQ was the first in a daily series of 15-minute capsule dramas called These Are My Children. The camera focused first on the widowed Mother Henehan, and with her thumbed through an old family album to introduce the characters who will form the framework for the Henehans' lives, loves and family troubles.
Temptation. Whether soap opera on television can coax housewives to leave their domestic duties to watch a small screen was a question yet to be answered. But if anything will catch the housewife's eye, These Are My Children, written by 47-year-old Irna Phillips,* should do the trick. In 18 years and 30 million words she has probably brought more tears and laughter to more women than any other daytime serial writer.
