“Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry is the next guest on “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart,” which was released on Tuesday.
In an exclusive clip from episode seven of the audio/video podcast series, Cherry talks about his love of the soap opera genre while also explaining how each of his other projects, including “Devious Maids” and “Why Women Kill” came to be, including his earlier work as a half-hour comedy writer on “The Golden Girls,” and the one show he didn’t focus on women characters.
“I have literally only had one show that wasn’t dominated by women, and it was my first job. It was a show called ‘Homeroom’ – ABC ran ten episodes before it was canceled – and it was about a guy teaching inner city school children, which I was perfect for, and the second job was ‘The Golden Girls,’” Cherry shared with “Soapy” hosts Rebecca Budig (“The Bold and the Beautiful,” “All My Children”) and Greg Rikaart (“The Young and the Restless,” “Days of our Lives”).
“I was 27 years old, so it was a great job because if you’re on a show like that, and it was predominantly a male writing staff,” continued Cherry. “We had one lady, Gail Parent, who had done tons of stuff in the 70s, and so she was like an old pro, and all you needed to do to do the job was pay attention to what your mother, sister, wife [and] daughter was going through and all the guys would bring in their stories and if it was something about menopause Gail would bring that up.”
CBS
“I learned on that show that writing for women is just paying attention and caring about things, and one of the things I’ve done in my career, on the second season of ‘Why Women Kill,’ we focused on a woman – a very meek, mild mannered woman – but she finds out her husband is a serial killer and that really came out of me watching one of the many movies about serial killers [where] the police are trying to catch this guy, and we find out he is married, and my thought is, ‘What is his wife going through?’” Cherry shared, recalling how his then CBS All Access (now Paramount+) original came up with storylines.
“I think that’s where it starts, whenever I watch senators talking on TV shows. I’m like, ‘What is this like from the woman’s perspective? The wife who stays at home.’ Obviously, we have lady senators, but I’m fascinated by the small details that women pay attention to in life and how huge some of those small details can become, and it was out of that way of thinking that ‘Desperate Housewives’ was born,” Cherry furthered. “The joke was that it was supposed to be a comedy. I was trying to do a follow-up to ‘Sex and the City,’ because it’s like, ‘Okay, you’re spending all your time trying to land a man in Manhattan, what happens after you’ve landed him? You’ll move to the suburbs, but you won’t be as happy as you think you are.’ But I write really long, so I only introduced the characters and I was already to page 15, just introducing the characters, and I got a copy of the ‘Sex and the City’ pilot and it was like 31 pages and I went, ‘Yeah, I’m doing an hour long now. And now it’s a soap opera with comedy.’ That’s how great art is born.”
Check out our exclusive clip from “Soapy” featuring Marc Cherry below.
In addition to the evolution of his TV career, Cherry also notes his passion for ABC’s daytime soap lineup in a separate clip released by CBS, citing Judith Light’s role as Karen Wolek on “One Life to Live,” and the famous courtroom scene as one of his most memorable moments from watching the daypart.
Check out what Cherry has to say about daytime soaps in the clip below.
You can also watch the full episode below.
Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart, “Soapy” is the new audio and video podcast that dives deep into the legacy, fandom, and enduring appeal of soap operas. Available on Audacy or wherever podcasts are found, full video episodes are released every Tuesday through September 30 on the CBS brand YouTube channel.
“We decided, since we knew each other so well, that we should interview all the people that we know, and people that we don’t know, in this genre,” said Budig in the first-ever episode of “Soapy,” explaining why she and Rikaart decided to do the podcast. Chiming in, Rikaart noted, the podcast was also a way to “celebrate our genre, coming from a place of love and reverence, and respect, for the incredibly challenging, hard and fun work that we get to do in daytime soaps.”
Future episodes will include interviews with Scott Clifton (Liam Spencer, “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Eva LaRue (Natalia Ramirez, “General Hospital”), Cameron Mathison (Drew Cain, “General Hospital”), Karla Mosley (Dani Dupree, “Beyond the Gates”), Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman, “The Young and the Restless”) and Tamara Tunie (Anita Dupree, “Beyond the Gates”).
Produced by the Paramount Multiplatform Production Group, “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart” is executive produced by Mike Benson. Andrew Pemberton-Fowler serves as producer.