Horse Opera & Soap Opera

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

If anyone has better cites on the "horse opera" and the "soap opera,"  please 
send them along. Did Adam Forepaugh's circus coin "horse opera"?
...
...
...
_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/horse_opera/_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/horse_opera/) 
...
 
Horse Opera
 
The “horse opera” was an early name for the western (in radio and on the  
movie screen). Adam Forepaugh’s circus contained Wild West acts and used the  
term “horse opera” as early as the 1870s. 

The term “soap opera” (for  dramatic serials) originated later—from 1939. 


_The  Circus in America_ 
(http://www.circusinamerica.org/public/corporate_bodies/public_show/4)  
Circus: Adam Forepaugh Circus, 1867-1894  
The Adam Forepaugh Circus, founded by Adam Forepaugh, was a major competitor  
of P.T. Barnum and Ringling Bros. Recognized for innovation in a highly  
competitive industry, the Forepaugh Circus initiated a dual roundtop system,  
dividing the menagerie from the circus performance. Thousands of audience  members 
convened under a half-mile round tent to see spectacles like “The Light  of 
Asia” (a “white” elephant), “Battles of the War for Freedom,” and “ ‘Jack’  
the Only Boxing Kangaroo.” While independently successful for twenty-seven  
years, audiences grew wary of his shows, where grifting, short-changing and  
pickpockets ran rife. Forepaugh’s unscrupulous business practices created a  
market niche for “Sunday School Shows” like Ringling Bros. and P.T. Barnum,  
shows that would eventually outshine and outlast the Forepaugh Circus.  

Alternative Names: 
Forepaugh’s Circus 
Great Forepaugh  Show 
Adam Forepaugh Circus, Adam Forepaugh Sr., Proprietor 
Forepaugh  & The Wild West 

(Oxford English Dictionary) 
horse opera  colloq. (orig. U.S.), a ‘Western’ film or television series 
1927 Motion  Picture Classic 2 July 26/1 *Horse Opera..is an opus of the West 
where men  are cowboys. 
(...) 
soap opera 
colloq. (orig. U.S.). 
A  radio or television serial dealing esp. with domestic situations and freq. 
 characterized by melodrama and sentimentality; this type of serial 
considered as  a genre. 
[1938 Christian Cent. 24 Aug. 1011/1 These fifteen-minute  tragedies..I call 
the ‘soap tragedies’..because it is by the grace of soap I am  allowed to 
shed tears for these characters who suffer so much from life.] 1939  Newsweek 13 
Nov. 44/2 Transcontinental Network bubbled up out of the  ‘soap operas’. 

23 August 1877, Nevada State Journal (Reno, NV),  pg. 3, col. 3: 
Not a few noble red men and a sprinkling of Chinamen  completed the throng 
that lined our streets yesterday—and all because 4 paws big  “horse opera” was 
here. When a circus ceases to draw, then comes the millennium,  sure. 

9 June 1910, Van Wert (OH) Daily Bulletin, pg. 2, col. 2:  
The reigning favorites among Prima Donnas of horse opera. The leading  
proponents of equilibrism upon the bare backs of swift horses. 

10 July  1910, Washington Post, magazine section, pg. 3, col. 1: 
“‘Truth is  stranger than fiction’” is an old and rather trite saying but 
it goes just the  same,” said an old-time advance agent who has piloted 
everything from horse  opera to grand opera through the country for a great many 
years, to a group of  friends in a Broadway cafe the other evening. 

17 October 1917, Lincoln  (NE) Daily Star, pg. 7, col. 4: 
Vola Vale, the only girl playing in  William Hart’s second Autocrat 
picture,has been elected by Mr. Hart and his  thirty cowboys as an honorary member of 
the “Horse Opera Troupe” as Mr. Hart’s  company is called. 

16 April 1918, Fort Wayne (IN)  Journal-Gazette, pg.22: 
“The Hammerstein of the Horse Opera.”  

6 February 1923, Los Angeles Times, pg. II11: 
Colin Campbell  is about to start work on “The Grail,” a new Fox feature, 
which promises to  rival “The Spoilers,” which Campbell made some sever years 
ago, and which is  again to be done by Hampton. 

“‘The Grail’ is a western story,” explained  Mr. Campbell, the other day, “
but it isn’t a ‘horse opera.’ It is a very big,  human story.” 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org