Large screens seem to do just the opposite, turning soap commercials into epics.

But in Britain, where the soap opera-like commercials originated more than five years ago, they have become something of a national obsession.

A soap commercial came on.

Time Out called it "pointless 'satire'" with the "emotional depth of a 30-second soap commercial."

Suddenly, though, the elephant seems to slip into a soap commercial.

He also understood that, once television was in every living room in America, something would have to keep viewers occupied between soap commercials.

Ideal for advert-isement voice-overs: soap commercials, maybe.

On a recent morning an agency creative director called the couple's ocean-view recording studio, describing what was wanted for a soap commercial.

It was the kind of dirt that just doesn't come out of polyester contrary to and and all the soap commercials.

She then goes to Japan to do a soap commercial.