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Who Was Soupy Sales, and Why We'll Miss Him
Entertainment Weekly ^ | 10/23/09 | Ken Tucker

Posted on 10/23/2009 9:57:22 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Soupy Sales died at age 83 yesterday. He hosted an afternoon kiddie show that reached its height of popularity in the mid-1960s. He was totally unlike other kids-show hosts of that, or any other, era. He wasn’t soft-spoken, like Mr. Rogers; he wasn’t grandfatherly, like Captain Kangaroo; he didn’t want to teach you anything, like Mr. Wizard.

What Soupy was was a unique combination of silly and hip. He mixed slapstick with self-conscious irony. He was forever getting a pie thrown in his face. He talked to puppets, especially two — White Fang and Black Tooth — that were really little more than offstage voices, with arms that entered the camera frame. He played jazz on his show and snapped his fingers like a nightclub performer. Cool cats and kitties of the era, like Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine, dropped by to visit and take a pie in the face, because Soupy was, for a little while, himself very cool.

He had a Top 10 hit at the height of Beatlemania with “Do The Mouse.” His musical sons, Hunt and Tony, played with David Bowie in the band Tin Machine, and backed Iggy Pop on Lust For Life, among much other excellent L.A. session-work.

The Soupy Sales Show’s set decor said “clubhouse,” but the off-camera guffaws — when Soupy made the crew laugh with constant his ad libs — introduced a generation to the idea that there were real people behind the TV cameras, that this was a show, not a fantasy-world. Well before The Larry Sanders Show, Soupy was busy breaking the fourth-wall surrounding the creation of TV.

To his eternal and ambivalent fame, he was once suspended from the show for a New Year’s Day 1965 joke: he asked kids to go into their parents’ bedrooms and take the “little green pieces of paper” they found — i.e., money — and send them in to him.

I interviewed him for EW years ago, by phone. As the conversation began to fade, Sales thanked me for not asking him about the “little green pieces of paper” controversy. “Everybody thinks they have to bring that up — why?” he asked me, irritation in his voice.

“Because their editors tell them to, thinking they’ll get a bit more controversy out of it,” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “Maybe. Or maybe some people just like to make happy people unhappy.”

I hope Soupy Sales has found some happiness now.


TOPICS: Humor; Local News; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: 2009obituaries; obituary; pie; soupysales; television; tv
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To: nickcarraway

LOL I think I got in trouble for trying to get the green paper to send but being a 4 year old I had to ask Mom to address the envelope and get me a stamp. :)


21 posted on 10/23/2009 10:17:10 AM PDT by chris_bdba
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To: nickcarraway

I’m sure YouTube will be working overtime with people watching the old clips.


22 posted on 10/23/2009 10:17:10 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: a fool in paradise

When I was 4 years old, I didn’t know Soupy Sales was a “big hit”, I just knew I loved him! I created a whole family of imaginary friends with Soupy monkers: Big Soupy, Little Soupy, Silly Soupy, etc. I was so sorry to hear that the first love of my life passed away today! Thanks for the fun from this fomer 4-year old, Mr. Pie in the Kisser!


23 posted on 10/23/2009 10:17:38 AM PDT by freepertoo
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To: a fool in paradise

IIRC, it was Soupy’s expressions while the ‘act’ was going on which made the particular show so funny.


24 posted on 10/23/2009 10:18:47 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Dems, believing they cannot be deceived, it is impossible to convince them when they are deceived.)
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To: a fool in paradise
"Forward them to me!!!"

The station donated the money to charity and suspended Soupy Sales for two weeks. Many children actually picketed the station demanding his return.

25 posted on 10/23/2009 10:19:10 AM PDT by CharacterCounts (November 4, 2008 - the day America drank the Kool-Aid)
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To: a fool in paradise
Always found it odd that they suspended him over this but not the appearance of a (largely offcamera) stripper (who was captured in her act with an unaired second "blooper" camera) while "The Stripper" played.

Because he had nothing to do with it. The show staff did it as a birthday surprise for Soupy.

26 posted on 10/23/2009 10:19:56 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Public healthcare looks like it will work as well as public housing did.)
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To: Deb

Soupy Sales with Pookie and White Fang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNv3rVV1mfs&feature=fvw


27 posted on 10/23/2009 10:22:02 AM PDT by fatima (Free Hugs Today :))
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To: a fool in paradise
Always found it odd that they suspended him over this but not the appearance of a (largely offcamera) stripper (who was captured in her act with an unaired second "blooper" camera) while "The Stripper" played.

Sales didn't know about the stripper. It was a practical joke played on him by the camera crew.

28 posted on 10/23/2009 10:22:52 AM PDT by CharacterCounts (November 4, 2008 - the day America drank the Kool-Aid)
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To: a fool in paradise
I forgot about "The Stripper". Hilarious!

I wondered if that DVD set had the early black and white shows. I didn't get it because I was afraid the shows wouldn't hold up and be as wonderful as I remembered when I was little.

29 posted on 10/23/2009 10:24:04 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: nickcarraway

Never heard of him.


30 posted on 10/23/2009 10:24:53 AM PDT by dalereed
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To: fatima

POOKIE!!! OMG, I’m gonna cry!! What a great link!!


31 posted on 10/23/2009 10:25:15 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: dalereed

Get off this thread, heathen.


32 posted on 10/23/2009 10:31:18 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: Deb

Wasn’t there another character named Hippy or am I just having the DT’s again?


34 posted on 10/23/2009 10:35:45 AM PDT by 1raider1
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To: nickcarraway
White fang, Black Tooth and Pookie.......best supporting cast of all televisiondom.......

I'll never forget those good days sitting on the floor of my grandparents' house in front of the wooden cabinet, maybe 15" diag. black and white television with rabbit ears..........and watching Soupy Sales.

"Be true to your teeth... or they will be false to you!"

'You do dat, I love you and give you a big kiss.'

35 posted on 10/23/2009 10:36:05 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Who's your Long Legged MacDaddy?)
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To: frithguild
Here's Soupy's Comedy Club reprise of that show.
36 posted on 10/23/2009 10:41:01 AM PDT by MHGinTN (Dems, believing they cannot be deceived, it is impossible to convince them when they are deceived.)
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To: fatima
Soupy Sales with Pookie and White Fang

That was funny!

37 posted on 10/23/2009 10:41:47 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Who's your Long Legged MacDaddy?)
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To: dalereed

Gee, I was just playing with you, but no, I will not go to Hell. I shall go to the mall and buy some new Manolos. Probably hot pink.


38 posted on 10/23/2009 10:42:26 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: 1raider1

I don’t know. Its possible. I haven’t thought about Soupy for so many years.


39 posted on 10/23/2009 10:43:48 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: dalereed

Go pollute some other thread jerk!


40 posted on 10/23/2009 10:43:54 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Who's your Long Legged MacDaddy?)
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