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.
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. :)
I’m sure YouTube will be working overtime with people watching the old clips.
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!
IIRC, it was Soupy’s expressions while the ‘act’ was going on which made the particular show so funny.
The station donated the money to charity and suspended Soupy Sales for two weeks. Many children actually picketed the station demanding his return.
Because he had nothing to do with it. The show staff did it as a birthday surprise for Soupy.
Soupy Sales with Pookie and White Fang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNv3rVV1mfs&feature=fvw
Sales didn't know about the stripper. It was a practical joke played on him by the camera crew.
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.
Never heard of him.
POOKIE!!! OMG, I’m gonna cry!! What a great link!!
Get off this thread, heathen.
Wasn’t there another character named Hippy or am I just having the DT’s again?
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.'
That was funny!
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.
I don’t know. Its possible. I haven’t thought about Soupy for so many years.
Go pollute some other thread jerk!
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