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Soupy Sales
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Soupy Sales (born Milton Supman on January 8, 1926) is an American comedian and actor.
Sales got his unusual nickname from his family. His older brothers had been nicknamed "Hambone" and "Chicken Bone"; Milton was dubbed "Soup Bone," which was later shortened to "Soupy." When he became a disc jockey, he began using the stage name "Soupy Hines." After he became established, it was decided that "Hines" was too close to the Heinz soup company, so Soupy chose the surname "Sales," after comedian Chic Sale.
s was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina to Irving and Sadie Supman.
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Encyclopedia
Soupy Sales (born Milton Supman on January 8, 1926) is an American comedian and actor.
Sales got his unusual nickname from his family. His older brothers had been nicknamed "Hambone" and "Chicken Bone"; Milton was dubbed "Soup Bone," which was later shortened to "Soupy." When he became a disc jockey, he began using the stage name "Soupy Hines." After he became established, it was decided that "Hines" was too close to the Heinz soup company, so Soupy chose the surname "Sales," after comedian Chic Sale.
Biography
Sales was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina to Irving and Sadie Supman. Irving Supman had emigrated to America from Hungary in 1894, and was a dry goods merchant. Milton has two siblings, Leonard Supman (b. 1918-deceased) and Jack Supman (b. 1921).
Milton graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia in 1944. He then enlisted the United States Navy and served on the USS Randall (APA-224) in the South Pacific during the latter part of World War II. He sometimes entertained his shipmates by telling jokes and playing crazy characters over the ship's public address system. One of the characters he created was "White Fang," a large dog that played outrageous practical jokes on the seamen. The sounds for "White Fang" came from a recording of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." He took the record with him when he left the Navy.
Sales next entered Marshall College, where he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism. While attending Marshall College, he performed in nightclubs as a comedian, singer, and dancer. After graduating, he began working as a scriptwriter and a disc jockey at radio station WHTN in Huntington.
Sales moved to Cincinnati in 1949, where he worked as a morning radio DJ and performed in nightclubs. He began his television career on WKRC-TV with Soupy's Soda Shop, TV's first teen dance program, and Club Nothing!, a late-night comedy/variety program.
When WKRC canceled his TV shows, Sales moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he hosted another radio and TV series and continued his nightclub act. It was in a skit on his late night comedy/variety TV series Soupy's On! that he got his first pie in the face. Soupy claims he left the Cleveland station "for health reasons: they got sick of me." Sales moved to Detroit in 1953 and worked for WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), ABC's O&O station. He signed with Motown Records in the late 1960s, releasing a single, "Muck-Arty Park," as well as the album "A Bag of Soup."
Lunch with Soupy Sales
Sales is best known for his long-running daily children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales. The show was originally called 12 O'Clock Comics, and was later known as The Soupy Sales Show. Improvised and slapstick in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of sketches, gags, and puns, almost all of which resulted in Sales' receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.
Sales developed pie-throwing into an art form: straight to the face, on top of the head, a pie to both ears from behind, moving into a stationary pie, and countless other variations. Soupy claims to have been hit by over 25,000 pies during his career.
Characters on the show
Clyde Adler, a film editor at Detroit's WXYZ-TV, performed in sketches and voiced and operated all puppets on Sales' show in Detroit in the 1950s and in Los Angeles from 1959-62 and 1978. Actor Frank Nastasi assumed the role of straight man/puppeteer when Sales took the show to New York from 1964 to 66. Nastasi was originally from Detroit and had worked with Soupy at WXYZ.
Appearing on the show were both puppets and live performers.
The puppets were:
- White Fang, "The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA," who appeared only as a giant white shaggy paw with black triangular felt "claws" jutting out from the corner of the screen. Fang spoke with unintelligible short grunts and growls, which Soupy repeated back in English, for comic effect. White Fang was often the pie thrower when Soupy's jokes bombed.
- Black Tooth, "The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA." Also seen only as a giant black paw with white triangular felt (just the opposite of White Fang), and with more feminine, but similarly unintelligible, dialogue. Black Tooth's trademark was pulling Soupy off-camera to give loud and noisy kisses.
- Pookie the Lion, a lion puppet appearing in a large window behind Soupy (1950s), was a hipster with a rapier wit. His repartee with Soupy was rapid-fire. For example: Soupy: "Do you know why my life is so miserable?" Pookie: "You got me!" Soupy: "That's why!" One of Pookie's favorite lines when greeting Soupy was, "Hey bubby... want a kiss?"
- Hippy the Hippo, a minor character who occasionally appeared with Pookie the Lion and never spoke. Frank Nastasi gave Hippy a voice for the New York shows.
Regular live characters included:
- Peaches, Soupy's girlfriend, visually played by footage of Sales in drag.
- Philo Kvetch, a private detective played by Sales in a long-running comedy skit during the show's New York run (a parody of early 20th century fictional detective Philo Vance).
- The Mask, evil nemesis of Philo Kvetch, revealed in the last episode to be Nikita Khrushchev, who had been deposed about a year earlier.
- "Onions" Oregano, henchman of The Mask, played by Frank Nastasi, who ate loads of onions. Every time Oregano would breathe in Philo's direction, Philo would make all sorts of comic choking faces, pull out a can of air freshener, and say "Get those onions out of here!"
- Hobart and Reba, a husband and wife who lived in the potbelly stove on the New York set.
- Willie the worm, who flexed in and out of an apple on Soupy's breakfast table when speaking. Willie helped read birthday greetings to Detroit-area viewers while the show was on WXYZ. Willie the Worm was not used in New York.
History of the show
The show originated in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan. Beginning in October 1959, it was telecast nationally on the ABC television network. In 1960, Soupy moved to the ABC-TV Studios in Los Angeles, California. ABC dropped the show from the network schedule in March 1961, but it continued as a local program until January 1962. The show briefly went back on the ABC network as a late night fill-in for the Steve Allen Show but was canceled after three months.
In 1964, Sales found a new weekday home at WNEW-TV in New York City. This version was seen locally and syndicated by Screen Gems to local stations outside the New York market. This show marked the height of Sales' popularity. It featured guest appearances by stars such as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as musical groups like the Shangri-Las and The Supremes. As with his earlier shows, Sales' extensive jazz record collection was used in his TV work. "Mumbles" by Oscar Peterson with Clark Terry was Pookie's theme. "Comin' Home Baby" by Herbie Mann was the theme for Sales' "Gunninger the Mentalist" character. Sales' hit novelty "dance" record, "The Mouse," is from this period of his career. Sales performed "The Mouse" on the Ed Sullivan Show in September 1965. He appeared on the Sullivan Show several times, once with the Beatles. This was also the period when Sales starred in the movie comedy Birds Do It. During the run of the New York show, actor Frank Nastasi played White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, and all the "guy at the door" characters.
The New Soupy Sales Show appeared in 1978 with the same format and ran for one season. It was filmed in Los Angeles, with Clyde Adler returning to work with Sales.
Sales later had a radio show for several years on WNBC (AM) radio in New York at the time when Howard Stern had an afternoon show on the same station. Sales and Stern did not get along. There was a well-known incident of Stern's cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On Dec 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Soupy; in truth, the piano was never harmed.
Sales' WNBC 10 a.m. time slot immediately followed the popular Imus in the Morning drive-time show. Don Imus had an apparently sincere dislike for Sales, which was displayed through disparaging on-air comments.
Sales was taken off the air in the middle of his show. He had begun to complain to the audience that his contract had not been renewed and that his sidekick Ray D'Ariano had been given the time slot, so he urged listeners to complain to the station. When the show went to commercial, Sales was replaced by the station's program director, who played music for the rest of the allotted time. Sales never returned. Don Imus showed no sympathy for Soupy Sales and continued to disparage him for days after his departure.
New Year's Day incident
On New Year's Day 1965, miffed at having to work on the holiday, Sales ended his live broadcast by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents' bedrooms and remove those "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" from their pants and pocketbooks. "Put them in an envelope and mail them to me," Soupy instructed the children. "And I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!" He was then hit with a pie.
Several days later, a chagrined Soupy announced that money was unexpectedly being received in the mail. He explained that he had been joking and announced that unreturnable contributions would be donated to charity. As parents' complaints increased, WNEW's management felt compelled to suspend Sales for two weeks. Young viewers picketed Channel 5. The uproar surrounding Sales' suspension increased his popularity.
Sales describes the incident in his 2001 autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times.
Claims that Sales told dirty jokes on the air
An urban legend claimed Sales sneaked off-color humor onto his show for the amusement of his huge adult audience. This has been disproven repeatedly, including by Snopes.com. For many years, Sales had a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who could prove he worked blue on his kids' shows. Nobody ever took the offer, although the rumor persisted. Sales states in his autobiography:
- After many years, I think I finally figured out how these ridiculous stories got started. Kids would come home and they'd tell a dirty joke, you know, grade school humor, and the parents would say, "Where'd you hear that?" And they'd say "The Soupy Sales Show," because I happened to have the biggest show in town. And they'd call another person and say, "Gladys, did you hear the joke that Soupy Sales was telling on his show?" and the word of mouth goes on and on, until people start to believe you actually said things like that.
Topless dancer pranks
The show's set included a door in the background. During the show, Sales would answer a knock at the door and interact with an actor seen only as an arm. Occasionally, the guy at the door was a celebrity (Burt Lancaster, Fess Parker, Alice Cooper.)
One time during the Los Angeles years, as Sales was ending the show, he opened the door and saw a topless dancer gyrating with a balloon. Viewers saw only the balloon, although a second, nonbroadcasting camera captured the uncensored version, and Sales was forced to try to keep the show going without revealing the risque events backstage. This event, in censored and uncensored variations, has been featured on many blooper compilations.
Actually, this was the second time Sales' studio crew pulled this prank; the first time occurred while the show was being broadcast live from Detroit. Some reports say the gag was furthered by the crew switching the studio monitors so that Soupy would think the stripper image was going out over the air.
Game shows
From 1968 to 1975, Sales was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? He usually was the first panelist introduced and occupied the chair on the far left side (facing the camera). In 2001, indie duo They Might Be Giants marveled to one interviewer that "Soupy Sales always knew all the jazz guys, and they all knew him. That was impressive."
Sales was also a panelist on the short-lived 1980 revival of To Tell the Truth; he had appeared as a guest on the show during the mid- to late 1970s. Other game show appearances include over a dozen episodes of the original "Match Game" from 1966 to 1969, a week of shows on the 1970s edition of Match Game, a few guest spots on Hollywood Squares (Dec. 12, 1977 & April 4, 1978), and a recurring role in all of the many different dollar amount versions of The $10,000 Pyramid from 1973 to 1991. In one classic episode, he repeatedly uttered the word "bacon" in an attempt to get a befuddled contestant to say "greasy things." He also made an appearance on the show "Pictionary" in 1997.
In 1977, Sales was the host of "Junior Almost Anything Goes," ABC's Saturday morning version of their popular team-based physical stunt program.
Personal life
Sales has two sons, Hunt Sales and Tony Sales, who are musicians who have played with David Bowie, Todd Rundgren and Iggy Pop. He is married to former Broadway and June Taylor dancer Trudy Carson.
Legacy
- Soupy Sales was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 7, 2005, a day before his 79th birthday.
- In the episode "The One with the Lesbian Wedding" of the TV series Friends, Phoebe mentions Soupy Sales while supposedly being inhabited by the spirit of her dead massage client.
- Sales is referenced in the Bloodhound Gang's song "Pretty (When I'm Drunk)".
- Soupy Sales is referenced by name in the song, "6ix" on the 1996 The Lemonheads album, Car Button Cloth. His on-air request that children send money to him is also referenced in that song with the line, "Come on kids, grab your parents' wallet". While those are the lyrics performed in the recording, they are not the printed lyrics included in the album packaging.
- In the 2007 film Juno, Sales is referred to during the scene in which Juno confronts Bleeker about taking another girl to the prom. Juno had earlier suggested he go out with her, but he said he didn't like her because she smelled like soup. Later, when Juno realizes she loves him, she calls his date Soupy Sales.
- Howard Stern has frequently cited Soupy Sales as one of his earliest inspirations. Despite this, Stern and Sales engaged in an on-air feud while they were both employed by WNBC radio station in the 1980s. More recently, while on Sirius Satellite Radio, Stern has apologized for his lack of respect to Sales during this time and has gone on to acknowledge him as a childhood hero and comedic influence.
- In 2008, Soupy Sales was honored by the University of the Arts in Philadelphia for his role in the "Conservation and Preservation of Jazz" for his role in filming the only existing footage of trumpeter Clifford Brown.
Further reading
- Kiska, Tim From Soupy to Nuts!: A History of Detroit Television (Momentum Books, 2005) ISBN 1-879094-70-3 ISBN 978-1-879094-70-3
External links
- Original NYC on-set Photos and sound file of radio interview
- , On the Media, 2006-02-04 (accessed 2004-04-04)
- , TVAcres.com (accessed 2004-04-04)
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