Soupy Sales
Encyclopedia
Soupy Sales was an American
comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.
From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line?
and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM
in New York City.
in Franklin County
, North Carolina
to Irving and Sadie Supman. His father, a dry goods
merchant, had immigrated to America from Hungary
in 1894. Sales had two siblings, Leonard Supman (deceased) and Jack Supman (born 1921). His was the only Jewish family in the town; Sales joked that local Ku Klux Klan
members bought the sheets used for their robes from his father's store.
Sales got his 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 he chose the Sales, in part after vaudville comedian Chic Sale
.
Sales graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington
, West Virginia in 1944. He then enlisted in the United States Navy
and served on the 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 enrolled in Marshall College
, where he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism. While attending Marshall, he performed in nightclubs as a comedian, singer, and dancer. After graduating, he began working as a scriptwriter and disc jockey at radio station WHTN
(now WVHU
) in Huntington. He 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. Sales claimed he left the Cleveland station "for health reasons: they got sick of me." He moved to Detroit in 1953 and worked for WXYZ-TV
(Channel 7), ABC
's O&O station.
in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of comedy 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. He claimed that he and his visitors had been hit by more than 20,000 pies during his career. He recounted a time when a young fan mistakenly threw a frozen pie at his neck and he "dropped like a pile of bricks."
, Channel 7, located in the historic Maccabees Building, in Detroit. Soupy occasionally took the studio cameras to the lawn of the Detroit Public Library, located across the street from the TV studios, and talked with local students walking to and from school. Beginning in October 1959, Soupy's show was broadcast nationally on the ABC
television network.
During the same period that Lunch With Soupy aired in Detroit, Sales also hosted a nighttime show, Soup's On, to compete with 11 O'Clock News
programs. The guest star was always a musician, and frequently a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz club
s. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soupy's On. Coleman Hawkins
, Louis Armstrong
, Duke Ellington
, Billie Holiday
, Charlie Parker
, and Stan Getz
were among the artists who appeared on the show; Miles Davis made six appearances. Clifford Brown
's appearance on Soup's On, according to Sales, may be the only extant footage
of Brown, and has been included in Ken Burns' Jazz and an A&E Network
biography about Sales.
Jackie Wilson also sang on his 11:00 show.
Soupy briefly had a third dinner time show filmed largely in Palmer Park. The three shows were rumored to have earned him in excess of $100,000 per year. One of his character puppets was Willy the Worm, a "balloon" propelled worm that emerged from its house that used a high pitched voice to announce birthdays or special events on the noontime show - that character never appeared when Soupy moved to Los Angeles. In his lunchtime show, he wore his orlon sweater. In many of his shows he appeared in costume, performed his dance, the Soupy Shuffle, introduced many characters such as Nicky Nooney, the Mississippi Gambler, etc., and took "zillions" of pies in the face. In one of his routines he came out in a toga - reciting "Friends, Romans, Countrymen - lend me your ears!" Out of camera range a box of rubber ears were being dropped on his head from a ladder.
, California
. ABC-TV cancelled the show in March 1961, but it continued as a local program on KABC-TV until January 1962. The show briefly went back on the ABC network as a late night fill-in for the Steve Allen Show in 1962 but was canceled after three months. All of the puppets on the show during its Los Angeles run were also operated by Clyde Adler.
. This version was seen locally until September 1966, and 260 episodes were syndicated by Screen Gems
to local stations outside the New York market during the 1965–1966 season. This show marked the height of Sales' popularity. It featured guest appearances by stars such as Frank Sinatra
, Tony Curtis
, Jerry Lewis
, Judy Garland
and Sammy Davis, Jr.
, as well as musical groups like the Shangri-Las and The Supremes
.
As with his earlier shows, Sales performed musical numbers on the show and his 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 (a parody of Dunninger the Mentalist). 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.
, with Clyde Adler returning to work as a puppeteer with Sales.
assumed the role of straight man and puppeteer when Sales took the show to New York from 1964 to 1966. Nastasi was originally from Detroit and had worked with Sales at WXYZ. Appearing on the show were both puppet
s and live performers.
The puppets were:
Regular live characters included:
!" He was then hit with a pie. Several days later, a chagrined Soupy announced that money (mostly Monopoly
money) was unexpectedly being received in the mail. He explained that he had been joking and announced that the 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 described the incident in his 2001 autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times.
claimed Sales sneaked off-color humor onto his show for the amusement of his huge adult audience. This has been denied repeatedly, including by Snopes.com. However, according to Sale's 2001 book, Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times, at least one viewer of his WNEW show remembers distinctly the "Why is it every time I see F, you see K" routine, including an image of the TV screen moving up and down as the show's cameraman laughed at Soupy's joke. 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:
or Fess Parker
. Once, while the show was being broadcast live from Detroit, Sales' studio crew pulled a prank on him: when he opened the door, he saw a topless dancer partially covered with a balloon. Some reports say the gag was furthered by the crew switching the studio monitors so that Sales would think the stripper image was going out over the air.
A second, nonbroadcasting, camera captured the uncensored version, while a stagehand moved a balloon back and forth in the doorway, giving at least some indication to the home viewers what was supposed to be behind the door. Sales was forced to try to keep the show going without revealing the risque scene backstage. The prank was recreated when the show originated in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles prank footage survives.
. When Sinatra started his own record label, Reprise Records
, he signed Sales to a recording contract. Two albums were produced with Reprise, "The Soupy Sales Show" in 1961 and "Up In The Air" in 1962.
Sales' novelty dance record, The Mouse, dates from the mid-1960s period of his career, when his show was based in New York. Sales performed The Mouse on The Ed Sullivan Show
in September 1965, just prior to The Beatles
' segment of the show. Sales signed with Motown Records
in 1969 releasing a single, "Muck-Arty Park" (a play on the 1968 hit "MacArthur Park
"), as well as an album "A Bag of Soup." Soupy and Frank Nastasi also cut and recorded a comedy and song story disk "Spy With A Pie" for ABC/Paramount. "Spy With A Pie" was rereleased by "Simon Says" children's records.
He usually was the first panelist introduced and occupied the chair on the far left side (facing the camera), opposite Arlene Francis
. In 1976, Sales was the host of Junior Almost Anything Goes, ABC's Saturday morning version of their team-based physical stunt program. Sales was also a panelist on the 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 included 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
(December 12, 1977 & April 4, 1978) as well as a few appearances on the combined version on (The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) in 1983–84 and a recurring role in all versions of Pyramid
from 1973 to 1988 and 1991. In one 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 Pictionary
in 1997.
in New York from March 1985 to March 1987. His program was between the drive time
shifts of Don Imus
(morning) and Howard Stern
(afternoon), with whom Sales had an acrimonious relationship. An example of this was an incident involving Stern telling listeners that he was cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On December 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Sales; in truth, the piano was never harmed.
.
and drummer Hunt Sales
. In 1980, Sales married dancer Trudy Carson, who survives him.
According to writer/columnist Mark Evanier
, comedian Tim Powers
reported that a fan left a cream pie
on Sales' Hollywood Walk of Fame
star.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.
From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line?
What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....
and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM
WNBC (AM)
WNBC was a radio station that operated in New York City from 1922 to 1988. For most of its history, it was the flagship station of the NBC Radio Network...
in New York City.
Early life and career
Sales was born Milton Supman, in FranklintonFranklinton, North Carolina
Franklinton is a town in Franklin County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,745 at the 2000 census. It is home to a plant operated by Novozymes. Novozymes North America Inc...
in Franklin County
Franklin County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 47,260 people, 17,843 households, and 12,882 families residing in the county. The population density was 96 people per square mile . There were 20,364 housing units at an average density of 41 per square mile...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
to Irving and Sadie Supman. His father, a dry goods
Dry goods
Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...
merchant, had immigrated to America from Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
in 1894. Sales had two siblings, Leonard Supman (deceased) and Jack Supman (born 1921). His was the only Jewish family in the town; Sales joked that local Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
members bought the sheets used for their robes from his father's store.
Sales got his 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 he chose the Sales, in part after vaudville comedian Chic Sale
Chic Sale
Charles "Chic" Sale , was an American actor and vaudevillian. Named at birth Charles Partlow Sale, he was a son of Frank Orville and Lillie Belle Sale, and brother of writer, actress Virginia Sale-Wren....
.
Sales graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington
Huntington, West Virginia
Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia, along the Ohio River. Most of the city is in Cabell County, for which it is the county seat. A small portion of the city, mainly the neighborhood of Westmoreland, is in Wayne County. Its population was 49,138 at...
, West Virginia in 1944. He then enlisted in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and served on the in the South Pacific
Pacific Ocean theater of World War II
The Pacific Ocean theatre was one of four major naval theatres of war of World War II, which pitted the forces of Japan against those of the United States, the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands and France....
during the latter part of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. 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
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
". He took the record with him when he left the Navy.
Sales enrolled in Marshall College
Marshall University
Marshall University is a coeducational public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States founded in 1837, and named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States....
, where he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism. While attending Marshall, he performed in nightclubs as a comedian, singer, and dancer. After graduating, he began working as a scriptwriter and disc jockey at radio station WHTN
WHTN
WHTN digital channel 38 is a not-for-profit television station licensed to Murfreesboro, Tennessee that serves the Nashville market. It is owned by Clearwater, Florida-based Christian Television Network. WHTN offers 24-hour religious programming, much of which is produced either locally or at the...
(now WVHU
WVHU
WVHU is a talk radio station in the Huntington, West Virginia market. Its offerings are similar to other news talk stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, as it is the home for Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity...
) in Huntington. He 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
WKRC-TV
WKRC-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Tri-State area of Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeastern Indiana that is licensed to Cincinnati. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 12 from a transmitter at its studios on Highland Avenue in the Mount...
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
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, 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. Sales claimed he left the Cleveland station "for health reasons: they got sick of me." He moved to Detroit in 1953 and worked for WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV, channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station in Detroit, Michigan, USA. WXYZ-TV is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, and is the media company's largest-market TV station property...
(Channel 7), ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's O&O station.
Lunch with Soupy Sales
Sales is best known for his daily children's television show, Lunch With Soupy. The show was originally called 12 O'Clock Comics, and was later known as The Soupy Sales Show. Improvised and slapstickSlapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of comedy 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. He claimed that he and his visitors had been hit by more than 20,000 pies during his career. He recounted a time when a young fan mistakenly threw a frozen pie at his neck and he "dropped like a pile of bricks."
Detroit
Lunch With Soupy began in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TVWXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV, channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station in Detroit, Michigan, USA. WXYZ-TV is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, and is the media company's largest-market TV station property...
, Channel 7, located in the historic Maccabees Building, in Detroit. Soupy occasionally took the studio cameras to the lawn of the Detroit Public Library, located across the street from the TV studios, and talked with local students walking to and from school. Beginning in October 1959, Soupy's show was broadcast nationally on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television network.
During the same period that Lunch With Soupy aired in Detroit, Sales also hosted a nighttime show, Soup's On, to compete with 11 O'Clock News
11 o'clock news
The 11 o'clock news is a term used for news programs that are broadcast at 11:00 p.m. local time. This is the traditional hour for the late local news broadcast on CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliated stations in the United States that are in the Eastern Time Zone or the Pacific Time Zone.By contrast,...
programs. The guest star was always a musician, and frequently a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz club
Jazz club
A jazz club is a venue where the primary entertainment is the performance of live jazz music. Jazz clubs have been in large rooms in the eras of Orchestral jazz and big band jazz and when its popularity as a dance music was common...
s. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soupy's On. Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, and Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
were among the artists who appeared on the show; Miles Davis made six appearances. Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
's appearance on Soup's On, according to Sales, may be the only extant footage
Footage
In filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...
of Brown, and has been included in Ken Burns' Jazz and an A&E Network
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
biography about Sales.
Jackie Wilson also sang on his 11:00 show.
Soupy briefly had a third dinner time show filmed largely in Palmer Park. The three shows were rumored to have earned him in excess of $100,000 per year. One of his character puppets was Willy the Worm, a "balloon" propelled worm that emerged from its house that used a high pitched voice to announce birthdays or special events on the noontime show - that character never appeared when Soupy moved to Los Angeles. In his lunchtime show, he wore his orlon sweater. In many of his shows he appeared in costume, performed his dance, the Soupy Shuffle, introduced many characters such as Nicky Nooney, the Mississippi Gambler, etc., and took "zillions" of pies in the face. In one of his routines he came out in a toga - reciting "Friends, Romans, Countrymen - lend me your ears!" Out of camera range a box of rubber ears were being dropped on his head from a ladder.
Los Angeles
In 1960, Sales moved to the ABC-TV Studios in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. ABC-TV cancelled the show in March 1961, but it continued as a local program on KABC-TV until January 1962. The show briefly went back on the ABC network as a late night fill-in for the Steve Allen Show in 1962 but was canceled after three months. All of the puppets on the show during its Los Angeles run were also operated by Clyde Adler.
New York
In 1964, Sales found a new weekday home at WNEW-TV in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This version was seen locally until September 1966, and 260 episodes were syndicated by Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
to local stations outside the New York market during the 1965–1966 season. This show marked the height of Sales' popularity. It featured guest appearances by stars such as Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
, Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
, as well as musical groups like the Shangri-Las and The Supremes
The Supremes
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...
.
As with his earlier shows, Sales performed musical numbers on the show and his extensive jazz record collection was used in his TV work. "Mumbles" by Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
with Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
was Pookie's theme. "Comin' Home Baby" by Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
was the theme for Sales' "Gunninger the Mentalist" character (a parody of Dunninger the Mentalist). This was also the period when Sales starred in the movie comedy Birds Do It
Birds Do It
Birds Do It is a 1966 comedy movie that was made by Columbia Pictures and filmed at the Ivan Tors Studios in Miami. It stars Soupy Sales in his film debut as a leading man, Tab Hunter, Arthur O'Connell, Edward Andrews and Beverly Adams...
. During the run of the New York show, actor Frank Nastasi
Frank Nastasi
Frank Nastasi was an actor and comedian best known for his work with Soupy Sales on the show Lunch with Soupy.Born in Detroit, Michigan, Nastasi played Gramps the animal expert on Wixie Wonderland before he took over Clyde Adler's role on Lunch with Soupy, playing characters like White Fang, Black...
played White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, and all the "guy at the door" characters.
The New Soupy Sales Show: Los Angeles
The New Soupy Sales Show appeared in 1978 with the same format, and ran for one season. 65 episodes were briefly syndicated, through Air Time International, to local stations in early 1979. It was taped in Los Angeles at KTLAKTLA
KTLA, virtual channel 5, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, USA. Owned by the Tribune Company, KTLA is an affiliate of the CW Television Network. KTLA's studios are on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson...
, with Clyde Adler returning to work as a puppeteer with Sales.
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 to 1962 and in 1978. Actor Frank NastasiFrank Nastasi
Frank Nastasi was an actor and comedian best known for his work with Soupy Sales on the show Lunch with Soupy.Born in Detroit, Michigan, Nastasi played Gramps the animal expert on Wixie Wonderland before he took over Clyde Adler's role on Lunch with Soupy, playing characters like White Fang, Black...
assumed the role of straight man and puppeteer when Sales took the show to New York from 1964 to 1966. Nastasi was originally from Detroit and had worked with Sales at WXYZ. Appearing on the show were both puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s 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 claws, 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. 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?". In the Detroit shows, Pookie never spoke but communicated in whistles. That puppet also was used to mouth the words while pantomiming novelty records on the show.
- Hippy the Hippo, a minor character who occasionally appeared with Pookie the Lion and never spoke. Frank NastasiFrank NastasiFrank Nastasi was an actor and comedian best known for his work with Soupy Sales on the show Lunch with Soupy.Born in Detroit, Michigan, Nastasi played Gramps the animal expert on Wixie Wonderland before he took over Clyde Adler's role on Lunch with Soupy, playing characters like White Fang, Black...
gave Hippy a voice for the New York shows. Clyde Adler also voiced Hippy in the shows done in the late 1970s.
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 VancePhilo VancePhilo Vance featured in 12 crime novels written by S. S. Van Dine , published in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. He was portrayed as a stylish, even foppish dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent...
). - The Mask, evil nemesis of Philo Kvetch, revealed in the last episode to be Nikita KhrushchevNikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, 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 stovePotbelly stoveA potbelly stove is a cast-iron wood-burning stove, round with a bulge in the middle. The name is derived from the resemblance of the stove to that of a fat man's pot belly. They were designed to heat large spaces and were often found in train stations or one-room schoolhouses...
on the New York set. - Willie the Worm was a 35-cent toy Sales got from Woolworth'sF. W. Woolworth CompanyThe F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
, according to WXYZ art director Jack Flechsig. With animated squeezings of his rubber air bulb, the latex accordion worm flexed in and out of a little apple. Willy was "The Sickest Worm in all of Dee-troit" and suffered from a perennial cold and comically-explosive sneeze. He helped read birthday greetings to Detroit-area kids while the show was on WXYZ. Willie did not survive the show's move to the Big Apple.
New Year's Day incident
On January 1, 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 RicoPuerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
!" He was then hit with a pie. Several days later, a chagrined Soupy announced that money (mostly Monopoly
Monopoly (game)
Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...
money) was unexpectedly being received in the mail. He explained that he had been joking and announced that the 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 described the incident in his 2001 autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times.
Claims that Sales told dirty jokes on the air
An urban legendUrban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
claimed Sales sneaked off-color humor onto his show for the amusement of his huge adult audience. This has been denied repeatedly, including by Snopes.com. However, according to Sale's 2001 book, Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times, at least one viewer of his WNEW show remembers distinctly the "Why is it every time I see F, you see K" routine, including an image of the TV screen moving up and down as the show's cameraman laughed at Soupy's joke. 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 person at the door was a celebrity, such as Burt LancasterBurt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
or Fess Parker
Fess Parker
Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955-56 TV mini-series and as TV's Daniel Boone from 1964-70...
. Once, while the show was being broadcast live from Detroit, Sales' studio crew pulled a prank on him: when he opened the door, he saw a topless dancer partially covered with a balloon. Some reports say the gag was furthered by the crew switching the studio monitors so that Sales would think the stripper image was going out over the air.
A second, nonbroadcasting, camera captured the uncensored version, while a stagehand moved a balloon back and forth in the doorway, giving at least some indication to the home viewers what was supposed to be behind the door. Sales was forced to try to keep the show going without revealing the risque scene backstage. The prank was recreated when the show originated in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles prank footage survives.
Records
One of the fans of the Soupy Sales show was Frank SinatraFrank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. When Sinatra started his own record label, Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
, he signed Sales to a recording contract. Two albums were produced with Reprise, "The Soupy Sales Show" in 1961 and "Up In The Air" in 1962.
Sales' novelty dance record, The Mouse, dates from the mid-1960s period of his career, when his show was based in New York. Sales performed The Mouse on The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
in September 1965, just prior to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' segment of the show. Sales signed with Motown Records
Motown Records
Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, is also a nickname for Detroit...
in 1969 releasing a single, "Muck-Arty Park" (a play on the 1968 hit "MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park (song)
"MacArthur Park" is a song by Jimmy Webb, originally composed as part of an intended cantata. The song was initially rejected by The Association. Richard Harris was the first to record it, in 1968; the song was subsequently covered by numerous artists. Among the best-known covers are Donna Summer's...
"), as well as an album "A Bag of Soup." Soupy and Frank Nastasi also cut and recorded a comedy and song story disk "Spy With A Pie" for ABC/Paramount. "Spy With A Pie" was rereleased by "Simon Says" children's records.
Game shows
From 1968 to 1975, Sales was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line?What's My Line?
What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations....
He usually was the first panelist introduced and occupied the chair on the far left side (facing the camera), opposite Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...
. In 1976, Sales was the host of Junior Almost Anything Goes, ABC's Saturday morning version of their team-based physical stunt program. Sales was also a panelist on the 1980 revival of To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...
; he had appeared as a guest on the show during the mid- to late 1970s. Other game show appearances included over a dozen episodes of the original Match Game
Match Game
Match Game is an American television game show in which contestants attempted to match celebrities' answers to fill-in-the-blank questions...
from 1966 to 1969, a week of shows on the 1970s edition of Match Game
Match Game
Match Game is an American television game show in which contestants attempted to match celebrities' answers to fill-in-the-blank questions...
, a few guest spots on Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
(December 12, 1977 & April 4, 1978) as well as a few appearances on the combined version on (The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) in 1983–84 and a recurring role in all versions of Pyramid
Pyramid (game show)
Pyramid is an American television game show which has aired several versions. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted March 26, 1973 and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series...
from 1973 to 1988 and 1991. In one 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 Pictionary
Pictionary
Pictionary is a guessing word game designed by Robert Angel and first published in 1985 by Seattle Games Inc. The game is played with teams with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates' drawings.-Objective:...
in 1997.
Radio show
Sales hosted a midday radio show on WNBCWNBC (AM)
WNBC was a radio station that operated in New York City from 1922 to 1988. For most of its history, it was the flagship station of the NBC Radio Network...
in New York from March 1985 to March 1987. His program was between the drive time
Drive time
Drive time is the daypart analog to prime time for radio broadcasting. It consists of the morning hours when listeners wake up, get ready, and/or head to work or school, and the afternoon hours when they are heading home and before their evening meal. These are the periods where the number of...
shifts of Don Imus
Don Imus
John Donald "Don" Imus, Jr. is an American radio host, humorist, philanthropist and writer. His nationally-syndicated talk show, Imus in the Morning, is broadcast throughout the United States by Citadel Media and relayed on television by the Fox Business Network.-Personal life:Imus was born in...
(morning) and Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...
(afternoon), with whom Sales had an acrimonious relationship. An example of this was an incident involving Stern telling listeners that he was cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On December 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Sales; in truth, the piano was never harmed.
Film
He had a sporadic film career that spanned over 40 years, including:- 1961 - The Two Little Bears
- 1963 - Critic's Choice
- 1966 - Birds do It (a starring role)
- 1977 - Don't Push, I'll Charge When I'm Ready
- 1983 - Superman III (cameo appearance)
- 1993 - And God Spoke: The Making of... His memorable appearance as himself, hired by two incompetent filmmakers to portray Moses because Charlton HestonCharlton HestonCharlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
was not available. - 1999 - Palmer's Pick Up
- 2000 - A Little Bit of Lipstick
- 2000 - Behind the Seams
- 2001 - This Train
- 2005 - The Innocent and the Damned
- 2005 - Angels with Angles
Animation
In 1983, Sales did voice work for Ruby-Spears, voicing Donkey Kong in the animated show Saturday SupercadeSaturday Supercade
Saturday Supercade is an animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS beginning in 1983...
.
Personal life
Sales was married twice: first to Barbara Fox (from 1950 until their divorce in 1979). They had two sons, both of whom are rock musicians: bassist Tony SalesTony Sales
|Tony Fox Sales is an American rock musician. A bass guitarist, Sales and his brother, Hunt Sales, played with Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop and Tin Machine with David Bowie.-Early life and career:...
and drummer Hunt Sales
Hunt Sales
Hunt Sales is an American rock and roll drummer who has played with Todd Rundgren, his brother Tony Sales, Iggy Pop and Tin Machine.- Personal life : Hunt Sales is the son of 1950s/60s television comedian Soupy Sales...
. In 1980, Sales married dancer Trudy Carson, who survives him.
Death
Sales died on October 22, 2009, at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, aged 83, from cancer.According to writer/columnist Mark Evanier
Mark Evanier
Mark Stephen Evanier is an American comic book and television writer, particularly known for his humor work. He is also known for his columns and blogs, and for his work as a historian and biographer of the comics industry, in particular his award-winning Jack Kirby biography, Kirby: King of...
, comedian Tim Powers
Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
reported that a fan left a cream pie
Cream pie
A cream pie is a type of pie filled with a rich custard or pudding that is made from milk, cream, flour, and eggs. It can come in many forms, including vanilla, lemon, lime, peanut butter, banana, coconut, and chocolate. A constant feature of all cream pies is the whipped cream topping...
on Sales' Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
star.
Legacy
- ABC replaced The Soupy Sales Show in 1961 with Cynthia PepperCynthia PepperCynthia Pepper is a blonde American actress whose principal work was accomplished during the early 1960s. Born Cynthia Anne Culpepper in Hollywood, California, she was the daughter of entertainer Jack Pepper , and Pepper's second wife, Dawn...
's short-lived sitcom, MargieMargie (TV series)Margie is a television situation comedy starring Cynthia Pepper that was broadcast on ABC from October 12, 1961 to April 12, 1962 in the 9:30 Eastern Thursday time slot, sponsored by Procter & Gamble. The series was adapted from a 1946 film of the same name starring Jeanne Crain.- Plot :The show...
. Sales and Pepper later became good friends. - In the episode "TV Or Not TV" of the 1960s cartoon series The JetsonsThe JetsonsThe Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
, a segment was shown with a character named "Soapy Sam" who hit George JetsonGeorge JetsonThe following is a list of major characters in The Jetsons. The Jetsons is an animated television comedy produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast in prime-time on ABC as part of the 1962–63 United States network television schedule. Additional episodes were produced from 1985–1987, with the...
in the face with a pie. - In the episode "The One with the Lesbian Wedding" of the TV series FriendsFriendsFriends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Phoebe mentions Soupy Sales while supposedly being inhabited by the spirit of her dead massage client. - Howard SternHoward SternHoward Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...
named Sales as one of his childhood heroes, and in an interview on the 2007 Sirius Satellite RadioSirius Satellite RadioSirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
program "The History of Howard Stern," he expressed regret over his harsh words and actions towards Sales. - 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 JunoJuno (film)Juno is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody. Ellen Page stars as the title character, an independent-minded teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby, J. K....
, 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 did not like her because she smelled like soup. Later, when Juno realizes she loves him, she calls his date Soupy Sales. - There is a brief track called "Soupy Sales" on the album Coroner's OfficeCoroner's OfficeCoroner's Office is an album by the American death metal band Post Mortem. The album was their debut LP and is notable for its influences on the genre.- Recording Process :...
by the death metal band Post Mortem. - There is a track on Jim BrysonJim BrysonJim Bryson is a Canadian singer-songwriter. Briefly a founding member of the band Punchbuggy, he moved to a musical life under his own name with the release of his debut album, The Occasionals, in 2000....
's 2000 album The OccasionalsThe OccasionalsThe Occasionals is the debut solo album by Canadian singer-songwriter Jim Bryson, released in 2000.-Track listing:All songs written by Jim Bryson, except as noted# Without Piano# Travelled By Land# 26 Miles By Car# February# Satellite# Impaler...
called "Soupy Sales". - Phil OchsPhil OchsPhilip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, in his introduction to "(The Marines Have Landed On The Shores Of) Santo Domingo" from the Phil Ochs In ConcertPhil Ochs in ConcertPhil Ochs in Concert was Phil Ochs' third long player, released in 1966 on Elektra Records. Contrary to its title, it was not entirely live, as several tracks were actually recorded in the studio, owing to flaws in the live recordings made in Boston and New York City in late 1965 and early 1966,...
live album references Soupy Sales: "I was over there, entertaining the troops. I won't say which troops. Over there with a USO group, including Walter LippmannWalter LippmannWalter Lippmann was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War...
and Soupy Sales."
Reruns
Beginning in 2011, Jewish Life Television Network [JLTV] began showing a handful of reruns of existing New York City and late 1970s Los Angeles shows.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
- The Soupy Sales Show Original NYC on-set Photos and sound file of radio interview
- "Soupy Weighs In", On the Media, 2006-02-04 (accessed 2004-04-04)
- "Coins & Currency", TVAcres.com (accessed 2004-04-04)
- The Soupy Shuffle (.ram file)
- Soupy Sales on YouTube
- "No More Pies in the Face for Soupy Sales", Christian Science Monitor, 1996-05-23
- Archive of American Television interview
- Soupy Sales - Daily Telegraph obituary