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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/40603/full/40603/remembering-soupy-tv-star-of-1960s-was-more-than-just-a-pie-in-the-face-com/ <br /><br /> <b>Remembering Soupy: TV star of 1960s was more than just a pie-in-the-face comic</b> <br /> Thursday, November 19, 2009 | by salvatore caputo <br /><br /><p>It was the talk of the playground: Soupy Sales’ show was suspended. In a fit of pique at station management for making him work New Year’s Day, the kid-show host had asked his viewers to look in Mom’s purse and Dad’s wallet, find the pieces of paper with pictures of presidents on them and mail them to him.</p> <p>The incident cemented his legend among seventh-graders (I was one of them) and probably a few other grade levels in the weeks after New Year’s Day 1965. There’s one thing you have to understand: It was positively uncool to be watching kid shows in seventh grade — except for Soupy Sales’ show.</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 126px;"><img alt="SRcaputo" class="left" height="146" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/e11_20_09/SRcaputo.jpg" title="Soupy Sales" width="126" /> <div class="caption">Soupy Sales</div> </div> Sales died Oct. 22 in a New York City hospice, at the age of 83, and took a little piece of the swinging 1960s with him.</p> <p>He was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, N.C. (the Supmans were the only Jewish family in town), on Jan. 8, 1926. He is survived by his two sons, Tony and Hunt, and his wife, Trudy.</p> <p>Sales drew his stage moniker from his nickname “Soupbone” and Chic Sale, a comedian he admired in his youth.</p> <p>Sales never talked down to children. His show had the anarchic quality of Ernie Kovacs’ show, which was aimed at adults, and of Warner Bros. cartoons, which were aimed at children but were smart enough to make adults laugh.</p> <p>Although I remember “Lunch with Soupy,” the show that started as a local broadcast in Detroit in 1953 and went national on ABC in 1959, the mid-’60s broadcasts on a local New York station marked Sales’ heyday — the period when he was making movies (“Birds Do It”) and records, as well as his TV show, which was syndicated nationally.</p> <p>Still, “Lunch With Soupy” brought him fans like Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack, all ready to get a pie in the face. Sales revived that shtick straight from vaudeville, which was on its way out when he was young.</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 126px;"><img alt="SRCaputo, Salvatore" class="left" height="214" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/e11_20_09/SRCaputo, Salvatore.jpg" title="salvatore caputo" width="126" /> <div class="caption">salvatore caputo</div> </div> In fact, all his jokes were very old, but new to youngsters. Something about his delivery earned him the appreciation of the Sinatra generation and us young pups. (When Sinatra started his Reprise record label, he signed Sales as a recording artist.)</p> <p>Sales was both the straight man — taking the pie in the face or being put upon by his girlfriend Peaches (played by Soupy in drag), dogs White Fang and Black Tooth (seen only as giant paws reaching in from off camera) or Pookie the lion, a puppet — and the comic who told the jokes, threw the pies and did the slapstick.</p> <p>Puppets were standard kid-show fare, but Sales also offered the downright weird Reba and Hobart, two otherwise disembodied heads, one dwelling in the belly of his potbellied stove and the other popping out of the top.</p> <p>Most of all, though, Sales’ cool factor came from his love of music — whether jazz, blues, pop or rock ’n’ roll — and it showed. Guests included 1960s hit-makers like the Supremes and Four Seasons.</p> <p>“Do the Mouse,” his spoof of dance-craze tunes like “The Twist” or “C’mon and Swim,” was almost credible in an era that saw dances like the Watusi and the Frug dominate the discotheques.</p> <p>In 1965, his tune hit No. 49 on the Cashbox chart, and earned him a guest spot on NBC’s “Hullaballoo,” a pop-rock show aimed at an older crowd than his show. He also was guest host of a “Hullaballoo” episode in 1966.</p> <p>Sales’ show was revived briefly in the 1970s — and even had makeup-wearing rock Alice Cooper as a guest — but changes in TV and the audience had numbered the days of kid shows like his. So he moved on to other things, such as game shows and talk radio.</p> <p>What I couldn’t possibly remember about Soupy Sales was his night-time talk show in Detroit, called “Soupy’s On.” It aired at 11 p.m. from 1953 to 1959 and featured comedy sketches and musical guests. But they weren’t just any musical guests. Sales booked giants of jazz, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk, according to the Detroit Free Press, and just that’s just the short list.</p> <p>In fact, an archive of that Detroit show produced the only known film of seminal trumpeter Clifford Brown, who died in a bus crash at age 25, just months after being on Sales’ show.</p> <p>Sales’ love of music, I’m sure, suffused the spirit that reached out of the television tube and drew in kids of all ages as fans. That and a slab of custard pie.</p> <p><strong><br />Salvatore Caputo</strong> is senior staff writer at Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.</p>

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