Pie-splattered comedian Soupy Sales dies at 83

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Pie-splattered comedian Soupy Sales dies at 83



DETROIT – Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. He was 83.

Sales died at Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.

At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and '60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.

"If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy," said Usher.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_sales

[Orrex]

1. I'm sorry to say that I thought he died about ten years ago

His heyday was a bit before my time, but I've seen a fair number of his tv bits.

There won't be another like him any time soon.


Rest well, Soupy!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. I was surprised, too...

...he was pretty much 100% off of anyone's radar for a while now. I just found this June 2008 photo on Wikipedia:



Soupy Sales at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, June 8, 2008.

[SDuderstadt]

4. I thought I was the only one that happened to....

I often will see the obituary for some celebrity and be surprised, since I seem to have a specific memory of them already having passed away. For example, I could have sworn I had read an obituary for Don Ho well before he actually died.

What's really spooky is when I think of some celebrity having passed away already and then it actually happens not soon thereafter. No, I don't have premonitions. Everyones' minds play trick on them with regularity. For example, Mike Connors recently died, but I could have sworn he had died years ago until I realized that I had him mixed up with Chuck Connors.

Now, every morning when I arise, the first thing I do is to read the obituaries. If I'm not in there, I go ahead and plan for a full day.

[Orrex]

9. Don Ho is dead?!?!?

What about the Tiny Bubbles?!?!?

[SDuderstadt]

10. They're dead, too....n/t

[drm604]

11. I thought the same thing.

I remember watching his show in the mid to late 60's. This was in the Philly market. I'm not sure if the ones I saw were the original run or repeats. I recall White Fang and of course the pies, but not a whole lot else.

RIP Soupy.

[Orrex]

14. Was that WPHL 17? I remember the show running into the early 70s

That's where I first heard of him, but I was really young at the time, so I don't have a clear memory of the program.

[drm604]

32. It was almost certainly one of the 3 UHF channels

(17, 29, or 48) so it may have been 17.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I had the same thought, that I didn't know if he was still around...

I do remember him as a kid, on game shows, if I remember right... :shrug:

But I do remember that everybody liked him... :-)

[flvegan]

2. I remember him from his appearances on Sha Na Na.

Sadly not from his heyday. RIP, Soupy Sales.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. RIP

[Digit]

6. RIP Soupy

As a young child I loved watching his show and a few months ago spent an entertaining evening viewing his old shows on youtube.

[Hepburn]

7. When I was a kid, he was on a TV station in the mid-West.

This was back in the 1950s. He got kicked off the station for telling the following joke ~~ and it was told on a live TV kiddies program:

Q. What is the difference between snow men and snow women?

A. Snow balls.

Took me a few years to under stand that one!

RIP, Soupy...:hi:

[supernova]

8. I remember Soupy

RIP, you really were fun.

He was the closest thing to kids programming on in prime time, before even things like Peanuts specials started airing.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

12. One of my heroes of funny.

God bless Soupy.

[G_j]

15. RIP Soupy!

used to watch his show after school

[Joe Fields]

16. I loved Soupy Sales. He was the Pee Wee Herman of my boyhood.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. So true...remember the "green pieces of paper" incident?

Claim: Soupy Sales was suspended for asking his young television viewers to send him "green pieces of paper" taken from their parents' wallets.

Status: True.

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/soupy1.asp

On Friday, 1 January 1965, children's TV host Soupy Sales, somewhat miffed at having to work on New Year's Day, had a few minutes to kill at the end of Money his program. Ad-libbing, Sales looked into the camera and delivered some variation of the request to his young viewers quoted above. (The show was aired live and no tape of it exists, so a verbatim transcription of his words is not available.)

The reaction from outraged parents came fast and furious, and WNEW-TV in New York pulled Soupy Sales' program off the air by the following Monday. Contrary to common belief, Soupy Sales wasn't fired over the stunt, nor was his show cancelled because of it: He resumed broadcasting two weeks later, and his program ran on WNEW for close to another two years.

It's easy for those who weren't around back then to underestimate the frenzied reaction to what now seems like a harmless prank (especially in comparison to the antics of the numerous "shock jocks" who abound on radio these days). But in 1965, adults were livid at the idea of a TV personality's crassly manipulating children for commercial gain, even if the whole thing was merely an impulsive gag. Frankly, though, Soupy hadn't really done anything that radio and television pitchmen hadn't already been doing for years — he simply cut out the middleman by asking children to send him money directly rather than exhorting them to buy his sponsors' products. Could anyone really deny that Soupy's radio predecessors had been just as commercially manipulative when they continually touted the charms of products like Ovaltine to their young audiences? The stuff
tasted terrible, and the only reason thousands of kids pestered their mothers to buy it was because the purchase was necessary to obtain a Shake-Up Mug or Code-O-Graph or whatever geegaw was being plugged on popular kids' shows like "Little Orphan Annie" and "Captain Midnight."

If cooler heads had prevailed back in 1965, parents might have realized the furor was much ado about nothing. The premise of Soupy's stunt was largely untenable, because it required that children too young to understand or appreciate the concept of "money" would nonetheless be able to recognize it, surreptitiously remove it from their parents' wallets, put it in envelopes with the correct postage and address (even though Soupy hadn't provided an address), and mail it, all without their parents' knowledge or assistance. At that age I'd have been hard-pressed to mail a postcard to myself without help, and no kid I knew who understood the value of money was about to part with any prized currency by sending it to a TV host who promised nothing in return, no matter how nicely he asked. Nonetheless, decades later sloppy historians were still reporting that:


It worked. According to reports it was "the biggest heist since the Brink's robbery."

It didn't work. Although various accounts credit Soupy with having received up to $80,000 through the mail, Sales himself has revealed on numerous occasions that he netted only a few real dollars, along with a lot of play money and green Monopoly money:


The most famous single gag comes on New Year's Day 1965. Mr. Sales tells kids to go into their parents' wallets and to send him "those little green pieces of paper."

It's become a cult thing to say you sent $10, $20, he says, but if that had been true, he would have had enough money to buy the building. He received only a few dollars, and a week's suspension.

Perhaps someone should have been more concerned with the gullibility of parents, not children.

[Joe Fields]

19. Honestly, I don't remember watching that episode as a child,

But I do remember hearing the legend of his hoax and how much money he made off of it.

[cynatnite]

17. I never thought he was that funny, but he was so endearing it was hard not to love him...

RIP

[DearAbby]

20. There goes my childhood

RIP, misty fond memories.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. Awwwwww. I really truly enjoyed him for many years....

That article says his peak was in the 50s and 60s..but I remember watching his show being on during the late 70s, and maybe early 80s..

[bleever]

22. God rest you,

merry gentleman.

[Contrary1]

23. Damn. 83?

I am really getting old.

RIP, Soupy.

[mitchum]

24. A wonderful man who also produced two fine musicians

RIP, Soupy

[WolverineDG]

25. All I recall are the repeats of that skit

where he opened the door & a stripper was on the other side.....(un)fortunately, the door was in the way so all you could see was his reaction & her legs.

dg

[JeffR]

26. He was a huge part of millions of childhoods

and though he was a contemporary of my parents, he was always a fellow child as well. If there's a heaven, he's in it.

[cherokeeprogressive]

27. RIP, Soup.

I'm feeling old. There will never be comedians/comediennes like there used to be.

Now it's funny to insult groups of people, when back in the day, LIFE was funny.

[denem]

28. Damn.

[MisterP]

29. terrible headline, but RIP nt

[Mrs. Overall]

30. I wasn't around in the 50's for his show, but I certainly remember him in the 70's on game shows--

10,000 Pyramid and Match Game:

[TuxedoKat]

31. I remember him

being so happy and exuberant. He had a real gift for making others happy. RIP Soupy.

[KansDem]

33. I still have his record...somewhere...

Used to listen to it all the time!