Soupy - January 8, 2010

If you were a kid growing up in the '50s or '60s, you lived through a golden age of television. In those antediluvian days, all television was local. Most cities and towns had no more than one or two channels (growing up in Los Angeles, we were blessed with a whopping eight) -- and some didn't even start broadcasting until mid-afternoon. Regardless of where the stations were, they almost all had one thing in common: kiddie show hosts. Before or after school, some poor station employee (a weatherman, an announcer, or even a news anchor) would be forced to dress up as a hobo, a sea captain, a cop, a castaway, or a clown, and act enthusiastic as he (or she) introduced crappy cartoons, chopped-to-bits Three Stooges shorts, or even more heinous fare. At the top of the heap, though, was Milton Supman, born January 8, 1926. You've never heard of him? Perhaps you know him better by his stage name: Soupy Sales. Soupy began his television career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, but soon moved to WXYZ in Detroit, where he hosted not one, but two, daily programs: Lunch with Soupy for the kiddies at noontime, and Soupy's On for the grownups in the late evenings. The latter featured such jazz superstars as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis (who made six appearances) as guests -- heady fare for the mid-1950s. Soupy's midwestern fame soon got him a gig in Los Angeles and a primetime network show on ABC. Unfortunately, the national show was cancelled after only thirteen weeks, but he continued appearing locally, and nationally as a late-night fill-in for Steve Allen. It was in 1964, though, that Soupy hit the big time. He moved to WNEW in New York, and his show took off like a rocket, being syndicated nationally. Celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mickey Rooney, and Burt Lancaster were clamoring to have Soupy throw pies in their faces. Those pies became Soupy's trademark. It was estimated that, over his career, he either threw or was hit with nearly 20,000 pies -- a prop he was exacting about: "You can use whipped cream, egg whites, or shaving cream," he explained, "but shaving cream is much better because it doesn't spoil. The secret is you just can't push it and shove it in somebody's face. It has to be done with a pie that has a lot of crust so that it breaks up into a thousand pieces when it hits you." The most notorious event in Soupy's career, though, was his New Year's show in 1965. Peeved at having to work on the holiday, he told the kiddies to find their parents' wallets and "get all the green pieces of paper with the pictures of guys in beards" and mail them to him. In return he would send them "a postcard from Puerto Rico." With that, the proverbial pie hit the fan. While the station was flooded with Monopoly money from those who got the joke, it was also flooded with phone calls from those who didn't get it, and Soupy was suspended for a week. Soupy's show ended in 1966, but in the decades after, he was a regular panelist on What’s My Line? and made numerous radio, television, and live appearances. When he died in October, 2009, a pie was placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But by that time, the magic, like the era of live TV hosted by local personalities, was gone. Suggested Sites... TV Party: The Soupy Sales Shows - illustrated history of the master of pie-throwing. You Tube: Green Pieces of Paper - Soupy tells the story of New Year's Day 1965. "The Soupy Sales Show" - watch a complete broadcast from 1965. "The Mouse" - Soupy even had a hit song. This was it. POV: Soupy Sales - Mark Evanier speaks for every kid who grew up watching Soupy.