The man they call Soupy has gone to the great beyond. From the NYT obit:
Soupy Sales, whose zany television routines turned the smashing of a pie to the face into a madcap art form, died Thursday night. He was 83.
Some 20,000 pies were hurled at Soupy Sales or at visitors to his TV shows in the 1950s and ’60s, by his own count. The victims included Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis, all of whom turned up just for the honor of being creamed.
And here’s a hilarious chunk from E!’s write-up:
[I]n 1965, a disgruntled Sales ended his New Year’s Day broadcast of The Soupy Sales Show by instructing his young audience to creep into their parents’ bedrooms, take their parents’ “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. presidents,” and mail the paper to him. When money started arriving at the studio, Sales explained he was only joking and either returned the dough or donated the unreturnables to charity.
RIP Soupy Sales. Please smash a pie into God’s face for me.
When I was small I thought Soupy Sales was God.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x33fj6_…
Soupy was a big jazz fan, and guys like Thelonious Monk would occasionally wander around in the background. Here’s a clip of the great Clifford Brown on his show — the only Brownie film in existence:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2usrw_…
Hey kids, what word starts with F and ends with UCK? That’s right, FIRETRUCK!
He was the first person to teach me what good stand up was. He could make me laugh even when I didn’t feel like it. He was a class guy. I have thought about him and White Fang over the years.
White Fang was a fucking riot when he and Soupy got into it. R.I.P.
I saw Soupy about a decade ago exiting a restaurant in downtown Manhattan and goddamn he was old. Shocked that he made another 10 years.
Sorry, Matt from Denver, the Soupy Sales/”Firetruck” joke-thing is an urban legend.
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/soupy2.…
And while the “green pieces of paper” story that E! mentions is true, not a lot of money was actually sent in, only a couple of dollars…
Doesn’t diminish the loss, however.
For those of us “of a certain age.” Soupy was the best thing on television. He’ll be missed.
Damn! I always liked that story! Thanks for the heads up.
Holy cow Mel Gibson doppelganger.