Retroblog

Soupy Sales Asks Kids To Now Send Green Paper, Pies To The Pearly Gates

Soupy Sales (born Milton Supman), the children’s television host, game show panelist and comedian, died Thursday at the age of 83. From 1953 to 1966 and then again in the late seventies, Sales presented a children’s show like no other. Full of slapstick, ad-libbed comedy often involving puppets and off-camera interaction but now and then attracting luminaries like Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Alice Cooper and Sammy Davis Junior, nearly every episode included someone — usually Soupy — getting a pie in the face.

Apart from a remarkable 25,000 pies in the face and establishing the (at the time) unheard-of practice of breaking the fourth wall and interacting with cameramen and crew on his show, Soupy Sales established a place in television history on New Year’s Day, 1965, when he jokingly suggested that the kids watching go into their sleeping parents’ bedroom, open their wallets and purses, find the green pieces of paper with the faces on them… and mail them to Soupy. Sales was suspended from broadcast for a week — let’s let Soupy tell you all about it:

In addition to his legendary career as a comedian and children’s television host, Sales appeared frequently on game shows like the the “$10,000 Pyramid” and “What’s My Line.” Folks too young to remember “The Soupy Sales Show” might remember the early eighties Saturday morning cartoon show “Saturday Supercade” — that was Soupy Sales as the voice of Donkey Kong!

Comedians from Andy Kaufman to Paul Reubens owe Soupy Sales a debit of gratitude for his free-wheeling, experimental and (for the time) daring but always human comedy. Rest easy, Soupy!