Soupy Sales, Dead at 83

[+ Lucky]

Once, when I was six, I ran away from home because my grandmother wanted to watch a soap opera when my Soupy Sales show was on. I didn't get far, as my brother followed me, but I always got to watch Soupy after that.

From the NY Post;

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, died in a Bronx hospice last night. He was 83.

Born Milton Supman in 1926, Sales began his TV career in Ohio and Detroit. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.

The comic's pie-throwing shtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine appeared with the comedian.

"I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right," Sales said in a 1985 interview.

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show," a children's program that attracted adults because of the comic's manic, improvisational style.

By the time the show ended, Sales had appeared on 5,370 live television programs, which he claimed was the most in the medium's history.

[JT Brooklyn]

Sad Indeed.

 

R. I. P. Soupy! You were an Original!

[Cooper]

Childhood memories

 

I believe it was New Year's day back in the 50's when Soupy asked the kids to go into their sleeping parent's bedroom and take the money out of dad's wallet and send it to him. Some did... This prank cost him his job but I'll still recall those Saturday mornings glued to the TV watching his show. RIP

[+ Lucky]

Cooper, in reminiscing about that show, Soupy said that he received $80,000 from the kids who stole from their parents!

 

[Epigonos]

Here is a quote from his Los Angeles Times obituary (10/23/09) regarding the gag about taking of money from parents wallets:

 

"Sales had used he same joke in Detroit and Los Angeles. This this time the prank elicited some $80,000 'in Monoply money,' as well as a complaint from a viewer filled with the FCC. Sales' show was suspended, prompting fans to swamp the station's switchboard with protest calls, mostly from high school and college students who demanded that their favorite television fare resume. Within a week, it did."

[+ Lucky]

There's a youtube video where he talks about it and he says nothing about Monopoly money! He gives the impression that it was real dollars.

 

Wikipedia doesn't help out:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soupy_Sales#New_Year.27s_Day_incident

[AdamSmith]

Milton spent part of his childhood in a small town in North Carolina during the Depression. My relatives, Southern Baptists all, warmly recalled his Jewish family as a loved and contributing part of that community during that hard time.

 

Milton would always ask for one of the country ham biscuits that my great-aunt made for her children. More than once, Milton's mother assented for him to have one -- "Just don't tell his father!"

[Guest roadhoundnyc]

He lived on 57th street in NYC. From time to time I'd see him in a diner. RIP.