Good-bye Soupy Sales

Sadly, Soupy Sales passed away yesterday at the age of 83 (obituary in the New York Times today).   As my previous post about him noted, Soupy became an icon of children’s TV in the 1950’s and 1960’s.   Soupy was the master of pie-throwing (or should I say pie-receiving), and by his own count some 20,000 pies were thrown at Soupy’s face or those of his guests on Soupy’s shows (incuding Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Jerry Lewis).  But Soupy was much more than a slapstick artist.  He combined and transmogrified the standard elements of previous children’s shows — puppets, music, clowning, and vaudeville antics — into a zany, largely unscripted new blend that appealed to children, teens, college students, and adults alike.   Lunch with Soupy Sales wasn’t just a TV show but more like a hip club that made viewers feel as if they were insiders to something very cool and crazy.  In the words of one 13-year-old Soupy fan, as quoted in the New York Times, “He’s great, he’s a nut like us.”