COMIC ANARCHIST SOUPY SALES

description

The innovative, pie throwing genius of comedian Soupy Sales is finis at 83.

At the peak of his fame Soupy was one of the best known talents in the US, Soupy’s bereaved manager and lifelong friend Dave Usher recalled. 

"If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy," Usher said.

One time Tonight Show guest host Sales notoriety — besides throwing pies —  was an innovative series of so-called kids shows which were anything but.

In a wild kaleidoscopic swirl of madcap zaniness, Sales would give celebs like Frank Sinatra or Shirley MacLaine their just desserts – a pie in the face. 

Along with shtick with his giant paw pals Fang and Black Tooth on his NYC based The Soupy Sales Show, he also starred in spoof of old-time serial adventures.  Sales ran hell bent for cold war satire as private eye/secret agent Philo Kvetch who’s sworn nemesis The Mask was finally revealed to be Nikita Khruschev!

Soupy got into trouble BIG TIME by exhorting his young charges to sneak into their parents bedrooms, open their wallets and send him all the green piece of paper they found  — which they did.

By the time the show ended its NYC run Sales boasted  he had appeared on 5,370 live television programs – the most in the medium’s history.

Soupy’s comedy albums hit the Billboard Top 10 in 1965 and his "Do the Mouse" sold 250,000 copies in New York alone, spawning a tie-in comic book  from Archie Comics.

Born Milton Supman on Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, N.C., Soupy’s family was the only Jewish family in town. His parents who owned a local clothing store sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan. The family thankfully later relocated to Huntington, W.Virginia.

Soupy appeared on zillions of TV shows as a guest and as  DJ on the radio station WNBC-AM he was the "voice of reason" sandwiched in between a fledgling Howard Stern and hot head Don Imus.

So long, Soup.