The great Soupy Sales died


In many ways , the performer who may have given me more enjoyment as a kid then anyone...completely irreverent and loveable at the same time
jaybo

Growing up in Highland Park, MI in the 50's it was Soupy Sales and Vernors soda for me. Soupy was the best. Soupy had a laugh and a smile that made me want to laugh at everything he did.

Do you remember when he was doing a skit and there was a naked girl off camera that caught him of guard. I think she was there just for him trying to mess up his routine and he just kept laughing through his whole routine.  

Hey fmpnd. That was Morgus the Magnificent with his sidekick Chopsley along with Eric the skull. What a campy hoot. Production budget must have run about 50 bucks per episode. And they'd just drag in schlubs off the street to participate in their "experiments".

BTW, Morgus is a guy named Sid Noel.
Bander
The black cat with the violin was "Midnight" he was part of Andy's gang with Andy Devine.
RIP Soupy & thanks for all the laughs & memories of my childhood.
Also in the above link a good recap of some of his zany characters and some skits from his shows. Had me laughing just reading them.
Soupy Sales:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soupy_Sales

Including:

Sales also hosted a nighttime show, Soup's On, to compete with11 O'Clock News programs.[17] The guest star was always a musician, often a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz clubs. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soup's On.[17]

Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and Stan Getz were among the musicians who appeared on the show; Miles Davis made six appearances.[8] Clifford Brown's appearance on Soup's On, according to Sales, may be the only extant footage of Brown, and has been included in Ken Burns' Jazz and an A&E Network biography about Sales.


Soupy's sons, Hunt and Tony Fox Sales, played with Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop and Tin Machine.  Drums and bass, respectively.
That's it Dgarretson!!! Thanks for the memory. Remember how they made an elderly woman fall for their routine and she would end up pouring stuff over her head. Wierd quirky stuff back then.

I can see Midnight the cat sitting in her chair as if it was yesterday.
I was shocked to hear the MIT college radio station (WMBR Cambridge) playing "pie in the face" this morning. It's hard to believe that 20 YO college kids would even know who Soupy was. Guess he left a mark on future generations....
One of the funniest person's ever. Gallons of milk passed through my nostrils as a kid as I laughed while eating lunch watching the Soup and his antics.
I rememeber enjoying Soupy as a kid watching NY television. Years later, sometimes Soupy and Howard Stern shared the WNBC air waves. Sometimes there was trouble...
soupy eating lunch...generally a sandwich and a glass of milk (with sound effects)...reading fairy tales with pookie and hippie acting them out behind him.....and the door to door salemman who tortured him in each show....someone get this stuff on DVD now.
In NY metro area the host was Zacharly and Creature Feature. I remember that guy's entertainments during commercial breaks through Ed Wood type monster movies. During The Blob he cut away to his studio, where he would massage and needle some jiggly 44DDD breast facsimile on a lab table. I guess that whole horror schlock meta-narrative reached its zenith with Mystery Science Theater 3000, but thankfully by then I was no longer 14.
Dgarretson,

Now you've gone and done it. Now I just remembered a late night TV Horror Film Movie host from Parma Ohio called "The Ghoul" that I also laughed a lot at in the early 70s.

He also used to say "Pluck your magic twanger Froggy" and end his show with "Scratch grass and turn blue and stay sick!" He was a real hoot!

Also, in Detroit when I was a kid there was a horror movie host named "Morgus" with a show called "Morgus Presents". I am almost positive that would have been in the mid to late 60s.

Times were a lot different then.
http://www.tvacres.com/cats_puppets_midnight.htm

That's goes back further than Soupy. White Fang/Black Fang stuck, however my most primitive implant from early children's TV was also from the Andy Devine show: "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy."
Bander, I don't remember that episode but I sure wish I had seen it or could see it now. Just seeing Soupy's expressive face and that big grin has always made my day.
I too was born and raised in Detroit and Soupy was a staple. For as conservative a time as the 50's and early 60's were, there was some far out children's fare on TV. Soupy, White Fang and Black Tooth were among those. I also remember a Saturday morning show that featured a black cat that played the violin. Anyone remember the show?
I too live in the Detroit metro area and grew up here and LOVED watching Soupy as a kid. Black Fang and White Tooth ("ruh-oh-ruh-a-roh"), the pie in the face, the oncoming train when he opened the door -- what fantastic memories! It really is sad for us Baby Boomers how our influential childhood figures and parents are dying off.

R.I.P. Soupy
So sad, I will never forget the sound of the voices of White Fang and Black Tooth. I laugh just thinking of it.
I'm from the Detroit area and was a child fan of Soupy's mad antics until starting school, only to be associated by the similar sound of our last names (mine was real, his contrived). It sucked being called soupy in school as I had nothing other than a name to associate me with Milton Supman. Yet in retrospect, he was ground breaking at the time and made people think. And in all his fun, I think he left some people happy which is indeed a great thing.

Happy Listening!
I think I'll spin "Pachalafakah" (however it's spelled) in his honor, if I can ever find it.
But shows what mistake it was for a semi-beatnik to be given a kids show (which Iloved as a little kid).At one point he told the kids "Go to Daddy's Wallet and send Soupy a Dollar".He never thought kids would do it and though it's hysterical now the kids did send him money and I think that's when he lost his show.Thank goodness Mort Sahl never got a kids show or we'd end up more neurotic as generation than we are!yeah a class act.
Chazz