PART THREE / / / Part One Here /// Part Two Here
by Billy Ingram, Kevin S. Butler
and your TVparty super-friends

Dear Soupy Sales;

My five year old son, Kenny, is a BIG FAN of yours since his grandmother purchased the Soupy Sales Show videos.

I have truly never heard him laugh so hard, so loud and so long in his brief life. Thanks to you, I can no longer serve soup without hearing all eight "waiter there's a fly in my soup" jokes. Worse yet, he has his little three year-old brother, Brendan, doing "the Mouse".

My retro children are a big hit at gatherings as they impersonate you to a 'T'. The other day we went into a bakery and they burst out laughing looking at the display case of pies.

Just wanted you to know that you have some big little fans in New Jersey wishing that they could meet you someday.

- Sarah J. Schweighardt

When 'The Soupy Sales Show' left the airwaves in September, 1966 after a two-year run, Soupy turned up mostly as a guest on the many variety and game shows that populated the TV schedule.

Soupy joined the panel of the popular game show What's My Line? in the late-sixties, appearing on more than 1,500 episodes during a seven year span.

In 1976, he hosted a Saturday morning game show, Junior Almost Anything Goes, that lasted one season. He was also a regular on the Sha Na Na Show in 1978.

On February 5, 1979, The New Soupy Sales Show, a weekday half-hour, was offered locally in Los Angeles (on KTLA channel 5) and in syndication, introducing a new generation to pies in the face and wretchedly bad puns. The set closely resembled the set for the 1960's show and the star looked about the same as well.

For this new series, Clyde Adler returned as Soupy's comic cohort, along with Bo Kaprell and Marty Brill. White Fang, Pookie the Lion, Hippie the Hippo and Black Tooth were all back, along with a new running feature, 'The Adventures of Soupyman' with Clyde Adler as the editor of the newspaper Clark Bent (Soupy) works for. Soupy, in drag, also played Soupyman's girlfriend Peaches.

Albert Navarro says, "One of my favorite episodes was from the 1979 series in which White Fang and Black Tooth were fighting over a picture of Lassie. It was hilarious!"

Here's a clip from You Tube:

Unfortunately, local stations, for the most part, chose to air the show in the afternoons to attract an audience of kids; but this program was meant to be a variety show for the entire family. Clyde Adler suffered a heart attack during the production and that affected the show as well. The New Soupy Sales Show ran only until March 9, 1979 but reruns continued for months afterward.

Frank Blefari tells us, "In the mid-80's Soupy Sales moved to radio. He was on WNBC 66.0 AM in New York.

"I remember the day that the Challenger blew up and Soupy came on the air with a special announcement. After he read the news that the spaceship had blown up, he was ridiculed on the air by the other deejays about how tasteless a joke that was. He tried to explain that he was serious, but they didn't want to believe him. I don't know if someone in a booth somewhere confirmed Soupy's story (off the air), but the mood suddenly changed when they realized he was, for once, serious."

Soupy turned up as a frequent guest-star on virtually all of the game shows of the early-eighties and provided voices for the 'Donkey Kong' segment of 1983's 'Saturday Supercade' - entertaining kids yet again on Saturday mornings. He also released an LP, 'Still Soupy After All These Years.'

Puppeteers Clyde Adler and Frank Nastasi have both passed away. Adler died in September of 1993; Nastasi on June 15, 2004.

Soupy Sales published his best selling autobiography 'Soupy Sez! : My Zany Life and Times' in 2003, received a well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 7, 2005 and can be seen in a number of recent motion pictures, including 'Black Scorpion Returns,' 'This Train' and the upcoming 'The Innocent and the Damned.'

Thank you Soupy Sales for fifty (plus) years of inspired entertainment.

Soupy and Clyde Adler working out a routine

Pookie & Soupy clown it up on the set

A bit about lettuce gets suggestive

I read your three-part description of the life of Soupy Sales. It does not mention what I though was the funniest mishap on one of his TV shows. Because it was so long ago I’m now wondering if my memory of it is totally a delusion. As I can’t find any site to write Mr. Sales directly about this I doubt I will ever be able to verify this.

I believe it was an afternoon show, in the 60’s, in LA. Soupy was doing his own commercials for his live TV show at the mid-way break in his half-hour show. His sponsor, in the days of TV programs having a single sponsor for the whole show, was the 7-up company.

7-up had started a big promotion for their “Fizzer” accessory (not to be confused with “Fizzies”, an alka-seltzer-like product that made carbonated kool-aid-like beverage when added to water). The Fizzer was a “No-mess” way for kids to make their own ice cream soda. It was a plastic globe in two sections that snapped together. One section had a drinking spout and the other section had a spout that fit snuggly into the neck of a 7-up bottle (yes, bottles, it was that long ago).

A kid would put the half globe in the neck of an open bottle of 7-up, add a single scoop of vanilla ice cream, snap the upper half globe on, up end the bottle and drink through the globe’s spout the mix of 7-up and ice cream.

As best as I can remember, on Monday everything went well with the commercial, ending with Soupy drinking the ice cream soda. On Tuesday, Soupy was getting a little sloppy and fast and accidentally slammed the bottle down on the table after drinking from the assembly. This caused the 7-up to fizz in the bottle which propelled a geyser of ice cream soda about 10” out the spout and all over the table. Not exactly a “No mess” scenario for kids.

On Wednesday, he did the ad very slowly and precisely. Obviously chewed-out by his sponsor, he was being very careful. When he got to the end of the commercial and went to take the drink, he didn’t have the globe snapped on all the way. With the bottle way up in the air and fizzing 7-up propelling it, the globe came apart and forcefully shot the scoop of ice cream right into Soupy’s face.

For the next 15 minutes of the show, all he could do was roll around on the floor howling with laughter. The whole crew could be heard laughing behind the camera, the camera shook violently as the cameraman was laughing so hard. Soupy was mysteriously off the air the next day and did not return until the middle of the following week when he had a new sponsor. 7-up quietly withdrew the Fizzer product from the marketplace.

Did this really happen? Did it happen anything like the way I remember it happening? Does this incident survive on Kinescope, tape, or DVD? I would appreciate any information you might have about this. Thank you.

- Donn Pardee

Soupy Sales - The Early Years
Soupy Sales Show - Part Two
Soupy Sales on TV - The Later Years
Soupy Sales & The Tonight Show

Classic TV!

Soupy Sales - The Early Years
Soupy Sales Show - Part Two
Soupy Sales on TV - The Later Years
Soupy Sales & The Tonight Show

Richard Ranke remembers, "On a Soupy Sales Show album, there is a song which goes, in part;

"Little Suzie Smith was sent to bed
For coloring the kitchen walls a lipstick red.
Suzie was sad as she could be
Until she turned on her TV.
And Suzie saw me get a pie in the face
and she began to laugh.
It made her smile instead of frown.
It picked her way up when she was feeling way down."

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