Milton Supman was born January 8, 1926, in Franklinton, North Carolina. His family was the only Jewish family in the town and Sales often commented (humorously) that the "local Ku Klux Klan members bought the sheets used for their robes from his father's store." Sales got his nickname from his family, who called him "Soup Bone," later shortened to "Soupy." From then on he would be known as Soupy Sales.
For all of the wonderful things Sales gave the world, the daily children's television show "Lunch with Soupy Sales" is how he was best known.The show featured on the spot improvised sketches, many slapstick in nature, gags, puns, banter with the TV crew, which generally concluded with Sales getting a pie in the face. The pie then became his trademark, and also a staple in the TV series. Over the years Soupy Sales estimated that he and his guests had been hit by more than 20,000 pies during his career.
In 1960, Sales moved to the ABC-TV Studios in Los Angeles, California. ABC-TV cancelled the show in March 1961, but it continued as a local program on KABC-TV until January 1962. Sale's guests included Hollywood stars, and people like Frank Sinatra literally "begged" Soupy to be hit with a pie on the show. Sinatra was not only incredibly plastered by pies, he delighted in throwing them back at the cast and TV crew. The episode of Sinatra is available on YouTube and DVD, and it's hilarious seeing Frank behaving like a kid, laughing, as his pal, Sammy Davis, gets another pie in the face! That episode was something like, "The Three Stooges Meets The Rat Pack."
Soupy's TV entourage routinely included the "giant dogs" White Fang and Black Tooth, Pookie, The Man at Door, Hippy, and both puppets and humans seemed to merrily engage each other in Soupy's Playhouse (much like Pee Wee Herman's, but far less eccentric). As a kid, this was the perfect show to watch after school, and because much of the dialogue and humor was also cleverly targeted towards adults, my parents often watched the show with me. It's a shame that the studios did not think to archive the episodes because very little of them exist today for viewing. Amazon offers a small handful of DVDs which include some of the original black and white episodes, and a few later episodes in color. The black and white (Season 1) episodes are the most outrageous and frankly the most fun to watch.
Soupy Sales was one of a kind, and his book, "Soupy Sez!: My Zany Life and Times," is worth reading, especially if you are a fan looking to get a little more insight into his life.
