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captainsblogSoupy Sales (1926-2009)
I grew up in the days when network media had themselves three hours a night in prime time, plus the Today and Tonight Show hours, but everything else was local. Every city had its own flavors of movie packages (Creature Feature was our local horror film series), cooking and gardening shows, but most of all the shows for kids. Some were syndicated, with local hosts, like Romper Room and Bozo the Clown. In the NYC metro market, though, we also got the best of the best hosting the purely local schticks that probably wouldn't have played in Peoria. We got Wonderama and Sandy Becker and Officer Joe and Captain Jack, along with far more than the FDA's minimum daily requirements of slapstick cartoon violence.
Soupy was one of those hosts, who mostly did just his own stuff. Nothing hi-tech or A-list humor, just lots of giggles. And pies. Plenty of those, with Soup being thrower and throwee on any number of occasions. His Times obit ends with this:
“One of my younger fans made the mistake of heaving a frozen pie at me before it defrosted,” he once wrote in The New York Journal-American. “It caught me in the neck and I dropped like a pile of bricks.”
I doubt I'll even qualify for a Times obituary, but if I do, I don't think I could go out with a more honorable remembrance than that.
Funeral services will be private. In lieu of flowers, go into your mommy's purse, take out all the green pieces of paper, and send them to Calvary Hospice, where Soupy spent his final days.
I grew up in the days when network media had themselves three hours a night in prime time, plus the Today and Tonight Show hours, but everything else was local. Every city had its own flavors of movie packages (Creature Feature was our local horror film series), cooking and gardening shows, but most of all the shows for kids. Some were syndicated, with local hosts, like Romper Room and Bozo the Clown. In the NYC metro market, though, we also got the best of the best hosting the purely local schticks that probably wouldn't have played in Peoria. We got Wonderama and Sandy Becker and Officer Joe and Captain Jack, along with far more than the FDA's minimum daily requirements of slapstick cartoon violence.
Soupy was one of those hosts, who mostly did just his own stuff. Nothing hi-tech or A-list humor, just lots of giggles. And pies. Plenty of those, with Soup being thrower and throwee on any number of occasions. His Times obit ends with this:
“One of my younger fans made the mistake of heaving a frozen pie at me before it defrosted,” he once wrote in The New York Journal-American. “It caught me in the neck and I dropped like a pile of bricks.”
I doubt I'll even qualify for a Times obituary, but if I do, I don't think I could go out with a more honorable remembrance than that.
Funeral services will be private. In lieu of flowers, go into your mommy's purse, take out all the green pieces of paper, and send them to Calvary Hospice, where Soupy spent his final days.
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Date: 2009-10-23 03:42 pm (UTC)Nice man, though. Very nice man.
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Date: 2009-10-23 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 10:41 pm (UTC)...?
That last one broke my brain. I've never seen Soupy Sales beyond snippets, but I'm suddenly wondering who on this side of the Atlantic has...
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Date: 2009-10-24 12:16 am (UTC)This (http://www.tvparty.com/lostny2catjack.html) was "Captain Jack" for me, years before even Billy Joel corrupted the reference in the 70s and back in the days of Three, or Four, but certainly not the Nine to whom your Jack's connected.
You might check if your Mom remembers Soupy. He was on WXYZ in Detroit back before his move to New York.
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Date: 2009-10-24 01:58 pm (UTC)In Rochester we had Skipper Sam.