CLASS ACT #14

Comedian and pie-throwing television personality Soupy Sales was born Milton Supman in Franklinton, N.C. on January 8, 1926, where his parents, Irving and Sadie Supman, owned a dry goods store. Neighbours pronounced his last name “Soupman,” so he called himself Soupy as a youngster. He took the name Soupy Sales in part from the old-time comic actor Chic Sale. 

He worked as a radio scriptwriter while moonlighting as a comedian, and eventually became a DJ and then a television personality.

His zany television routines turned a pie in the face into a madcap art form, Cavorting with his puppet sidekicks White Fang (The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA),  Black Tooth (the biggest and sweetest Dog in the USA) and Pookie the Lion, transforming himself into the private detective Philo Kvetch, and playing host to the ever-present “nut at the door,” Soupy Sales became a television favourite of youngsters and an anarchic comedy hero for teenagers, college students and many adults as well.

By his own count, some 20,000 pies were hurled at him or visitors to his TV shows in the 1950s and 60s. The victims included Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis, all of whom turned up just for the honour of being ‘creamed’.

He died in New York City on October 22, 2009, aged 83.

Interestingly… at least I think so… Soupy explained in his memoir, “Our shows were not actually written, but they were precisely thought out… but the greatest thing about the show, and I think the reason for its success, was that it seemed undisciplined. The more you can make a performance seem spontaneous, the better an entertainer you are.”

That’s tricky, but then… as they say in Somerset… “Frome wasn’t built in a day!”

The video above features Soupy playing draughts against White Fang, who is getting some advice from Black Tooth. Doggone!