R.I.P.
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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. |
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. |
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. |
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 |
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! |
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 |