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Autumn of death does not have quite the same ring to it, but it’s death, so we don’t talk about whether or not things have rings to them. It’s not appropriate. But it does seem like people keep dying even though we have started wearing more coats. From the AP:
Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced comedian whose anything-for-a-chuckle career was built on 20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs, has died. He was 83.
Sales died Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, said his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.
At the peak of his fame in the 1950s and ’60s, Sales was one of the best-known faces in the nation, Usher said.
“If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy,” Usher said.
Sales began his TV career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, then moved to Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.
The comic’s pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.
“I’ll probably be remembered for the pies, and that’s all right,” Sales said in a 1985 interview.
If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, you might try and recognize him, but Soupy would recognize him more than you would? Will the Grammar Police never rest? I know that they love clarity in language, but show some respect, Grammar Police!
But one thing is true: Soupy probably will be remembered for the pies. And that is all right!
Here is Soupy Sales and a pie in a clip from his TV show with the musician Alice Cooper.
Goodbye, Soupy Sales! You are in heaven now, throwing pies in the faces of angels.
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Let’s all have some pie, in case there aren’t any gay people around.
I always want to have some pie, despite the presence or absence of homosexuals. On Kinsey’s ‘Tom Cruise’ scale, I’m somewhere in the middle.
Wait – “regardless of,” not “despite.” I don’t want the grammar police to pie me. I want it in my mouth, not in my hair and on my face! (TWSS^2)
Oh man, I was totally going to go all grammar nazi on that quote but then you beat me to it IN THE POST. Well played, Mister Delahaye. Well played.
Me too! I was sitting there, stuck on that sentence for a solid 45 seconds, trying to figure out what the hell it meant. I then spent another 45 seconds trying to formulate something snarky about it. That’s a solid minute and a half I could’ve saved if I had just put my faith in Gabe and scrolled down.
You see, in those 90 seconds there was only one set of grammatically correct footprints in the sand…
Back in the late 90′s, when kids were still listening to crude music about farts and vaginas (kids today only listen to crude songs about sex fire and about lady lumps (how things have changed)) I came across a lyric by The Bloodhound Gang. It goes thusly:
Cause I’m The One Bottle Willy With The 12 Horse Ale
After That I Get Silly Like Soupy Sales
Now It’s Midnight And I’m Completely Boofy Blitzed
A Six Of Shlitz And The Jew Brew Manischewitz
Regretfully, the name Soupy Sales never interested me enough to take the time to find out who he was. I never thought ‘Is he really as silly as these comical pseudo-rappers say he is?’. And indeed, Soupy Sales, you were a very silly man; a bug playing a tiny piano, pieing Alice Cooper — how silly! Ah Soupy, we barely knew ye. I bet you’re glad you didn’t sell your bug (soul) to Mr. Cooper after all. May the pies be plentiful in heaven.
Frickin’ White Fang, man! Always screwing up Alice Cooper’s plans. Every dang time!
Does anyone think of Usher the r&b singer when they read that press snippet or is it just me? I’d like to pretend that it’s Usher the singer speaking about Soupy Sales.
I did. I was imagining an interview with Usher where he’d have been asked about his role models, and he’d say something like, “Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, Smokey Robinson and Soupy Sales.”
RIP Mr. Sales. It’s a shame that you’ll forever be known to my generation as a punchline in a Diablo Cody scripted film. Honest to blog.
I wonder if they can get Tin Machine to play at his memorial.
this eve/ isaw the pie scene and felt/ oh no no man/…….sure enough soup’s gone/……i never thought he’s human/ he’ll pass away/……..soupy was ever more in my/our upbeat/joy……..JOY/…..hearts/ never stopped to say he’ll leave some day/and he has n’t/ all the hours/years of him and company are ever more/ iwas at a lose to say he’s gone/ i’d say those he knew/knew and loved him feel the reality of his leaving- i believe that/ fond- FOND funny good humor memory of Mr. Sales/ he and pook and the dogs and the crew/thanks soupy for the levity the jokes the skits the scenery bertha the elephant the ol’ blk & wht tv show the intro/ the ad lib banter w/ the crew( important ) Just allround amusement the new west coast show/ ALL of it thank-you soupy sales/ i never knew how you followed/ i followed your sense of humor/ i carried that which you gave /with me without even knowing – ’til now/ vaya con dios OUR friend/……….an ol’ black& white tv viewer