I wrote most of what I have to say about Soupy in this article but I want to underline a few points. One is the incredible rapport he had with his viewers. I can't think of a TV star today who had the ability to "connect" with folks at home the way Soupy did on the kids' show he had here in Los Angeles in '61. My friends and I didn't just want to watch him. We wanted to hang out with him and have him as a brother. Some of us even wanted to be him…even if everyone he met did smack him in the puss with a shaving cream pie. He was just the coolest, funniest guy we ever saw, and lines of his still come out of my mouth now and then.
Also impressive was that he built his little show out of practically nothing. The budget was pocket change and they blew it all on shaving cream, anyway. He had one co-star, a couple of puppets and (usually) no writers. Sometimes, for long stretches of his show, he had no script…just energy and sheer ingenuity. There have been TV shows that had a thousand times the money and were a thousandth as entertaining.
At conventions the last few years, Soupy was surrounded by guys my age. It was sad that he was in no shape to really be the old Soupy and respond to our praise and fawning in that spirit. But you could tell that he "got it" and knew how much he meant to so many. May he rest in peace and may there not be too many political cartoons showing St. Peter getting hit with a pie.