As I've said many times in many places, Soupy Sales was a boyhood hero of mine. From 1960 (when I was eight) until early '62, he hosted a usually-live, very funny TV show on KABC, Channel 7 here
in Los Angeles. It was one of those shows like Time for Beany or the various Rocky & Bullwinkle programs that were intended for kids but irresistible to a surprising number of adults. I almost never missed it and was real unhappy on the rare occasions when I did.
Soupy experimented briefly with having a live studio audience but he usually just had the stage crew as his audience. You could often hear them laughing and years later, Clyde Adler — who played White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, Hippie and just about everyone who came to Soupy's door — told me that they usually had a microphone open in the studio just to catch the crew laughing. I wished I could have been there with them and in the late seventies, I was.
It happened when Soupy did a new and syndicated version of his old show and it was taped on the KTLA lot in Hollywood. I was fortunately working on variety shows there for Sid and Marty Krofft's company and I often played hooky from my job to hang out on Soupy's set. I got to talk with him and became friends with Clyde Adler. In addition to his duties as Soupy's cast, Clyde was also the chief hurler-of-pies into the face of the star of the show and Clyde once paid me the honor of putting one of those shaving cream pies in my hand and "spotting" me as I lobbed it into the puss of Mr. Sales.
There were a number of local Soupy fans who were allowed/welcomed to hang out on the set during tapings supplementing the crew laughter. One of them was a fellow named Earl Kress and another was a fellow named Stu Shostak. I didn't know either of them at the time but both later became good friends, often mentioned on this blog.
Soupy's career followed a strange path before and after that series — game shows, radio, guest starring on every kind of show there was — and then there came tragedy. He has a ghastly accident that involved falling down a flight of stairs. He was never the same after that but he still had legions of loyal fans.
One Sunday some time ago, Soupy was a guest at the Hollywood Collectors Show held at the Beverly Garland Hotel out in the valley. He was mostly signing photos and copies of his book. A number of people you've heard of were there and most of them stopped by his table to say hello. Here's a little less than two minutes of video from that event. See how many people you can recognize in it…
Okay, you certainly spotted Buddy Hackett and Ed Asner…but there's someone else in the video you might (might!) spot. I wouldn't fault you if you didn't but here, look at this screen grab I made…
That's me at right in the blue shirt weighing about ninety pounds more than I do today. The lady in the green jacket next to me is my dear friend Carolyn Kelly. If you watch the video again, you may be able to also catch us walking out behind Soupy.
And I watched this video a couple of times before I noticed that the gent in the red-striped shirt behind me is not Waldo. It's voice actor Wally Wingert, who years later I directed when he did the voice of Jon on The Garfield Show, and who became a very good friend. I didn't know him at the time just as I didn't know Earl or Stu when I was standing with them on the set of Soupy's show.
Before this video was shot, I spent some time with Soupy and he signed a book to me. He seemed a little overwhelmed at the attention he was getting there. I don't think he had very many moments when there wasn't a line of folks waiting to meet him, buy his signature and tell him how much his work had meant to them. I saw him again a year or two later at a comic convention in New York and the line was even longer. Before he left us a few years later, I hope he had an accurate sense of how beloved and appreciated he was.