Every so often, the last chapter of a story ruins the whole thing. As you know, I was a big supporter of the Souplantation chain, promoting them here often. Their tomato soup even got nice mentions on the TV shows, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men because of this blog's relentless plugging.
They've sent an e-mail out to all the folks on their mailing list and also posted a statement on their website. The first paragraph is very nice but the last one makes me sorry I patronized and recommended them so much…
As you may have heard, we are unable to re-open out 97 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The outpouring of love on social media has been overwhelming and we are so grateful to all of the sweet memories you have shared with us. We would like to thank our 4,400 team members for their dedication and love they have shown to our local communities. We will miss you tremendously and wish you all the best.
For our gift card inquiries, refund options are limited at this time. You may be able to dispute the purchase with your bank or credit card company. Otherwise, there may be an alternative option available through the court in the future.
In other words: "Yes, we know a lot of you paid us in advance for future meals but since we're shutting down, we're not giving you that money back. If you don't like it, you can go to a lot of trouble to call your bank or your credit card company and see if they'll give you a refund — yeah, like they're really going to do that — but we got your money so we don't really care unless someone takes us to court over this."
I wish I had those sweet memories of the place but this kind of kills any I might have had. And I don't even have an unused gift card.
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.
Very few topics bring hits and e-mail to this site like a mention of Soupy Sales. Until I classed up and stopped posting them (i.e., when I ran out), photos of Julie Newmar in skimpy clothing was the big draw. But now it's Soupy. Every time I mention him, I hear from folks who were kids in Detroit (1953-1958), Los Angeles (1959-1962) or New York (1964-1967) and have never lost their affection for him and his shows.
As I tried to convey in this article, Soupy's show just exuded fun. It was fun to watch and I used to wish I was one of the people on the crew. You heard them laughing off-camera, especially when Soupy was in trouble and attempting to ad-lib his way out of some bit that wasn't working. As we mentioned when we recently linked to a Soupy clip, he was not only a very clever, likeable man but a very brave one, as well. His show was half improvised (some days, well more than half) and he did it without a huge cast or budget. Much of the time, it was just him out there, thinking of entertaining things to say and do. I never missed his show and was heartbroken when he left the Los Angeles airwaves.
Today is Soupy's 81st birthday. I don't think he's on the web but maybe White Fang or Black Tooth have Internet access and will let him know that a lot of us are wishing him well…today and every day.
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.
Believe it or not, a TV network is now airing old episodes of The Soupy Sales Show — a mix, I'm told, of surviving black-and-white kinescopes from this New York show from the sixties and color episodes of his syndicated series from the seventies. And also believe it or not, the network is Jewish Life Television, a somewhat new (launched in '07) channel that also broadcasts programs like MenschLifeTV, The Shalom Show, Everyday Kosher Cooking and reruns of The Goldbergs. How Soupy fits into this lineup is, uh, obvious.
JLTV is viewable in a lot of cable lineups across the land. Here's the list. It's also available on DirecTV satellite on Channel 366 so I should be able to get it on my set but I can't. It seems — and I didn't know this until I called up and inquired — that some DirecTV channels are only on certain of their satellites and you can't get those channels on older receivers such as the one I have. I don't feel like upgrading just so I can get Soupy. But if you can get him, enjoy. I didn't think the shows they're reportedly airing were his strongest stuff but even his weaker work always made me laugh. You'd think though that for Jewish Life TV, they'd go in and do some digital fixes so that instead of whacking him with a pie, White Fang hit Soupy with a pound of Rugalah or maybe a nice Hamantashen.
Tomorrow evening, WLIW (a PBS station in New York) is premiering a special called Soupy Sales: The Whole Gang is Here, a tribute to everyone's favorite pie recipient. I gather this is an hour-long version of this DVD that came out several years ago which drew mainly not from Soupy's classic kids' shows of the fifties and sixties but from his less-well-remembered 1978-1979 series. I assume the special will eventually turn up on PBS stations around the country and it's probably worth a peek.
My pal Tony Tollin reports that he attended the funeral for Soupy Sales…and says it was a funeral, not a memorial service as I wrote. There will be another, longer memorial service at some point in the future.
Ed Golick reports that a 1962 edition of Pie In Your Eye: The Official Soupy Sales Fan Club Newsletter stated that Soupy's saving cream of choice for pie-making was Aero Shave. I don't think that's currently made…at least not in its old formula. When they did the syndicated show in the seventies, master pie-hurler Clyde Adler told me that they'd done a lot of experimentation with different brands of shaving cream and pie shells.
Ira B. Matetsky sent me this link to a nice essay in the New York Post about Soupy.
Over on this website, you can see a little video interview of folks who attended the recent memorial service for Soupy Sales. And wouldn't we all love to have Joe Franklin and Professor Irwin Corey at our memorial services?
One of the interviewees, Barry Mitchell, gets the recipe exactly right for Soupy's famous facial-pies. He used non-menthol shaving cream placed in a pie shell…and he was always experimenting with different brands of shaving cream and different brands of store-bought, pre-made pie shells. The shaving cream had to be of the right consistency (the cheapest brands are usually the best) and the pie shell needed to be properly thin and brittle. At times, he used a double shell, one inside the other, to give it the necessary heft and weight. You can't lob something that's too light.
Ignorant, foolish people make throwing-pies with straight supermarket whipped cream. It doesn't last long out of the can, especially under hot studio lights. It doesn't get as fluffy as shaving cream and some brands are oily or have other additives that make clean-up a bitch. Shaving cream easily wipes off the person and washes out of clothing, and Soupy's stage crew used to get rid of the excess on the set easily and quickly with a wet-dry vacuum cleaner. I won't even comment on someone who's so mind-numbingly ignorant that they attempt a pie-throw with custard or lemon meringue or any real pie filling. There are studio prop guys who've developed good recipes for throwing-pies made of edible substances, but they're not pies you'd really want to eat.
Also, you have to be brain-dead stupid to put your filling into a foil pie pan or paper plate. A foil pie pan or paper plate won't shatter when it hits the person like a baked shell will. They're usually too light to toss with any accuracy and half the time when you do hit your target, the foil or paper clings to the victim's face and hides it. I mean, Jesus Christ, people! What's the hell's the point of hitting someone in the face with a pie if you can't then see their face covered in cream?
Finally on the subject of pie-throwing, it's stunning how many people leave out the most important part of a pie-throw on television: The sound effect. You need a good, loud rifle shot ricochet sound effect, perfectly timed. That generally isn't necessary when you pie someone in person, like at a party. The sheer act of seeing it live (and the fact that live pies are usually a surprise to the recipient) will make up for the lack of sound effects punctuation. But on TV or in a movie, a pie-hit without the right sound effect is like Glenn Beck with a moment of sanity. Why even bother?
Inept pie-throwing repulses me, as it should sicken all of you. The other night, David Letterman — who you'd think would know a little about humor — did it all wrong on his show. They had pies in foil pie plates, first of all. Then, whatever they put in them — whipped cream, I think — had gotten flat and watery by the time they got around to the segment. Dave, Paul and Regis Philbin couldn't even throw the damn things; they just kind of poured the soupy (no pun intended) contents of the pie shells over each other. Someone should be extorting money from Letterman for not pointing out to the world that he claims to be a professional comedian but he doesn't even know how to hit someone in the face with a pie. Disgusting.
Erik Tarloff remembers Soupy Sales. He gets White Fang and Black Tooth confused but otherwise, it's a perceptive piece. Thanks to Tom Pardue for the link.
Every week, I get a couple of e-mails just because of an article I wrote about Soupy Sales. This is the piece Soupy reprinted in his autobiography, even though I got the name of his director wrong…and therefore, it's wrong in his autobiography, too. (It's corrected in my online version.)
Soupy was and is much-loved and a lot of folks ask me how to get in touch with him so they can send fan letters, and I have to tell them I can't help. Though I've met the man a few times, I don't really know Soupy and don't want to hand out the only contact info I have for him, which is apparently his home address. However, the other day on his radio show, Howard Stern said Soupy was in poor health. He gave out an address (the address of the publisher of the National Enquirer and the Globe) and said Soupy would welcome fan mail sent to him at that address.
A friend of Soupy's sent me that info and suggested I post it…and earlier today, I did. Soon after, another friend of Soupy's — apparently, a closer friend — wrote to say that Howard was outta line, that Soupy's health is not as bad as Stern suggested. In fact, just the other day, he made an appearance to receive an award at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Here's a link to an article about the event.
It's true that Soupy, who's usually seen in a wheelchair, is not as well as we'd all like…but there's poor health and then there's Poor Health, and I'm happy to see he's still out and around and especially that he's getting awards. Talk about a guy who inspired an entire generation…
A while ago here, I posted a message about Soupy Sales, specifically about an address to which Howard Stern is telling people to send fan mail. I'm now hearing from friends of Soupy that one should not listen to Howard Stern. I'll take that message down and will post better info later.
Eighty years ago today, a baby was born in North Carolina who was destined to become a TV superstar…and also to get hit in the face with tens of thousands of shaving cream pies. Kids today have no one on television — absolutely no one — they could possibly feel as close to as my friends and I did to Soupy Sales during the years he lit up Los Angeles television. And kids who were the proper age when he worked in Detroit and New York feel the same way, I know. It wasn't just that he did one of those all-too-rare shows that though ostensibly for children held just as much delight for grown-ups. And it wasn't just that he did it without writers or much of a budget or even (much of the time) more than one person in his supporting cast. Soupy was just plain the most fun person to watch on TV when I was eight. He was also, for my classmates and me, a huge influence. We never talked to big dogs or wiseguy salesmen who hurled meringue our way but we did repeat his jokes and even, in our everyday speech, made feeble attempts to repeat his timing. Soupy "connected" with us like no one else I've ever seen on the screen.
Some time back, I wrote this article about him which was reprinted (with my permission, natch) in his autobiography. Beyond that, there isn't much I can say except to wish Soupy a happy 80th. I hear he's bouncing back from some health problems, which is great news. Here's hoping he has a great big cake today and that nobody throws it at him.
Speaking of Rhino Handmade, as I did a few items ago, I should mention that they still have copies available of their superb Soupy Sales CD set. It contains the full contents of his 1961 record, The Soupy Sales Show, which I played the hell out of when it first came out. It also has the entirety of his '62 follow-up, Up in the Air, plus a few singles and oddments, and the best thing is that Clyde Adler is also heard on it. (You can learn why this matters to me by reading this article.) Soupy's not the greatest singer, and I'd rather see him than listen to him…but his records were still fun.
My occasional items here about the Soupman bring me two or three e-mails per week from folks who fondly remember watching his program, so I know we have a lot of Soupy fans logging in here. If you're one, you might want to order this thing quickly, since they only pressed 2500 copies and can't have very many of them left. Go to the Rhino Homemade site and search for "Soupy."
Here, straight from Mark Kausler's digital camera, are scenes from yesterday morning's Soupy Ceremony. Nice to see how happy Mr. Sales appears in the pics.
And I'll also mention that Mark has made a wonderful animated short called It's the Cat, which has generated some "Oscar buzz." It's being shown next Saturday at 10 AM at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater at the Motion Picture Academy as part of an all-day progam of semi-finalists in the Short Subject category. I saw it in rough cut/pencil test form a year or two ago and it sure struck me as worthy of one of those little golden statuettes.
I couldn't get up to Hollywood Boulevard today to see Soupy Sales receive his star in the cement but my friend Mark Kausler (only one of the great animators working today) made the soggy trek. He sent this e-mail and gave me his okay to post it here for all…
Because of your website, I did something today I've never done before, attended a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. Of course, it was the one for Soupy Sales. Only love could get me across town in the pouring rain to see anybody, but for Soupy I made an exception. He definitely does not look well. He's wheelchair bound, and had an eerie sort of fixed smile on his face. When he tried to thank everyone for coming, he could barely talk above a whisper. The only sentence fragment I could hear clearly was: "I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming…", he repeated this phrase several times. He did muster up enough strength to push a partial pie into Johnny Grant's face, which I couldn't see very well for the solid wall of backs between me and the scene, but I'm sure that'll be on the news. Marc Summers, who hosts Unwrapped on Food Network was there, and Peter Marshall made an appearance. Summers actually mentioned Clyde Adler and Frank Nastasi, which shows that he knows his stuff. He did a pretty fair White Fang and Black Tooth, as well. Anyway, who knows if I'll ever see Soupy again? I'm glad I made the pilgrimage at least once. The fan club goes on.
And in a subsequent e-mail, Mark mentions that the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to Soupy, who turns 79 tomorrow. I understand that later in the afternoon, Soupy dedicated an exhibit of his props and memorabilia at The Hollywood History Museum. (For those who don't know: Johnny Grant, the gent with his puss covered in shaving cream above, is — this is his actual title — "the Ceremonial Mayor of Hollywood and Chairman of the Walk of Fame Selection Committee." He's a local personality and fixture of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and he hosts the star dedications.)
Sorry to hear that Soupy seems to be no healthier than the last time I saw him. He's never quite recovered from a bad fall he took at the 1995 Local Emmy Awards in New York, and I'm not sure what else is the matter with him. I'm glad to hear that Mark could barely see because of the "solid wall of backs," because that means there were a lot of people there. Soupy deserved a big crowd, and I hope it gave him a sense of how loved he is.
