Lunch with Soupy Sales

Soupy Sales is best known for his long-running daily children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales. The show was originally called 12 O'Clock Comics, and was later known as The Soupy Sales Show. Improvised and slapstick in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of sketches, gags, and puns, almost all of which resulted in Sales' receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.

Sales developed pie-throwing into an art form: straight to the face, on top of the head, a pie to both ears from behind, moving into a stationary pie, and countless other variations. Soupy claims to have been hit by over 25,000 pies during his career.

.
Clyde Adler, a film editor at Detroit's WXYZ-TV, performed in sketches and voiced and operated all puppets on Sales' show in Detroit in the 1950s and in Los Angeles from 1959-62 and 1978. Actor Frank Nastasi assumed the role of straight man/puppeteer when Sales took the show to New York from 1964 to 66. Nastasi was originally from Detroit and had worked with Soupy at WXYZ.

The show originated in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan. Beginning in October 1959, it was telecast nationally on the ABC television network. In 1960, Soupy moved to the KABC-TV Studios in Los Angeles, California. ABC dropped the show from the network schedule in March 1961, but it continued as a local program until January 1962. The show briefly went back on the ABC network as a late night fill-in for the Steve Allen Show but was canceled after three months.

In 1964, Sales found a new weekday home at WNEW-TV in New York City. This version was seen locally and syndicated by Screen Gems to local stations outside the New York market. This show marked the height of Sales' popularity. It featured guest appearances by stars such as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as musical groups like the Shangri-Las and The Supremes. As with his earlier shows, Sales' extensive jazz record collection was used in his TV work. "Mumbles" by Oscar Peterson with Clark Terry was Pookie's theme. "Comin' Home Baby" by Herbie Mann was the theme for Sales' "Gunninger the Mentalist" character. Sales' hit novelty "dance" record, "The Mouse," is from this period of his career. Sales performed "The Mouse" on the Ed Sullivan Show in September 1965. He appeared on the Sullivan Show several times, once with the Beatles. This was also the period when Sales starred in the movie comedy Birds Do It. During the run of the New York show, actor Frank Nastasi played White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, and all the "guy at the door" characters.

Visit The Metro Archives Page

1. House of the Rising Sun - The Animals  
2. Where Did Our Love Go - The Supremes 
3. Remember (Walkin' in the Sand) - The Shangri-Las
4. Everybody Loves Somebody - Dean Martin
5. A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
6. Bread and Butter - The Newbeats
7. Save It For Me - The 4 Seasons
8. Because - The Dave Clark Five
9. C'Mon and Swim - Bobby Freeman
10. Under the Boardwalk - The Drifters
11. Selfish One - Jackie Ross
12. Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann
13. Walk-Don't Run - The Ventures
14. And I Love Her - The Beatles
15. Maybe I Know - Lesley Gore
16. Funny - Joe Hinton
17. How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers
18. Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison
19. G.T.O. - Ronny & the Daytonas
20. Dancing in the Street - Martha & the Vandellas

Chris, Kelly, Brad 1987

WE NEED YOUR IDEAS...

PUT YOUR THINKING CAP ON BOYS AND GIRLS, AND SUBMIT YOUR BLAST FROM THE PAST MEMORIES. WHO KNOWS... WE MAY EVEN COVER IT IN A FUTURE METRO