Soupy Sales - New Years Day 1965

Soupy Sales was a local and national personality when I was growing up in the 1960's.  He started his Television career in Detroit in the 1950's with "Lunch with Soupy Sales".  It was a live show (as most were in those days) featuring skits as well as musical guest and of course cartoons.

My recollection of Soupy Sales and his shows come from the 1960's.  Starting in 1964 Soupy had a show on our local station WNEW Channel 5 out of New York City.  This was much like his old show with skits, puppets, guests, music and of course cartoons.  Soupy's trademark was throwing pies in the faces of his guests, which included at the time people like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Sammi Davis Jr.

The most famous Soupy Sales story occurred on New Years Day 1965.  On January 1, 1965, miffed at having to work on the holiday, Sales ended his live broadcast by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents' bedrooms and remove those "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" from their pants and pocketbooks. "Put them in an envelope and mail them to me", Soupy instructed the children. "And I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!"

A few days later, Sales announced on his show that money [some of it monopoly money] was being mailed to him at the WNEW studios. He also announced that this money was being donated to charity.  WNEW management reacted by suspending Soupy for 2 weeks.  The reaction by management and the suspension actually increased his popularity within the New York area recalls Sales in his autobiography.