Soupy Sales has died

The slapstick comedian Soupy Sales has died aged 83.

While his show was ostensibly aimed at children it garnerd a large adult audience. It should also be remembered that for 13 years he was performing the show live. Yes, it was simply a live recording, no retakes, something that it's hard to imagine any performer being willing to put themselves through these days.

Ostensibly for children, the show had broad appeal among adults who found Sales' puns, gags and pratfalls deliciously corny and camp. His cast consisted of goofy puppets with names like White Fang, Black Tooth and Pookie, and a host of off-camera characters, including the infamous naked girl.

The high point of every show came when a sidekick launched a pie into Sales' face. Sales once estimated that he was hit by more than 25,000 pies in his lifetime.

The gag became more than hilarious; it evolved into a hip badge of honor. Frank Sinatra was first in a long line of celebrities who clamored for the privilege to be cream-faced, including Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Martin and Burt Lancaster.

That's not all though, he also did what has become one of the great ad lib moments of TV:

For notoriety, nothing beat the show that aired New Year's Day 1965, when Sales was producing the program in New York. Told he had a minute to fill, the comic told the children watching on WNEW-TV to find their parents' wallets and "get all the green pieces of paper with the pictures of guys in beards" and mail them to him. In return, he said, he would send them "a postcard from Puerto Rico."

That, of course, got him taken off the air when some $80,000 came in in "monopoly money" but he was back again within a week.