It's Pie In The Sky For Soupy Sales |TV Comedian Dies At 83

23 October, 2009

Years before Gallagher ever smashed his first watermelons, or teen comedies made us laugh with a food fight, TV comedian Soupy Sales perfected the entertaining art of pie throwing. Sales once said he’d been hit by an estimated 25,000 pies in his lifetime.

Voted most popular boy in school, he was always light-hearted and engaging. Serving in the Navy in WWII, he entertained crewmates, never letting the rigors of war get him down for long. After his discharge, he went to college to study journalism and worked in broadcasting, stand up comedy, radio and script writing before getting his big break on TV. Sales passed away this week at age 83. He was hospitalized in the Bronx, suffering from various age-related ailments.

Lucky thing we can catch reruns of the retro comedies on DISH network TV! These classic programs never get old. This slapstick entertainer and his live television show, ‘The Soupy Sales Show’ earned an enthusiastic band of fans in the mid-50’s and 60’s. The program ran for over a decade, being syndicated in the U.S. and overseas.

Puppets and off-camera characters rounded out the show’s cast with its playful parade of puns and corny camp. Guests loved getting in on the pie-in-the-face gag, with celebrities Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr. and Mickey Rooney amongst the group that happily had a pie tossed in their face.

No doubt Soupy’s got ‘em rolling in Heaven’s aisles now.