Soupy Sales

   

The Soupy Sales show was a unique kids’ show with lots of adult appeal that made us all feel like little hipsters.   Soupy, a multi- talented performer, hosted several local, national, and syndicated children’s shows from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, with broadcasts originating from Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York.   He reached the height of his popularity with the syndicated show produced in New York City beginning in 1964. 

Soupy’s show was a kind of ironic twist on the standard conventions of earlier kids’ TV shows, combining vaudeville antics (primarily in the form of frequent pies in the face, which became Soupy’s trademark), puppets, Laugh-In-style comedy sketches, musical numbers that made use of Soupy’s extensive jazz record collection, and guest appearances by major stars of the day, like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and singing groups like the Shangri-Las and the Supremes.  Much of the show was ad-libbed, which gave it a loose and slightly dangerous feeling – you knew that anything could happen on the show, and it often did.

The puppets on the show were pretty strange.  White Fang, billed as “The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA,” appeared only as a giant white shaggy paw at the edge of the TV screen.  Fang spoke only in grunts and growls, which Soupy hilariously translated for the viewers.  Fang threw pies at Soupy when Soupy’s jokes bombed.   There was also Black Tooth, “The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA,” who  appeared as a giant furry black paw and spoke with similarly unintelligible but somewhat more feminine doggy sounds, and would pull Soupy off-camera to give him loud wet kisses.

Pookie the Lion was a little hand-puppet who appeared on a puppet stage behind Soupy.  Despite his cuddly appearance, Pookie was a hipster who engaged in rapid-fire repartee with Soupy.  He often greeted Soupy with, “Hey bubby, want a kiss?”  Pookie would mouth the words to jazz, soul, or pop recordings while he and Soupy bopped around to the music. 

 

Soupy’s show also featured a number of live characters, including Peaches, Soupy’s girlfriend, played by Soupy in drag; Philo Kvetch, a private detective played by Soupy; The Mask, Philo’s evil nemesis, also played by Soupy and later revealed to be deposed USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev; and Onions Oregano, The Mask’s henchman, played by actor Frank Nastasi, who was always eating onions.  Every time he breathed in Philo’s direction, Philo would choke and make faces, spray air freshener around, and exclaim, “Get those onions out of here!”

 

There are a couple of notorious incidents that took place on the show that illustrate how unpredictable and edgy the live show could be.   One occurred on New Year’s Day in 1965, when Soupy was apparently annoyed about having to do the show on a holiday.  At the end of the broadcast, Soupy urged his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents’ bedrooms and remove the “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of US presidents” from their parents’ wallets.  Soupy told the kids to put the bills in an envelope and mail them to him, promising to send them back a postcard from Puerto Rico.  Then he got hit in the face by a pie. 

When Soupy began receiving envelopes with cash in the mail, he was forced to explain on his show that he had only been kidding and would donate the unreturnable money to charity.  But complaints by parents poured into WNEW, the New York City station that produced Soupy’s show, and the station’s management suspended Soupy’s show for two weeks to try to appease the public.  Of course, this only generated a backlash by Soupy’s outraged fans, and even led to children picketing the station’s offices.  When Soupy returned to the air, he was more popular than ever. 

Another time, Soupy’s studio crew played a joke on Soupy on his birthday.  The show supposedly took place in Soupy’s living room, and a continuing skit involved someone knocking on Soupy’s door and Soupy opening the door to find a guest celebrity or an off-screen character that the home audience couldn’t see, that Soupy would comically interact with.  On Soupy’s birthday, Soupy opened the door to encounter an off-screen stripper who proceeded to perform her act to the tune of “The Stripper,” a popular musical number at the time.  Though the home viewers only saw the beach ball that the “stripper” used strategically as part of her act, Soupy saw the entire number and thought that the home audience could see her, too.   Soupy and the crew cracked up, but Soupy seemed a little worried about audience complaints.  Sure enough, though nothing explicit was broadcast, controversy ensued, which only enhanced the delight that Soupy’s outlaw behavior generated among his young fans. 

You can see Soupy for yourself in several DVD collections, including Soupy Sales Collection (Volume 1),  Soupy Sales Collection (Volume 2),  Soupy Sales Collection: The Whole Gang is Here!, and Soupy Sales: In Living Black and White.   You can read more about Soupy in his autobiography Soupy Sez!: My Zany Life and Times (paperback) and in From Soupy to Nuts: A History of Detroit Television (paperback).  Soupy fans might also want to buy Stop Me if You Heard It!  Soupy Sales Favorite Jokes (paperback). 

Shari Lewis

Shari Lewis and her puppets Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse, entertained and delighted several generations of children during the five decades that they appeared on television.  Unlike other kids’ show hosts who worked with puppets, Shari Lewis was a talented ventriloquist who manipulated and provided the voices for her puppets as she interacted with them on the air. 

Though many of us were first introduced to Shari and her puppets on the nationally telecast Shari Lewis Show, which ran on NBC from 1960-1963, Shari Lewis had previously hosted two local kids’ shows in New York in the 1950’s, The Kartoon Club and Shari and Her Friends.  On The Kartoon Club, Shari played the role of the Mayoress of the mythical kingdom of Kartoonia.  The show featured a live studio audience, whom Shari entertained with cartoons, games, songs, stories, arts and crafts, magic tricks, informational segments, and skits with puppet characters Taffy Twinkle, Randy Rocket, and Pip Squeak.

The national Shari Lewis Show debuted in 1960, when it replaced The Howdy Doody Show on NBC.  Starring the effervescent and multitalented Ms. Lewis with her flaming red hair, the show also featured a set of hand-puppets that Shari brought to hilarious life.  Lamb Chop was essentially a sock puppet whose character was that of a shy, soft-spoken, but mischievous and wise-cracking 6-year-old little lamb, who seemed to serve as a sassy alter-ego for Shari. Hush Puppy was a sweet 7-year-old country bumpkin, and Charlie Horse was a cocky, buck-toothed 10-year-old.  In addition to her skits with the puppets, Shari also exhibited her song and dance talents on the show, often teaching moral lessons through her performances. 

 

Some 15 years later, Shari starred in a new version of The Shari Lewis Show that aired on NBC and in syndication from 1975-1977.  This show focused on pro-social storylines and featured a cast of twenty-five animal puppets including Lamb Chop and a kangaroo named Captain Person, who worked for Bearly Broadcasting Studios (BBS).

In the 1990s, Shari Lewis hosted Lamb Chop’s Play-Along on PBS, a half-hour interactive show that encouraged children to participate by acting out stories, songs, stunts, games and activities. She also starred in another hit PBS series The Charlie Horse Music Pizza show, which was one of her last projects before her death in 1998.  

 

Though Shari Lewis modernized and adapted her shows to suit the pace and sophistication of each successive generation of young viewers, she never deviated from her essential philosophy and format of actively engaging and educating her audience as she entertained them.  With her vivacious personality and childlike excitement, she often seemed like a kid herself rather than a teacher or mother-figure.  Together with the wonderful hand-puppets she created, I think that’s what made her show so special.

 

You can watch Shari Lewis and her puppets on these DVD's:  A Shari Lewis Christmas (1960), Lambchop's Chanukah and Passover Surprise (1997), and The Shari Show - Featuring Shari Lewis and Lambchop.     

Bozo the Clown

There probably isn’t an adult in the US today who hasn’t watched some version of Bozo the Clown when they were growing up.  In one form or another, Bozo was one of the longest-running kids’ shows in TV history.  The earliest version of the Bozo show began airing in 1949 in Los Angeles, and the show continued to air around the country until 2001.  Like Romper Room before it, Bozo’s show was both syndicated and franchised, which means that many local TV stations produced their own version of the show.  Each show was hosted by an actor made up as Bozo the Clown, a circus clown with typical white-face make-up, red clown nose, and brightly-colored clown suit with a large frilly collar.  What made Bozo special was his hair – a huge bright red-orange mass that stuck out and up about a foot from the sides of his white bald head. 

Like many children’s shows in the early days of TV, the show at first had a fairly simple format in which the host just introduced and transitioned among a series of cartoon segments, including a cartoon that featured an animated Bozo.  Later, the Bozo the Clown show (sometimes called Bozo’s Circus or Bozo’s Big Top) took on more of a circus or vaudeville format, with many of the local shows seeming to take place inside a circus tent, with a live studio audience of children (sometimes mixed with parents), and offering a variety of circus acts, comedy routines, cartoons, and segments that featured other recurring characters and often local children engaging in games and contests.

The most successful and probably best-known local version of the Bozo franchise was the show produced in Chicago by WGN-TV, which featured Bob Bell as Bozo.  It evolved into Bozo’s Circus, a live hour-long show with a 13-piece orchestra, 200-member live studio audience, and multiple cast of characters, including Ringmaster Ned, Oliver O. Oliver, Sandy the Clown, Mr. Bob the Bandleader, and Cooky the Cook .  At one point, there was a ten-year wait for tickets to be part of the show’s studio audience.  The Chicago show was also syndicated to stations around the country which didn’t or couldn’t produce their own version of the show.

The Boston version of the Bozo the Clown show was also very popular locally and syndicated nationwide for several years.  Hosted by Bob Avruch as Bozo, the show at one time featured actor/puppeteer Caroll Spinney as “Mr. Lion” and “Kookie the Boxing Kangaroo.”  Spinney later went on to portray Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. 

In New York, WPIX was the first station to produce a local version of the Bozo the Clown show in 1959, starring Bill Britten as Bozo.  In 1964, WOR created and produced its own Bozo Show, featuring singer/actor Gordon Ramsey as Bozo, together with a cast of characters that included Grandma Nelly, Professor Tweetiefoofer, Slimjim, Snappy Pappy, and the Circus Boss.  

Before he became the TODAY Show’s weatherman, Willard Scott starred as Bozo in the Washington D.C. version of the Bozo show.   Scott went on to portray the Bozo-inspired “Ronald McDonald” clown character in McDonald’s commercials.

Over the years, stories have circulated about children on the Bozo show who used profanity or said something nasty to Bozo on the air, or about Bozo himself saying something nasty back to one of the kids when he didn’t think the microphone was on.   Though it’s clear that Bozo was the inspiration for the curmudgeonly Krusty the Klown character on the Simpsons, I guess we’ll never know if any of these stories about bad behavior on the Bozo show are actually true.   

You can watch Bozo the Clown in several DVD collections:  Bozo: The World's Most Famous Clown, Vol. 1 and Vol.2, Volume 1 - Best of Bozo, Larry Harmon's Bozo: Shows 4-6, or Hiya Kids! A 50's Saturday Morning Box.   

Captain Kangaroo

A lot of us can probably remember Captain Kangaroo, which was one of the longest running network children's shows of all time, airing continuously on CBS from 1955 until 1984 and then in re-runs on PBS from 1986 to 1993. The show starred Bob Keeshan as the Captain, named for the huge pouch-like pockets on his jacket.  Keeshan had previously played the clown Clarabell on the Howdy Doody Show. 

The show took place in the Captain’s Treasure House, where the Captain read stories, met guests, showed cartoons, and interacted with a regular cast of both humans and puppets, including the Captain’s sidekick Mr. Green Jeans, and puppet characters Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit.  Bunny Rabbit usually tricked the Captain into giving him carrots.  Mr. Moose would pepper the Captain with riddles and knock-knock jokes, which always culminated with hundreds of ping-pong balls raining down on the Captain’s head. 

Other regular characters included Mr. Baxter, who exuded a sense of calm when things got a little too silly, and Slim Goodbody, a character who wore a bodystocking painted with the body’s internal organs on it.  And there was also the Banana Man, a clown who would constantly pull a seemingly endless supply of bananas (and also watermelons) from within his coat.  The Banana Man didn’t speak but he hummed continuously in a high-pitched falsetto as he performed, and would occasionally exclaim “Wow!” in the same falsetto voice. 

Among the well-known personalities who appeared on the show over the years were Bill Cosby, who did educational segments, and puppeteer/performer Kevin Clash, who later became the puppeteer and voice of Elmo on Sesame Street.

There were several cartoon segments that were shown regularly.  Probably the best-known was Tom Terrific, which aired on the show in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Tom Terrific consisted of 3-5 minute segments drawn in simple stick-figure-like black-and-white animation.   Tom was a little boy who could change into any shape he wanted, usually to save his not-too-bright sidekick, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, from the villain Crabby Appleton and other bad guys.

Other cartoon segments included Lariat Sam, Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings, Ludwig, The Most Important Person, The Toothbrush Family, Crystal Tipps, and The Wombles. 

The show often featured simple black light theater segments with cardboard cutouts that cavorted on the screen while a recording of a popular song, like Over the Rainbow, would play.  Sometimes, hand puppets would perform instead of the cardboard cutouts. 

Keeshan conceived of Captain Kangaroo as a warm, grandfatherly character, and the show had a gentle feeling and gentle pace.  It was a full 60-minutes long for most of the years that it aired, which allowed it to include a rich and diverse range of segments and characters without seeming frenetic or too busy.  As portrayed by Keeshan, the Captain became a beloved and iconic figure who still represents the best of what television can offer its youngest viewers. 

Keeshan wrote about his life as Captain Kangaroo in Good Morning Captain: 50 Wonderful Years with Bob Keeshan, TV's Captain Kangaroo and Growing Up Happy: Captain Kangaroo Tells Yesterday's Children How to Nuture Their Own .