Ya want soup with that?

Many great entertainers have passed on this year. Long overlooked by many, one of the most influential performers of the early sixties left us last week.

As great as Michael Jackson was, he always seemed a man of mystery and danger, a person you could never get close to. But our friend Soupy Sales seemed like the black sheep uncle of the family, a person who enjoyed life and all its absudities.

He had a brilliant children's show for many years, at a time when kid's shows were unbelievably patronizing and boring, what we'd call retro these days. But Soupy was an anarchist and surrealist, and had a great love of slapstick too. He was the seed for Peewee and the other latter-day absurdist children's shows. Without Soupy there would have been no Sponge Bob.

Anyone who came of age during the Soupy Sales years has been burned with an indelible impression. It was the artists, the misfits, the troublemakers who loved his humor. His was a different universe than the rest of what passed through the tube. His pranks are legendary, as were the depths of his dada world. How many other tv hosts had a sidekick who was a giant dog, whose paw was the only part you'd see on camera? And who else would be allowed to hit Frank Sinatra in the face - not once but twice? Or take his stage name from a long-ago comic whose claim to fame was the definitive book on outhouse humor?

He may not have been a Bob Hope, but hey, at least he wasn't another Bob Hope? Few took chances like Soupy, a man of constant risk, who opened many an eye to the absurdity of the world.

I had a naughty uncle when I was a kid. He was always giving me Christmas presents like pogo sticks and woodburning kits, much to the horror of my mother. But I doubt he could have taken a pie in the face like Uncle Soupy!

Links:

NY Times obit

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger