Encyclopedia Of Detroit
Sales, Soupy
Soupy Sales was not Detroit television’s first star, but he was surely the biggest during the decades following World War II. Lunch With Soupy was required viewing for youngsters while his evening show, Soupy’s On, featured sophisticated sketch comedy and the best jazz musicians of the era. He was a key component behind WXYZ-TV’s early financial success, helping to keep the fledgling American Broadcasting Company (ABC) afloat against the better-established NBC and CBS.
Sales was born Milton Supman on January 8, 1926 in Franklinton, North Carolina. He joined the U.S. Navy at age 17 during World War II and saw action in the South Pacific. Always partial to performing, he began his career as a comic while a student at Marshall College (now Marshall University) in Huntington, West Virginia. After graduation, Sales worked as a scriptwriter for a Huntington station, performing at comedy clubs in the evening.
He moved to Ohio in the 1950s, working in radio and television in Cleveland and Cincinnati before coming to the attention of WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) general manager John Pival. Soupy’s professional name when he came from Cleveland was Soupy Hines. Since Hines could be confused with WXYZ sponsor Heinz, Pival suggested Soupy adopt the surname of a talkies comic, Chic Sales, though in reality Chic’s surname was “Sale,” not “Sales.”
His lunchtime show, 12 O’Clock Comics debuted on Channel 7 in 1953 and went national in 1955 as a summer replacement for Kukla, Fran and Ollie. The noon show was set in a clubhouse atmosphere, and featured a lively cast of characters: “Pookie,” was a puppet fashioned after Charlemagne; “White Fang” was “the meanest dog in all of Deeee-troit,” and “Black Tooth” was a dog who constantly smothered Sales with kisses. All were played by Clyde Adler, who started out at the station as a stage manager and director, but became one of the most influential unseen presences in the medium. In what was to become his signature move, Sales was inevitably hit in the face by a pie. He later estimated that he had been hit by 25,000 pies during the course of his career. The name of the show changed to Lunch with Soupy, then The Soupy Sales Show.
In addition, Soupy’s evening show, Soupy’s On, showcased his love of jazz. He hosted an incredible array of jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. The show promoted the local jazz spot, Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, which in turn contracted their performers with the program.
Sales left Detroit for KABC-TV, the ABC-owned television station in Los Angeles, in 1961. He was later a panelist on the syndicated version of What’s My Line, a regular on The $20,000 Pyramid and appeared in a dozen movies. In 2001 he published an autobiography, Soupy Sez, with a “Soupography” of his many appearances. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 7, 2009, dying in New York City on October 22, 2009, leaving his wife, Trudy Carson and two sons from a former marriage, Tony and Hunt.
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