Soupy Sales, 1926-2009. R.I.P.

Comedian Soupy Sales, best known for his children's TV show in the 1950s and 1960s, has died. He was 83.

I'm not intimately familiar with his schtick apart from the fact that he singlehandedly kept both pie crust and shaving cream manufacturers in business.

And for one other thing. I remember Sales making a guest appearance on one of Dick Clark's blooper shows in the 1980s and recounting a story where he told children to sneak into their mother's purses and father's wallets to send him those little green pieces of papers with the pictures of guys in beards on them to him. In return he would send them a postcard from Puerto Rico. Sales raised $80,000 from this little stunt. I suppose that was going viral in the television age. It would, however, result in his suspension from WNEW-TV in New York - a move denounced by seven years olds in all five boroughs.

Here's his account of what happened on New Years Day, 1965.