Tag: Soupy Sales

Byron’s TV Listings, Feb. 1

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TV Guide January 6, 1968 N. California... - Retro TV ...

G’day, boys ‘n’ gulls! Happy February Fools Day!  Here at Quokka University, we’re celebrating it with a solid weekend of fabulous TV. We’ve got shows and movies that you never dreamed existed! Like these:

6:48 p.m.   Ch. 96   MOVIE–Unbearable suspense

A world-class pianist (Marjorie Main) thinks her bra is imbued with a sinister intelligence, in The Bra (1951, 14 minutes). Prof. Sahib Gupta (himself). Hapless victim stalked by bra: Jill St. John. Pretentious German novelist (Don Knotts).

7 p.m.   Ch. 09   Evening News With Soupy Sales–Old news

Way back in 1969, Uruguayan guerrillas kidnapped comedian Soupy Sales, mistaking him for Walter Cronkite and forcing him to anchor newscasts favorable to their cause. When they finally realized their mistake, they offered to trade Soupy for Warner Wolf. Tune in to get the whole story!

Ch. 22   I BUSTED MY COCCYX, MAN!–Dramatic sitcom

It isn’t every TV sitcom that has beavers in it (no, we are not counting Leave It to Beaver!); but Coccyx not only has beavers: it started out as a nitty-gritty detective series starring Fong Hsueh-ding. They kept Fong, the beavers Pat and Mike, and the Coccyx but chucked the rest. Special guest star: Roy Rogers. Not-so-special star: Some Mameluke caught loitering in the alley next to the studio.

7:30   Ch. 42  MRS. MAGOO–Adult cartoons

Mr. Magoo may be very nearly blind, but Mrs. Magoo sees things that nobody else sees because there’s nothing there! By the same animators who brought you Joe Biden, Mrs. Magoo has been hailed as positively the greatest TV show ever! This week: Mrs. Magoo tries to catch the scorpions crawling all over her breakfast table and into Mr. Magoo’s soup.

Well, folks, that should hold you for a weekend!

What Makes Quokkas So Happy?!? — Well/Beings

You can see Mrs. Magoo has already put me in a good mood. Byron the Quokka, signing off!

Memory Lane: Green Stamps

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Remember S&H Green Stamps? They were a big deal in the Fifties and Sixties. A marketing ploy, you know: attract people to the store. You’d get them at the supermarket, gas station, or wherever else, save them in a Green Stamp book, and turn the books in for all sorts of gifts. Including–so says the guy in this commercial–a freakin’ cabin cruiser. He doesn’t say how many books that would take.

See the source image

Soupy Sales had a catchy little song: “How do I get me a Cadillac car? Green stamps, green stamps! How do I get me a Cadillac car? Fill up a green stamp book!”

My folks saved Green Stamps. We got a football once. Too bad we didn’t get a cabin cruiser. My father would’ve liked that.

Green Stamps were discontinued in the 1980s. So if you were saving up for a bowling alley, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.

Memory Lane: Sandy Becker

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Growing up in the New York media market in the 1950s and 60s, you just can’t imagine it without Sandy Becker on TV. Which he was, from 1955 through 1968, mostly on WNEW.

This guy was a volcano of talent: nobody like him, anymore, to entertain little kids and young teens. Original puppets? Sandy not only performed them; he made them. Far-out characters? Sandy played them: Norton Nork, Hambone, the Big Professor, and the inscrutable Dr. Gesundheit. He also did cartoons.

Much of his show was live, and, alas, little of it was recorded. Much of it was ad-libbed. And you also heard a lot of Bert Kaempfert music: the theme for his daytime show, heard in this video, was That Happy Feeling. When he was on at night, it was Afrikaan Beat.

Kids’ TV in this era was overrun with talent. Along with Sandy, we had the immortal Soupy Sales and the incredible Chuck McCann, who gained national recognition by winning an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter… and his “Hi, guy! One shot and I’m good for the whole day!” deodorant commercials. Remember those? The protagonist was an ordinary gtuy who had to share a medicine cabinet with McCann’s weird character. But I digress.

Well, I can’t hear any of Bert Kaempfert’s music without thinking of Sandy Becker–gone, but lovingly remembered by probably millions of people who were kids then.

Let me see if I can get you just a tiny Hambone clip or something…

Dems Plan to List GOP as ‘Terrorist’

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Image result for images of soupy sales

Soupy Sales–candidate?

Our secret confidential sources have revealed that Attorney General Loretta Lunch–er, Lynch–has been meeting secretly with leading Senate Democrats to discuss the feasibility of having the Republican Party listed as a terrorist organization.

“If they can swing it,” said one of our sources, “they’ll have Donald Trump arrested and jailed before Election Day.”

Another source said that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the process of discovering a Constitutional right to have only a Democrat for president. “This would effectively outlaw the Republican Party,” he added.

But that being the case, who then would run against Hillary Clinton?

“Attorney General Lunch–er, Lynch–thinks that in that event, American’s mainstream news media would have the right to select the opposition candidate,” said our smartest source of all, you’d be amazed if we told you who it was. “Right now, the leading candidate to run opposed to Hillary is the late Soupy Sales. Internal polling shows Hillary ahead of Soupy, 51% to 49%.”

Democrat Senators were seen to come out of the meeting with paper bags over their heads, added our source. “But I was there when they took ’em off,” he said.

 

 

 

The Unforgettable Soupy Sales

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Remember this guy? Soupy Sales, the legendary kids’ TV comic of the 1950s and 60s, was truly off the wall.

Here he is in 1993, recalling a live TV stunt he pulled in 1965 which got him kicked off the air–telling children to send him “those green pieces of paper” found in Mom’s pocketbook or Dad’s wallet.

So they did!

Soupy, you were one of a kind.