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Soupy Sales and memories of being a kid

I first heard about Soupy Sales dieing this morning as I listened to the 60's on 6 as I was working on breakfast and getting my lunch ready to go for work.

His show was often very funny, even more so as I grew up and had a better understanding of his more adult humor. I know I was seeing reruns of his old show even back then, 1970's era, but they were new to me! As I was reading on the Entertainment Weekly website about his death they had clips from You Tube to see. Boy the memories, of his as well as all the shows I remember seeing back in the mid 1960's and on. Pookie, White Fang, funny. I never cared much for the 'pie in the face' gag, but still overall funny shows.

Growing up in the areas of San Bernardino, Highland and Redlands California, we watched the channels from the "greater Los Angeles area". I recall Captain Kangaroo on channel 2, Hobo Kelly on either 11 or 13, Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade ("put another candle on the birthday cake, the birthday cake, the birthday cake, put another candle on the birthday cake you're another year old today!!) at noontime during the week on channel 11 (decades before it became a FOX affiliate!).
The Pancake Man, a show that was heavily sponsored and promoted by the International House of Pancakes and stared the actor that played all kinds of characters in different shows but I remember him as "Otis" the town drunk in the Andy Griffith Show. Paul Winchell with his puppets Jerry MaHoney and Knucklehead Smith was one of the after school time shows I remember. And all in glorious black and white! I remember taking the tubes to the drug store and testing them when the TV was having problems.

The cartoons shows of that era seem so simple when I've seen some of them on retrospective shows. Or the 'live action' shows of the day like this one famous by the shows title if nothing else, "Diver Dan". A show with a guy in what must have been miserably hot old style diving suit with the big metal helmet with little portholes on it on a stage filmed through a fish tank with real little fish in it and with puppet fish that talked and plotted in the story lines. Puppet fish with plainly visible wires like Trigger Fish, I think that was the one with the cigarette glued to its mouth and talked like a gangster. Or one of the weirdest shows I vaguely recall the cartoon with the human lips superimposed as the characters talked, "Clutch Cargo". I recall the cartoon just because of the almost no moving animation and those moving mouths! Crusader Rabbit anyone?
But these were the weekday shows that I remember watching before school at breakfast, after school or if I was home sick, and during summer vacations.

I know I'm not alone in these recollections!!
Many of those shows can be seen in bits or in entirities on You Tube or even bought (like I did) for some of them. I had very fond memories of a show called Fireball XL-5, from the early 1960's. I should have checked out You Tube first but I saw a really great deal on the 'entire series' and got it. I really liked the Gerry Anderson series as a kid. They were (I thought then) some of the best shows, remember I was a kid then! Loved the rocket ships, the real rocket engines, so that show, Fireball XL-5, was a big show to me at that age. Now I see the plainly visible lines to the puppets and the ships, shadows of the XL-5 showing up on the 'sky' back drop as it flew by, it was sure high tech then though!
I remember getting a, in memory it seemed large at the time, plastic toy model of the XL-5 ship. Fireball junior came off 'just like the real one!' Stingray, The Thunderbirds, and in the late 1970's, Space 1999. I haven't seen that one in years. I remember it wasn't the best in story lines, too much talk not enough space ships!
But I got the dvd's of XL-5, a couple of set of episodes of Thunderbirds, and I have little models of the ships from the shows on my desk. Even though many of those shows were all black and white the Japanese sure do a great job at recreating all those things from back then in tiny forms. And you can go cheap like I did and get the small ships or go real expensive like on Amazon and E-Bay and get a $600.00 model of Thunderbird 2 or many of the other ships. How about a 3 foot big Starship Enterpries for about $1,000.00? Too much for me!, but if I won the Lottery????

Oh well, I'm sure I could keep rambling but I think you get the picture. They're all going away! At least places like You Tube can keep the memories alive in addition to all the stuff you don't want to see!
Tad

Comments

Samantha K said…
Soupy Sales practically invented the immortal pie in the face gag -- they don't make em like that anymore...

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