Comedy / Film & TV
Soupy Sales
1926–2009 · comedian, television host
Pie-throwing comic whose Lunch with Soupy Sales on Detroit's WXYZ-TV (1953–1960) made him a local legend before he went national.
- Born
Franklinton, North Carolina- Died
The Bronx, New York
aged 83- Birth name
- Milton Supman
- Detroit years
- 1953–1960
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman in Franklinton, North Carolina, arrived in Detroit in 1953 to host a noontime show on WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, broadcast from studios in the Maccabees Building on Woodward Avenue. Starting as 12 O'Clock Comics and soon renamed Lunch with Soupy Sales, it mixed slapstick, puns, puppet sidekicks such as White Fang and Black Tooth and his trademark pie in the face, and it became a daily ritual for Detroit children. He also hosted a late-night program, Soupy's On, that competed with the eleven o'clock news and featured jazz greats including Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins and Louis Armstrong; Sales believed the show helped keep jazz alive in Detroit. In 1960 he left for Los Angeles and ABC, and his show later ran nationally from New York.
Highlights
- Host of Lunch with Soupy Sales on WXYZ-TV Detroit (1953–1960)
- Late-night Soupy's On featured jazz stars such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong
- Trademark pie-in-the-face routine, received thousands of times on air
- Later a national TV star in Los Angeles and New York
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1953–1959
Maccabees Building (former WXYZ studios)
Closed · 1927–1959
Albert Kahn's 1927 tower where WXYZ-TV had its studios until 1959 and where Soupy's Detroit show began; owned by Wayne State University since 2002 and used for offices.