In the mid-’60s, I didn’t just like Soupy Sales, I loved Soupy Sales. There was a great joy to his TV show, combined with a delightful anarchy. He had the ability to make me feel like I was one of his friends, something Stan Lee was also accomplishing at around the same time via his Bullpen Bulletins pages back when the Marvel Comics universe was born.

That show was eventually canceled, but in the late ’70s, Soupy came back with The New Soupy Sales Show. After about a year, it was also in danger of cancellation. And though I might not have been able to do anything about the loss of Soupy’s first show, I swore I would do something this time.

So a bunch of us decided that we would stage a protest outside the offices of station WPIX, which was on the corner of 42nd Street and (I think) Third Avenue in Manhattan. One of the co-conspirators, Carl Gafford, went so far as to obtain a police permit!

On the assigned day, a handful of us showed up in front of WPIX, marching back and forth with picket signs while a few bored policemen wasted their time watching us. (To be honest, pulling them away from patrolling the streets made me feel a bit guilty even then.) When a WPIX camera crew arrived, we launched into our prepared skit.

I played the part of a WPIX executive, and carrying a briefcase on which I think we pasted a label marked WPIX EXECUTIVE, I pretended I’d just walked out the station’s front door. (I may have been chosen to be the exec because I was the only one who owned a briefcase.) The other protesters swarmed me, begging me not to cancel the show, and I resisted them with great scorn. Finally, when they became fed up with me …

Well, you can guess what happened next. The pies flew! And then, covered in pie, I hung my head in shame.

That night, WPIX aired footage of the entire skit. I’d even videotaped it! I wish I could post it to YouTube along with my other videos, but if I own it at all, it’s in the closet with hundreds of other tapes from that period, probably acting as a buffer between episodes of Magnum, P.I. or SCTV. I’d have to watch hundreds of hours of TV to find it, if it even exists at all.

In any case … thanks for all the lunacy, Soupy. Sorry to see you go.

If taking a pie in the face could reverse this cancellation, you know I’d be the first in line.