A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity.

The seller or salesperson – the provider of the goods or services – completes a sale in response to an acquisition or to an appropriation or to a request. There follows the passing of title (property or ownership) in the item, and the application and due settlement of a price, the obligation for which arises due to the seller's requirement to pass ownership. Ideally, a seller agrees upon a price at which he willingly parts with ownership of or any claim upon the item. The purchaser, though a party to the sale, does not execute the sale, only the seller does that. To be precise the sale completes prior to the payment and gives rise to the obligation of payment. If the seller completes the first two above stages (consent and passing ownership) of the sale prior to settlement of the price, the sale remains valid and gives rise to an obligation to pay.

Sales techniques

A sale can take place through:

Direct sales, involving person to person contact

Pro forma sales

Agency-based

* Sales agents (for example in real estate or in manufacturing)

* Sales outsourcing through direct branded representation

* Transaction sales

* Consultative sales

* Complex sales

* Consignment

* Telemarketing or telesales

* Retail or consumer

Traveling salesman

* Door-to-door methods

* hawking

Request for proposal – An invitation for suppliers, through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific product or service. An RFP usually represents part of a complex sales process, also known as "enterprise sales".

Business-to-business – Business-to-business sales are much more relationship-based owing to the lack of emotional attachment to the products in question. Industrial/professional sales involves selling from one business to another

Electronic

* Web – Business-to-business and business-to-consumer

* Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – A set of standard for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses

Indirect, human-mediated but with indirect contact

* Mail-order

* vending machine

Sales methods:

* Selling technique

* Consultative selling

* Sales enablement

* Solution selling

* Conceptual Selling

* Strategic Selling

* Transactional Selling

* Sales Negotiation

* Reverse Selling

* Paint-the-Picture

* The take away

* Sales Habits

Sales agents

Agents in the sales process can represent either of two parties in the sales process; for example:

# Sales broker or Seller agency or seller agent: This is a traditional role where the salesman represents a person or company on the selling end of a deal # Buyers broker or Buyer brokerage: This is where the salesman represents the consumer making the purchase. This is most often applied in large transactions. # Disclosed dual agent:This is where the salesman represents both parties in the sale and acts as a mediator for the transaction. The role of the salesman here is to oversee that both parties receive an honest and fair deal, and is responsible to both. # Transaction broker: This is where the salesperson represent neither party but handles the transaction only. The seller owes no responsibility to either party getting a fair or honest deal, just that all of the papers are handled properly. # Sales outsourcing involves direct branded representation where the sales representatives are recruited, hired, and managed by an external entity but hold quotas, represent themselves as the brand of the client, and report all activities (through their own sales management channels) back to the client. It is akin to a virtual extension of a sales force (see sales outsourcing). # Sales managers: qualified and talented sales managers aim to implement various sales strategies and management techniques in order to facilitate improved profits and increased sales volume. They are also responsible for coordinating the sales and marketing department as well as oversight concerning the fair and honest execution of the sales process by their agents. # Salesmen: The primary function of professional sales is to generate and close leads, educate prospects, fill needs and satisfy wants of consumers appropriately, and therefore turn prospective customers into actual ones. Questioning – to understand a customer's goal and requirements relevant to the product – and the creation of a valuable solution by communicating the necessary information that encourages a buyer to achieve their goal at an economic cost comprise the functions of the salesperson or of the sales engine (for example, the Internet, a vending machine, etc). A good salesman should never mis-sell or over-evaluate the customer's requirements.

vs.

Since the advent of the telephone, a distinction has been made between "inside sales" and "outside sales" although it is generally agreed that those terms have no hard-and-fast definition. In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act defines outside sales representatives as "employees [who] sell their employer's products, services, or facilities to customers away from their employer's place(s) of business, in general, either at the customer's place of business or by selling door-to-door at the customer's home" while defining those who work "from the employer's location" as inside sales. Inside sales generally involves attempting to close business primarily over the phone via cold calling or telemarketing, while outside sales (or "field" sales) will usually involve initial phone work to book sales calls at the potential buyer's location to attempt to close the deal in person. Some companies have an inside sales department that works with outside representatives and book their appointments for them. Inside sales sometimes refers to upselling to existing customers.

The relationships between sales and marketing

Marketing and sales differ greatly, but have the same goal. Marketing improves the selling environment and plays a very important role in sales. If the marketing department generates a list of potential customers, that can benefit sales. A marketing department in an organization has the goal increasing the number of interactions between potential customers and the organization. Achieving this goal may involve the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations, creating new sales channels, or creating new products (new product development), among other things. It can also include bringing the potential customer to visit the organization's website(s) for more information, or to contact the organization for more information, or to interact with the organization via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

The relatively new field of sales process engineering views "sales" as the output of a larger system, not just as the output of one department. The larger system includes many functional areas within an organization. From this perspective, "sales" and "marketing" (among others, such as "customer service") label for a number of processes whose inputs and outputs supply one another to varying degrees. In this context, improving an "output" (such as sales) involves studying and improving the broader sales process, as in any system, since the component functional areas interact and are interdependent.

Most large corporations structure their marketing departments in a similar fashion to sales departments and the managers of these teams must coordinate efforts in order to drive profits and business success. For example, an "inbound" focused campaign seeks to drive more customers "through the door", giving the sales department a better chance of selling their product to the consumer. A good marketing program would address any potential downsides as well.

The sales department would aim to improve the interaction between the customer and the sales facility or mechanism (example, web site) and/or salesperson. Sales management would break down the selling process and then increase the effectiveness of the discrete processes as well as the interaction between processes. For example, in many out-bound sales environments, the typical process includes out-bound calling, the sales pitch, handling objections, opportunity identification, and the close. Each step of the process has sales-related issues, skills, and training needs, as well as marketing solutions to improve each discrete step, as well as the whole process.

One further common complication of marketing involves the inability to measure results for a great deal of marketing initiatives. In essence, many marketing and advertising executives often lose sight of the objective of sales/revenue/profit, as they focus on establishing a creative/innovative program, without concern for the top or bottom lines - a fundamental pitfall of marketing for marketing's sake.

Many companies find it challenging to get marketing and sales on the same page. The two departments, although different in nature, handle very similar concepts and have to work together for sales to be successful. Building a good relationship between the two that encourages communication can be the key to success - even in a down economy.

Marketing potentially negates the need for sales

Some sales authors and consultants contend that an expertly planned and executed marketing strategy may negate the need for outside sales entirely. They suggest that by effectively bringing more customers "through the door" and enticing them into contact, sales organizations can dramatically improve their results, efficiency, profitability, and allow salespeople to provide a drastically higher level of customer service and satisfaction, instead of spending the majority of their working hours searching for someone to sell to.

Industrial marketing

The idea that marketing can potentially eliminate the need for sales people depends entirely on context. For example, this may be possible in some B2C situations; however, for many B2B transactions (for example, those involving industrial organizations) this is mostly impossible. Another dimension is the value of the goods being sold. Fast-moving consumer-goods (FMCG) require no sales people at the point of sale to get them to jump off the supermarket shelf and into the customer's trolley. However, the purchase of large mining equipment worth millions of dollars will require a sales person to manage the sales process - particularly in the face of competitors.

Sales and marketing alignment and integration

Another area of discussion involves the need for alignment and integration between corporate sales and marketing functions. According to a report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, only 40 percent of companies have formal programs, systems or processes in place to align and integrate the two critical functions.

Traditionally, these two functions, as referenced above, have operated separately, left in siloed areas of tactical responsibility. Glen Petersen’s book The Profit Maximization Paradox sees the changes in the competitive landscape between the 1950s and the time of writing as so dramatic that the complexity of choice, price and opportunities for the customer forced this seemingly simple and integrated relationship between sales and marketing to change forever. Petersen goes on to highlight that salespeople spend approximately 40 percent of their time preparing customer-facing deliverables while leveraging less than 50 percent of the materials created by marketing, adding to perceptions that marketing is out of touch with the customer and that sales is resistant to messaging and strategy.

Internet applications, commonly referred to as Sales 2.0 tools, have also increasingly been created to help align the goals and responsibilities of marketing and sales departments.

See also

buzzword

Choice architecture

Customer service

Demand chain

Point of sale

Retailing

Sales (accounting)

Sales Incentive Plan

Sales process engineering

Sales management

Sales territory

Sales variance

Selling

Trade

Transaction

Vendor

Itex Corporation

References

Category:Business Category:Business process Category:Business terms Category:Entrepreneurship Category:Sales

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name	The Basics
background	group_or_band
origin	Melbourne, Australia
genre	Rock
years active	2002 – (present)
label	Independent, Albert Records
associated acts	Gotye, Down Hills Home, Dog With Wheels, Blood Red Bird
website	The Basics Official Website
current members	Wally De BackerTim HeathKris Schroeder
past members	Michael Hubbard
notable instruments	Lead guitar, drums, bass guitar. }}

The Basics ( ) are a three-piece band from Melbourne, Australia, formed by Wally De Backer and Kris Schroeder in 2002. Their style has been described as anything from 'indie-pop' to 'rock'n'roll' to 'pop-rock', though their records show them span a wide range of genres including reggae, ska, country, and electro-pop. They are "recognised as one of Australia's hardest-working bands".

With close to 1000 shows in their nine-year career, their live performances are well-known for their sense of humour and energy.

Formation

The Basics were formed after Kris met Wally at a party in Melbourne. The event was to see off the young aspiring producer, who was about to depart for Los Angeles, and together with a number of musician friends, the two jammed on some blues-rock standards. Later that night, they bonded over a mutual love of The Beatles, 70s & 80s cartoon theme songs and old Sierra adventure games.

Initially they played around Melbourne as an acoustic guitar/drums combo, starting at The Opposition in Frankston and the House of Fools in Footscray, where in late 2002 they met and later invited Michael Hubbard to join them on electric guitar. Though lacking any real experience with the instrument, Kris willingly purchased his first bass guitar and the trio was born. During this time the group start performing songs with more complicated three-part harmony.

During late 2002 and early 2003 The Basics recorded and released an album called Get Back through MGM Distribution. They began what was to become regular tours of the East and West coasts of Australia.

2004-2005: Current lineup

Tim Heath joined the group in June 2004, after Michael decided to pursue his solo career, which has included being one half of Down Hills Home. Tim was reportedly the only person to reply to an advertisement in Melbourne's Beat Magazine looking for a new guitarist. Tim apparently answered the advertisement - which said the applicant "must have a love of 50s and 60s rock'n'roll" - thinking that he would be meeting "a couple of old guys to play with on the weekends over some beers". They soon recorded For Girls Like You.

The Basics in 2005 continued to tour and play small festivals, and after releasing For Girls Like You through MGM Distribution they departed for a national tour of Australia, which lasted for two months and took them to every Australian state and territory. Stuart Padbury, a young Melbourne sound engineer, joined them on much of this tour. On returning, the band began demoing songs for a new album.

2006-2009: Touring and soundtracks

In 2006, The Basics began recording what is to become known as Stand Out/Fit In. This took several months and was not completed until the end of the year, despite intentions to have it released in June. Instead, they held a successful 'album preview' where each of the tracks was demonstrated in 'rough form' accompanied by a music video for each (produced by Melbourne photographic artist James Bryans). The band also talked about the origins of the songs. This event brought a lot of attention to the band for the idea's originality. They pre-released a radio single 'Just Hold On' from the album. The band were invited to play the hugely popular Homebake Festival in Sydney, where they received a great response ("one of the highlights" wrote The Daily Telegraph).

In 2007, the band departed on a tri-state residency which saw them play Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane every week for the month of April - a bold move which brought further attention to the band for its original idea. Riding on the wave of this tour, Schroeder, De Backer and Heath departed on their first overseas tour which saw them performing 26 shows around Japan, Norway and the United Kingdom. They also toured twice more up the East Coast, one of which was with popular Japanese band The Bawdies. Their song 'Rattle My Chain' was used in a series of commercials for Volvo Australia. The song 'Hey There!' featured in the British film The Bank Job - starring Jason Statham - and was used as the backing for a February 2007 short film directed by Tim Longhurst called The Rip. Their song 'Better' was featured in a surfing documentary about the invention of the shortboard in 1967.

In 2008, the band appeared on Australia's Channel 9 for Australia Day celebrations, performing two of their songs - 'Just Hold On' and 'Hey There!' - to an estimated audience of 2 million. Securing an Australian Government grant, they embarked on a two-month tour of Australia, specifically targeting "culturally underprivileged groups" in rural and regional schoolchildren and Indigenous communities. The programme had them holding masterclasses and performing alongside Indigenous groups in the remote Northern Territory and Queensland. Their initiative also had them raising money for the charity Lifeline, their contribution to which was recognised with a plaque at the end of the tour. Season two of Californication starring David Duchovny featured their cover of the classic 'Have Love, Will Travel', most famously covered by 'The Sonics'.

In 2009, The Basics for the first time enjoyed the support of Australian radio network Triple J, which had reportedly snubbed the band's previous material. The singles 'With This Ship' and 'Like A Brother' were added to the station's playlist, and momentum carried The Basics overseas for a second tour of the United Kingdom and Norway, and also a series of shows in Dublin, Ireland. They were joined by the longtime front-of-house engineer Stuart Padbury who had been mixing them since 2005. The band was often seen in the Grafton Street Mall in Dublin busking to promote their concerts there. Their second show in Oslo, Norway saw the band perform with Hot Tub, one of the members of the Norwegian boy band "Boyzvoice", in his first performance for several years. Season Eight of Scrubs featured the song 'Lookin' Over My Shoulder'.

Despite all this promise, the band's album Keep Your Friends Close - produced and part-recorded by Peter Cobbin at London's Abbey Road Studios - though enjoying many favourable reviews, failed to impress Richard Kingsmill, music director of Triple J. This effectively ended the band's apparent upward spiral and the resulting album launch tour was reportedly "trying".

2010: Hiatus and live album

In 2010, following the band's fourth stint at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and the recording of a yet-unreleased live album, an indefinite hiatus was announced on the band's websites. This was in part due to the impending release of a new album produced by Wally for his Gotye project, and also to reported tensions within the band following the previous year's disappointments.

However, this hiatus was soon broken with a two-month residency at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne, which saw an apparent return to form. The band's EP "Wait For You" enjoys airplay on Triple J. The Basics also played a one-off show at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory.

On 20 August 2010, The Basics released their fourth LP , available free online and exclusively from *[www.FreeBasicsAlbum.com]. The band had reportedly moved to expand their listenership through this free giveaway, though 300 "Deluxe" CD/Vinyl versions have been printed. was recorded at the Northcote Social Club on 6 February, "in front of a live studio audience", and like the previous record was mixed by Peter Cobbin at Abbey Road Studios. Technically a self-titled album, the phonetics spell out the accurate pronunciation of the band’s name. Kris Schroeder: "For years we’ve worked at bringing our live energy into the studio and thus far it’s been a bit hit-and-miss. Our trick this time was to pull a switcheroo and bring the studio to us instead; the result is the best and closest to us we’ve sounded yet."

Melbourne thespian and Dog With Wheels bassist David Bramble - friends with Heath from university days - has occasionally joined the band on tour, playing keys, often while sporting a large moustache. Other guests have included Jake Mason (saxophone), also of Cookin' on 3 Burners and The Bamboos, Gideon Brazil (saxophone, flute), Simon Imrei (guitar and vocals) and Monty MacKenzie (saxophone).

Covers have often made an appearance from various sources: to date, some of the bands covered have been Cream, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Police, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, New Kids on the Block, Richard Berry, Sonny Curtis and The Crickets, JJ Cale, Harry Nilsson, Bill Scott, Ryan Adams and The Coasters (via The Beatles for their cover of Three Cool Cats).

Members

Kris Schroeder: Bass, Vocals

Wally De Backer: Drums, Vocals

Tim Heath: Guitar, Vocals

Discography

Albums

Get Back (15 January 2004)

Stand Out/Fit In (5 May 2007)

Keep Your Friends Close (25 September 2009)

(20 August 2010)

EP

For Girls Like You (11 July 2005)

Lookin' Over My Shoulder (10 February 2007)

Like A Brother (5 June 2009)

Wait For You (21 May 2010)

Singles

Call It Rhythm & Blues (20 August 2004)

Just Hold On

With This Ship (22 February 2009)

Upcoming projects

The band are taking a two year hiatus, set to return to the stage together in early 2012. Wally De Backer will be launching a new album under his Gotye act in August 2011, Tim Heath will be touring and recording with Blood Red Bird, and Kris Schroeder is currently recording a solo album.

References

External links

Official Website

Myspace Website

Category:Victoria (Australia) musical groups

name	Soupy Sales
birth name	Milton Supman
birth date	January 08, 1926
birth place	Franklinton, North Carolina, United States
death date	October 22, 2009
death place	Bronx, New York, United States
medium	Television, radio, film
active	1949–2009
genre	Slapstick, word play, improvisation
influences	Marx BrothersHarry Ritz
influenced	Howard Stern Saturday Night LivePaul Reubens aka Pee-wee HermanAndy Kaufman
spouse
notable work	Lunch with Soupy Sales}}

Soupy Sales (January 8, 1926 – October 22, 2009) was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.

From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM in New York City.

Early life and career

Sales was born Milton Supman, in Franklinton in Franklin County, North Carolina to Irving and Sadie Supman. His father, a dry goods merchant, had immigrated to America from Hungary in 1894. Sales had two siblings, Leonard Supman (deceased) and Jack Supman (born 1921). His was the only Jewish family in the town; Sales joked that local Ku Klux Klan members bought the sheets used for their robes from his father's store.

Sales got his nickname from his family. His older brothers had been nicknamed "Hambone" and "Chicken Bone." Milton was dubbed "Soup Bone," which was later shortened to "Soupy." When he became a disc jockey, he began using the stage name Soupy Hines. After he became established, it was decided that "Hines" was too close to the Heinz soup company, so he chose the Sales, in part after vaudville comedian Chic Sale.

Sales graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia in 1944. He then enlisted in the United States Navy and served on the in the South Pacific during the latter part of World War II. He sometimes entertained his shipmates by telling jokes and playing crazy characters over the ship's public address system. One of the characters he created was "White Fang," a large dog that played outrageous practical jokes on the seamen. The sounds for "White Fang" came from a recording of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". He took the record with him when he left the Navy.

Sales enrolled in Marshall College, where he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism. While attending Marshall, he performed in nightclubs as a comedian, singer, and dancer. After graduating, he began working as a scriptwriter and disc jockey at radio station WHTN (now WVHU) in Huntington. He moved to Cincinnati in 1949, where he worked as a morning radio DJ and performed in nightclubs. He began his television career on WKRC-TV with Soupy's Soda Shop, TV's first teen dance program, and Club Nothing!, a late-night comedy/variety program.

When WKRC canceled his TV shows, Sales moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he hosted another radio and TV series and continued his nightclub act. It was in a skit on his late night comedy/variety TV series Soupy's On! that he got his first pie in the face. Sales claimed he left the Cleveland station "for health reasons: they got sick of me." He moved to Detroit in 1953 and worked for WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), ABC's O&O; station.

Lunch with Soupy Sales

Sales is best known for his daily children's television show, Lunch With Soupy. The show was originally called 12 O'Clock Comics, and was later known as The Soupy Sales Show. Improvised and slapstick in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of comedy sketches, gags, and puns, almost all of which resulted in Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark. Sales developed pie-throwing into an art form: straight to the face, on top of the head, a pie to both ears from behind, moving into a stationary pie, and countless other variations. He claimed that he and his visitors had been hit by more than 20,000 pies during his career. He recounted a time when a young fan mistakenly threw a frozen pie at his neck and he "dropped like a pile of bricks."

History of the show

Detroit

Lunch With Soupy began in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, located in the historic Maccabees Building, in Detroit. Soupy occasionally took the studio cameras to the lawn of the Detroit Public Library, located across the street from the TV studios, and talked with local students walking to and from school. Beginning in October, 1959, Soupy's show was broadcast nationally on the ABC television network.

During the same period that Lunch With Soupy aired in Detroit, Sales also hosted a nighttime show, Soup's On, to compete with 11 O'Clock News programs. The guest star was always a musician, and frequently a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz clubs. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soupy's On. Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and Stan Getz were among the artists who appeared on the show; Miles Davis made six appearances. Clifford Brown's appearance on Soup's On, according to Sales, may be the only extant footage of Brown, and has been included in Ken Burns' Jazz and an A&E; Network biography about Sales. Jackie Wilson also sang on his 11:00 show.

Soupy briefly had a third dinner time show filmed largely in Palmer Park. The three shows were rumored to have earned him in excess of $100,000 per year. One of his character puppets was Willy the Worm, a "balloon" propelled worm that emerged from its house that used a high pitched voice to announce birthdays or special events on the noontime show - that character never appeared when Soupy moved to Los Angeles. In his lunchtime show, he wore his orlon sweater. In many of his shows he appeared in costume, performed his dance, the Soupy Shuffle, introduced many characters such as Nicky Nooney, the Mississippi Gambler, etc., and took "zillions" of pies in the face. In one of his routines he came out in a toga - reciting "Friends, Romans, Countrymen - lend me your ears!" Out of camera range a box of rubber ears were being dropped on his head from a ladder.

Los Angeles

In 1960, Sales moved to the ABC-TV Studios in Los Angeles, California. ABC-TV cancelled the show in March 1961, but it continued as a local program on KABC-TV until January 1962. The show briefly went back on the ABC network as a late night fill-in for the Steve Allen Show in 1962 but was canceled after three months. All of the puppets on the show during its Los Angeles run were also operated by Clyde Adler.

New York

In 1964, Sales found a new weekday home at WNEW-TV in New York City. This version was seen locally until September 1966, and 260 episodes were syndicated by Screen Gems to local stations outside the New York market during the 1965–1966 season. This show marked the height of Sales' popularity. It featured guest appearances by stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Judy Garland and Sammy Davis, Jr., as well as musical groups like the Shangri-Las and The Supremes.

As with his earlier shows, Sales performed musical numbers on the show and his extensive jazz record collection was used in his TV work. "Mumbles" by Oscar Peterson with Clark Terry was Pookie's theme. "Comin' Home Baby" by Herbie Mann was the theme for Sales' "Gunninger the Mentalist" character (a parody of Dunninger the Mentalist). This was also the period when Sales starred in the movie comedy Birds Do It. During the run of the New York show, actor Frank Nastasi played White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie, and all the "guy at the door" characters.

The New Soupy Sales Show: Los Angeles

The New Soupy Sales Show appeared in 1978 with the same format, and ran for one season. 65 episodes were briefly syndicated, through Air Time International, to local stations in early 1979. It was taped in Los Angeles at KTLA, with Clyde Adler returning to work as a puppeteer with Sales.

Characters on the show

Clyde Adler, a film editor at Detroit's WXYZ-TV, performed in sketches and voiced and operated all puppets on Sales' show in Detroit in the 1950s and in Los Angeles from 1959 to 1962 and in 1978. Actor Frank Nastasi assumed the role of straight man and puppeteer when Sales took the show to New York from 1964 to 1966. Nastasi was originally from Detroit and had worked with Sales at WXYZ. Appearing on the show were both puppets and live performers.

The puppets were:

White Fang, "The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA," who appeared only as a giant white shaggy paw with black triangular felt "claws" jutting out from the corner of the screen. Fang spoke with unintelligible short grunts and growls, which Soupy repeated back in English, for comic effect. White Fang was often the pie thrower when Soupy's jokes bombed.

Black Tooth, "The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA", also seen only as a giant black paw with white triangular felt claws, and with more feminine, but similarly unintelligible, dialogue. Black Tooth's trademark was pulling Soupy off-camera to give loud and noisy kisses.

Pookie the Lion, a lion puppet appearing in a large window behind Soupy (1950s), was a hipster with a rapier wit. For example: Soupy: "Do you know why my life is so miserable?" Pookie: "You got me!" Soupy: "That's why!" One of Pookie's favorite lines when greeting Soupy was, "Hey bubby... want a kiss?". In the Detroit shows, Pookie never spoke but communicated in whistles. That puppet also was used to mouth the words while pantomiming novelty records on the show.

Hippy the Hippo, a minor character who occasionally appeared with Pookie the Lion and never spoke. Frank Nastasi gave Hippy a voice for the New York shows. Clyde Adler also voiced Hippy in the shows done in the late 1970s.

Regular live characters included:

Peaches, Soupy's girlfriend, visually played by footage of Sales in drag.

Philo Kvetch, a private detective played by Sales in a long-running comedy skit during the show's New York run (a parody of early 20th century fictional detective Philo Vance).

The Mask, evil nemesis of Philo Kvetch, revealed in the last episode to be Nikita Khrushchev, who had been deposed about a year earlier.

"Onions" Oregano, henchman of The Mask, played by Frank Nastasi, who ate loads of onions. Every time Oregano would breathe in Philo's direction, Philo would make all sorts of comic choking faces, pull out a can of air freshener, and say "Get those onions out of here!"

Hobart and Reba, a husband and wife who lived in the potbelly stove on the New York set.

Willie the Worm was a 35-cent toy Sales got from Woolworth's, according to WXYZ art director Jack Flechsig. With animated squeezings of his rubber air bulb, the latex accordion worm flexed in and out of a little apple. Willy was "The Sickest Worm in all of Dee-troit" and suffered from a perennial cold and comically-explosive sneeze. He helped read birthday greetings to Detroit-area kids while the show was on WXYZ. Willie didn't survive the show's move to the Big Apple.

New Year's Day incident

On January 1, 1965, miffed at having to work on the holiday, Sales ended his live broadcast by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents' bedrooms and remove those "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" from their pants and pocketbooks. "Put them in an envelope and mail them to me", Soupy instructed the children. "And I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!" He was then hit with a pie. Several days later, a chagrined Soupy announced that money (mostly Monopoly money) was unexpectedly being received in the mail. He explained that he had been joking and announced that the contributions would be donated to charity. As parents' complaints increased, WNEW's management felt compelled to suspend Sales for two weeks. Young viewers picketed Channel 5. The uproar surrounding Sales' suspension increased his popularity. Sales described the incident in his 2001 autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times.

Claims that Sales told dirty jokes on the air

An urban legend claimed Sales sneaked off-color humor onto his show for the amusement of his huge adult audience. This has been denied repeatedly, including by Snopes.com. However, according to Sale's 2001 book, Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times, at least one viewer of his WNEW show remembers distinctly the "Why is it every time I see F, you see K" routine, including an image of the TV screen moving up and down as the show's cameraman laughed at Soupy's joke. For many years, Sales had a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who could prove he worked "blue" on his kids' shows. Nobody ever took the offer, although the rumor persisted. Sales states in his autobiography:

After many years, I think I finally figured out how these ridiculous stories got started. Kids would come home and they'd tell a dirty joke, you know, grade school humor, and the parents would say, "Where'd you hear that?" And they'd say "The Soupy Sales Show", because I happened to have the biggest show in town. And they'd call another person and say, "Gladys, did you hear the joke that Soupy Sales was telling on his show?" and the word of mouth goes on and on, until people start to believe you actually said things like that.

Topless dancer pranks

The show's set included a door in the background. During the show, Sales would answer a knock at the door and interact with an actor seen only as an arm. Occasionally, the person at the door was a celebrity, such as Burt Lancaster, Fess Parker or Alice Cooper. Once, while the show was being broadcast live from Detroit, Sales' studio crew pulled a prank on him: when he opened the door, he saw a topless dancer partially covered with a balloon. Some reports say the gag was furthered by the crew switching the studio monitors so that Sales would think the stripper image was going out over the air.

A second, nonbroadcasting, camera captured the uncensored version, while a stagehand moved a balloon back and forth in the doorway, giving at least some indication to the home viewers what was supposed to be behind the door. Sales was forced to try to keep the show going without revealing the risque scene backstage. The prank was recreated when the show originated in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles prank footage survives.

Records

One of the fans of the Soupy Sales show was Frank Sinatra. When Sinatra started his own record label, Reprise Records, he signed Sales to a recording contract. Two albums were produced with Reprise, "The Soupy Sales Show" in 1961 and "Up In The Air" in 1962.

Sales' novelty dance record, The Mouse, dates from the mid-1960s period of his career, when his show was based in New York. Sales performed The Mouse on the Ed Sullivan Show in September 1965, just prior to The Beatles' segment of the show. Sales signed with Motown Records in 1969 releasing a single, "Muck-Arty Park" (a play on the 1968 hit "MacArthur Park"), as well as an album "A Bag of Soup." Soupy and Frank Nastasi also cut and recorded a comedy and song story disk "Spy With A Pie" for ABC/Paramount. "Spy With A Pie" was rereleased by "Simon Says" children's records.

Game shows

From 1968 to 1975, Sales was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? He usually was the first panelist introduced and occupied the chair on the far left side (facing the camera), opposite Arlene Francis. In 1976, Sales was the host of Junior Almost Anything Goes, ABC's Saturday morning version of their team-based physical stunt program. Sales was also a panelist on the 1980 revival of To Tell the Truth; he had appeared as a guest on the show during the mid- to late 1970s. Other game show appearances included over a dozen episodes of the original Match Game from 1966 to 1969, a week of shows on the 1970s edition of Match Game, a few guest spots on Hollywood Squares (December 12, 1977 & April 4, 1978) as well as a few appearances on the combined version on (The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour) in 1983–84 and a recurring role in all versions of Pyramid from 1973 to 1988 and 1991. In one episode, he repeatedly uttered the word "bacon" in an attempt to get a befuddled contestant to say "greasy things." He also made an appearance on Pictionary in 1997.

Radio show

Sales hosted a midday radio show on WNBC in New York from March 1985 to March 1987. His program was between the drive time shifts of Don Imus (morning) and Howard Stern (afternoon), with whom Sales had an acrimonious relationship. An example of this was an incident involving Stern telling listeners that he was cutting the strings in Sales' in-studio piano at 4:05 p.m. on May 1, 1985. On December 21, 2007, Stern revealed this was a stunt staged for "theater of the mind" and to torture Sales; in truth, the piano was never harmed.

Film

He had a sporadic film career that spanned over 40 years, including:

1961 - The Two Little Bears

1963 - Critic's Choice

1966 - Birds do It (a starring role)

1977 - Don't Push, I'll Charge When I'm Ready

1983 - Superman III (cameo appearance)

1993 - And God Spoke: The Making of... His memorable appearance as himself, hired by two incompetent filmmakers to portray Moses because Charlton Heston wasn't available.

1999 - Palmer's Pick Up

2000 - A Little Bit of Lipstick

2000 - Behind the Seams

2001 - This Train

2005 - The Innocent and the Damned

2005 - Angels with Angles

Animation

In 1983, Sales did voice work for Ruby-Spears, voicing Donkey Kong in the animated show Saturday Supercade.

Personal life

Sales was married twice: first to Barbara Fox (from 1950 until their divorce in 1979). They had two sons, both of whom are rock musicians: bassist Tony Sales and drummer Hunt Sales. Along with David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels, the Sales brothers comprised the art rock band Tin Machine and worked with Iggy Pop on Lust For Life. In 1980, Sales married dancer Trudy Carson, who survives him.

Death

Sales died on October 22, 2009, at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, aged 83, from cancer.

According to writer/columnist Mark Evanier, comedian Tim Powers reported that a fan left a cream pie on Sales' Hollywood Walk of Fame star.

Legacy

ABC replaced The Soupy Sales Show in 1961 with Cynthia Pepper's short-lived sitcom, Margie. Sales and Pepper later became good friends.

In the episode "TV Or Not TV" of the 1960s cartoon series The Jetsons, a segment was shown with a character named "Soapy Sam" who hit George Jetson in the face with a pie.

In the episode "The One with the Lesbian Wedding" of the TV series Friends, Phoebe mentions Soupy Sales while supposedly being inhabited by the spirit of her dead massage client.

Phoebe: (Possessed by Mrs. Adelman) I know who it is you remind me of. Evelyn Durmer. Course that's before she got the lousy face-lift. Now she looks like Soupy Sales. Joey: Pheebs, who's Evelyn Durmer? Phoebe: (As herself) I don't know. Who's Soupy Sales? Howard Stern named Sales as one of his childhood heroes, and in an interview on the 2007 Sirius Satellite Radio program "The History of Howard Stern," he expressed regret over his harsh words and actions towards Sales.

Sales is referenced in the Bloodhound Gang's song "Pretty (When I'm Drunk)".

Soupy Sales is referenced by name in the song, "6ix" on the 1996 The Lemonheads album, Car Button Cloth. His on-air request that children send money to him is also referenced in that song with the line, "Come on kids, grab your parents' wallet". While those are the lyrics performed in the recording, they are not the printed lyrics included in the album packaging.

In the 2007 film Juno, Sales is referred to during the scene in which Juno confronts Bleeker about taking another girl to the prom. Juno had earlier suggested he go out with her, but he said he didn't like her because she smelled like soup. Later, when Juno realizes she loves him, she calls his date Soupy Sales.

There is a brief track called "Soupy Sales" on the album Coroner's Office by the death metal band Post Mortem.

There is a track on Jim Bryson's 2000 album The Occasionals called "Soupy Sales".

Phil Ochs, in his introduction to "(The Marines Have Landed On The Shores Of) Santo Domingo" from the Phil Ochs In Concert live album references Soupy Sales: "I was over there, entertaining the troops. I won't say which troops. Over there with a USO group, including Walter Lippmann and Soupy Sales."

Reruns

Beginning in 2011, Jewish Life Television Network [JLTV] began showing a handful of reruns of existing New York City and late 1970s Los Angeles shows.

References

Further reading

Kiska, Tim. From Soupy to Nuts!: A History of Detroit Television (Momentum Books, 2005) ISBN 1-879094-70-3; ISBN 978-1-879094-70-3

External links

The Soupy Sales Show Original NYC on-set Photos and sound file of radio interview

"Soupy Weighs In", On the Media, 2006-02-04 (accessed 2004-04-04)

"Coins & Currency", TVAcres.com (accessed 2004-04-04)

The Soupy Shuffle (.ram file)

Soupy Sales on YouTube

"No More Pies in the Face for Soupy Sales", Christian Science Monitor, 1996-05-23

Archive of American Television interview

Soupy Sales - Daily Telegraph obituary

Category:1926 births Category:2009 deaths Category:People from Franklinton, North Carolina Category:American Jews Category:Actors from New York Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American stage actors Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television personalities Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Jewish comedians Category:Marshall University alumni Category:Radio personalities from New York City Category:People from Huntington, West Virginia Category:People from New York City Category:Pie throwing Category:Television in Detroit, Michigan Category:United States Navy sailors Category:American Jews Category:Television programs featuring puppetry

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