As promised on Wednesday's column, today I'm sharing a tribute to comedian Soupy Sales, who died last week at age 83, with some of the best moments from my October 1997 interview with Soupy when he played a double-bill show at the Star Plaza Theatre with Frankie Valli.

Soupy confessed to me the thousands of pies that he has accepted with good humor and grace during the years were not really whipped cream but shaving cream, a one-time closely guarded Soupy secret.

"It cleans up much better than custard," he said.

And Sales should know. In some episodes of his show, he was splattered with as many as 400 pies in a one-hour span, so easy cleanup was important.

Born Milton Hines in Franklinton, N.C., Sales' father was a clothing store owner who died when Sales was just 5 years old. While his two older brothers, Jack and Leonard, went on to careers as a doctor and a lawyer, Sales graduated from Marshall College in Huntington, W.Va., with a bachelor's degree as a journalist.

Sales said he picked up his stage name when he decided to work as a disc jockey in Ohio. Because radio station management thought his last name "Hines" might be confused by listeners as advertisement for Heinz's 57 Varieties of Sauces, he decided to adopt a variation of his old nickname from college: "Soupbone."

Sales considered (puppeteer) Burr Tillstrom of "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" as a mentor to his career, in addition to Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers - slapstick comedians who rivaled The Three Stooges in the 1950s.

Sales said he followed Ritz' lead and used an abundance of physical comedy in his children's program, which ran off and on from 1955 to 1979.

Looking back, Sales said he was amazed at what he and his small studio stage crew were able to accomplish on "a shoestring budget."

"When people ask me what I thought of 'Pee Wee's Playhouse,' I can say sure it was entertaining," Sales said. "But why shouldn't it be, when you've got a $300,000-an-episode budget? We had no budget. And don't even get me started on Barney."

Besides the free-flowing makeshift meringue, the other highlight of an episode of Sales' show was to watch the jovial, anything-goes comic exchange of unscripted jabs and stories with a slew of strange puppet characters.

Some of Soupy's frequently seen hand-driven friends included Pookie the Lion, Hippy the Hippo, Herman the Flea, Willie the Worm and curvaceous Marilyn Monwolf, the female friend of two opposite-temperament dogs, who were seen only represented by growls and large, claw-like hands poking through a doorway.

White Fang was billed as "the biggest and meanest dog in the U.S.," while Black Tooth was described as "the biggest and friendliest dog in the U.S."

"Other shows were spending $300 to rent dogs and trainers for their shows," Sales said. "But we couldn't even afford complete puppets. But we had fun."

The oddest puppet duo on the show was an elderly couple named Hobart and Reba, who lived inside a potbelly stove inside Soupy's clubhouse.

"What we did was definitely different," he said.

Another staple of Sale's shows was a generous amount of guaranteed horseplay that would be exchanged between the show's host and his unseen offstage cameramen and floor crew.

One of the most talked-about incidents involved a surprise visitor to Soupy's set during a filmed sketch about a mysterious knock at his door.

When a shocked Soupy opened the door of his clubhouse, he was greeted by a topless burlesque stripper on the other side - unseen by television viewers. As the embarrassed comedian fumbled and tugged at his hat, the show's musical director played the traditional burlesque stripping theme.

"That's the most asked-about clip from all of the shows," Sales said. "That was the time they (the crew) really got me good."

In 1965, Sales even started a new dance craze called "The Mouse." Exposing his upper teeth over his bottom lip and putting his hands by his ears and wiggling his fingers, Sales' dance routine was so popular he was invited to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show" two consecutive weeks to demonstrate the dance.

When Sales recorded a song record "Do The Mouse," for ABC-Paramount, it sold more than a million copies.

In addition to his own show, Sales was a frequent guest on variety shows and a regular panelist on game shows, most notably a 1970s reinvented version of "What's My Line?" sitting next to favorite TV panel personality Arlene Frances.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at philip.potempa@nwi.com or 219.852.4327.

Today's Celebrity Birthdays

Animator Ralph Bakshi ("Fritz the Cat") is 71. Country singer Lee Clayton is 67. Guitarist Denny Laine (Wings, Moody Blues) is 65. Singer-actress Melba Moore is 64. Guitarist Peter Green (Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac) is 63. Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 62. Actress Kate Jackson is 61. Actor Dan Castellaneta ("The Simpsons") is 52. Singer Randy Jackson of The Jacksons is 48. Drummer Peter Timmins of Cowboy Junkies is 44. Actress Joely Fisher ("Ellen") and rapper Paris are 42. Singer S.A. Martinez of 311 is 40. Actress Winona Ryder is 38. Actor Trevor Lissauer ("Sabrina the Teenage Witch") and actress Gabrielle Union are 36. Actor Brendan Fehr ("Roswell") is 32.