Soupy Has a Secret

Okay, this one's a little surreal. can you imagine a time when Soupy Sales, who recieved such an amazing outpouring of affection on his recent passing, might have been completely unknown to adults? I ran across this clip of Soupy on an early 1960's episode of the venerable I'VE GOT A SECRET game show. I'd venture to say this was the very first game show appearance for the venerable pie thrower who would go on to become, in my opinion, the consummate TV game show player on PASSWORD, WHAT'S MY LINE and Dick Clark's various PYRAMID shows. Brought on as "Mister X" no one knows him! His secret is that he's been hit in the face with 14,000 pies over the past seven years. The audience shows little sign of recognition and it seems host Gary Moore is just meeting Soupy for the first time. The celebrity guests aren't even afforded the traditional blindfolds! Veteran panelists Betsy Palmer, Bess Myerson, Henry Morgan and Steve Allen are all looking right at him obliviously as they ask questions to try to pin him down. Steve Allen! Himself a student of all things pop and comedy! Nothing! Turns out the sardonic Morgan had actually worked with Soupy in Detroit but outside of professing a vague after the fact familiarity he's also lost! When in the end Soupy's name is revealed there is no big sigh of recognition there either despite the fact that he'd alraedy been getting hit in the face with pise for seven years. Amazingly odd all around, it ends appropriately with our hero and the host amusingly demonstrating the best ways to take a pie to the face.