JANUARY 6 • 2022 | 43

1926, firstborn son of the only Jews in 
Franklinton, North Carolina. His parents 
— like Jews all over the rural South — ran 
the general store. Milton’s father, Irving, 
died in 1931. 
 In 1934, Milton’s mother, Sadie Berman 
Supman, married Felix Goldstein, and 
moved with her three sons to Huntington, 
West Virginia. Milton graduated from 
Marshall College (now University) in his 
hometown, where he began his career as a 
performer. 
 After a stint in the U.S. Navy in World 
War II, he began his career as a radio, and 
then television, personality, eventually 
making it to Detroit. 
Shor writes: “It’s also clear from the 
archives of the Detroit Jewish News that 
Soupy did not want to forget his own 
connections to the Jewish community. 
Starting in the fall of 1953, right through 
the fall of 1959, he participated in a vari-
ety of events as a master of ceremonies or 
special guest.” 
He lent his talent to Jewish War 
Veterans posts’ Chanukah parties, to 
a children’s party of the Temple Israel 
Men’s Club and to an event at the 
Jewish Community Center of Northwest 
Detroit. He also headlined at Easter and 
Christmas events throughout Detroit. 
Soupy called his followers, the swarms 
of children who showed up wherever 
he went, the “birdbaths.” Eventually, he 
formalized the title. Children could send 
in “something like a dime” for an official 
membership card, identifying them as 
members of the Birdbath Club. 
With what in retrospect looks like 
extraordinary clumsiness, the station 
moved Lunch with Soupy from its natural 
hour at noon to breakfast time, and then 
to 4 p.m. His television audience some-
how moved with him. Eventually, Soupy 
moved on to Los Angeles, and then to 
New York, going where his career took 
him. 
Francis Shor analyzes the appeal of 
Soupy Sales for children. Soupy some-
how managed to be both wholesome and 
subversive. He gave children good advice, 
writing on his “Soupy Sez” blackboard 
such wisdom as “Be true to your teeth, 

and 
they’ll never be false to you.” 
Soupy treated children with kindness, 
while his skits seemed spontaneous and 
out-of-control, teetering on the edge of 
chaotic absurdity. 
Shor develops a pointed contrast 
between Lunch with Soupy and The Mickey 
Mouse Club, a blockbuster of children’s 
programming of the same era. The Mickey 
Mouse Club appears under tight controls, 
carefully scripted, resolutely virtuous, 
directed by serious adults. Lunch with 
Soupy appears as if unscripted, in Shor’s 
words, “ordinary, familiar and sponta-
neous.” 
Soupy seems unafraid of making a fool 
of himself, like a big kid himself, treating 
other kids as his peer group. 

REDISCOVERING SOUPY
If you are too young to have seen Soupy 
Sales on television or if you’ve never 
heard of Soupy Sales, you can scarcely 
recover the phenomenon from the inter-
net. Almost none of his work survives 
in video files. You can see a few bits on 
YouTube. 
Soupy Sales published a book of his 
favorite gags, Stop Me If You’ve Heard It!, 
which includes this typical piece: Two 
goats are busy eating garbage. While 
they’re eating, one of them finds a roll of 
old film and proceeds to eat it up. After 
he finishes chewing on the film, the other 

goat asks him, “Did you enjoy the film?” 
The other goats says, “
Actually, I pre-
ferred the book!” 
Francis Shor has the qualifications to 
write this book: professor emeritus of his-
tory at Wayne State University, Shor has 
the Detroit connections and the research 
skills to uncover every scrap of informa-
tion about Soupy Sales. 
Shor is also the right age for the 
enterprise; as a child enchanted by the 
magic of Lunch with Soupy Sales, he has 
remained enchanted. The subtitle of 
Shor’s work, “Manufacturing a Television 
Personality,” might give the impression 
that the professor 
intends to decon-
struct the image 
of Soupy Sales, to 
show the perform-
er as depressingly 
different from the 
performance. On 
the contrary, Shor’s 
extensive research reveals the performer’s 
authenticity. The broadcasting business 
built the image of Soupy Sales on the 
real person. Every bit of research reveals 
Shor’s continuing love for Soupy Sales. 

Soupy Sales and the Detroit Exper-ience is available 

at cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7553-0. 

At checkout, enter promotional code PROMO25. 

Charges are In British pounds sterling, the equivalent 

of about $29, which includes shipping. 

Sales on Lunch With Soupy Sales television program in 1960

Francis Shor

BY NIGHTSCREAM - WIKIMEDIA