My addiction to television started very early and my parents were enablers, even though that term hadn’t been coined at the time. Mom tells me that I regularly refused my strained carrots unless she placed my high chair in front of the TV and tuned it to Channel 7 for Lunch with Soupy. The antics of White Fang, Black Tooth, and Pookie, not to mention the constant pies in the face, so mesmerized me that I ate anything Mom shoveled my way. Sadly, Sales (who’d been ill for several years) has left us, but here are a few Soupy facts that will hopefully invoke some warm memories for all you good little birdbaths:

He was born Milton Supman to parents who had a habit of bestowing nicknames on their offspring. Milt’s older brothers had been dubbed “Hambone” and “Chicken Bone,” so when he came along he was unofficially christened “Soup Bone.” Soup Bone was eventually shortened to “Soupy,” and when he got his first professional job as a disc jockey he adopted “Hines” as his surname. As he gained popularity, management was worried that “Hines” sounded too