Thanks for the laughs Soupy. We'll miss you.

"For notoriety, nothing beat the show that aired New Year's Day 1965, when Sales was producing the program in New York.

Told he had a minute to fill, the comic told the children watching on WNEW-TV to find their parents' wallets and "get all the green pieces of paper with the pictures of guys in beards" and mail them to him.In return, he said, he would send them "a postcard from Puerto Rico."

Sales had used the same joke in Detroit and Los Angeles. But this time, the prank elicited some $80,000 "in Monopoly money," as well as a complaint from a viewer filed with the FCC. Sales' show was suspended, prompting fans to swamp the station's switchboard with protest calls, mostly from high school and college students who demanded that their favorite television fare resume.

Within a week, it did."

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-soupy-sales23-2009oct23,0,699167.story?page=2