I don't know if or how you remember Soupy Sales, but if you do, likely there was an open doorway and a pie to the face involved. Sales died in a New York hospice on Oct. 22, 2009. He was 83.
Sales, born Martin Supman, delivered a subversively simple and silly show that played for kids while entertaining the adults as well. Beginning in the 1950s with Lunch with Soupy Sales, and continuing through the 1960s, then returning briefly in the late 1970s with The Soupy Sales Show and a wide variety of guest apperances on other shows, Sales played with puppets, hands and other partially-seen objects. Mostly, though, he kept his attention straight into the camera at you, the viewer, the kid in all of us. And now, for something truly subversive, here's an interview Sales gave to Bill O'Reilly.
Related: NYT obituary of Soupy Sales.
Furthermore: Highlights from Soupy Sales' interview with the Archive of American Television.