What Do Soupy Sales, Tony and the Tigers, and ‘Hullabaloo’ Have to Do with the Mets?

Today was one of those raw, gray October mornings, the kind that makes you reach for an old Mets yearbook instead of the remote, because the only postseason baseball involving them is being replayed on YouTube in grainy VHS quality.

With the Flushing faithful once again on the outside looking in, I did what any self-respecting Mets fan does this time of year: I fell straight down the internet rabbit hole. One minute I was looking up Ron Hunt’s hit-by-pitch totals, and the next thing I knew, I’d unearthed a clip so delightfully bizarre it made my entire day.

I’m talking about Soupy Sales and his sons performing “Meet the Mets” on national television in 1966.

Yes, you read that right. Soupy Sales. Pies. Rock and roll. Hullabaloo. The Mets theme song. It’s the kind of fever dream only 1960s television, the internet and Mets fandom could produce.

As many of you loyal readers may already know, “Meet the Mets” is my favorite song that’s not by Bruce Springsteen. I’ve got a soft spot the size of Shea Stadium for that bouncy little anthem. During the COVID lockdown, I even recruited dozens of fellow fans to belt it out in a video collage that, to this day, still makes me grin and want to pound my glove on my thigh like Tug McGraw after a strikeout.

So anytime I stumble upon a new version of the song , especially one this obscure it’s like finding a mint Tom Seaver rookie Topps card in the attic.

But the fact that Soupy Sales was involved? That was pure Metsian magic , totally unexpected, a little weird, and nevertheless perfect.

For those under 60 , or those whose parents banned pie fights in the living room , you might be wondering who exactly Soupy Sales was. He was one of the biggest TV personalities of the 1950s and ’60s , born Milton Supman in 1926 in North Carolina , a Navy vet, a jazz lover, and a natural-born clown who may well have inspired that famous Mary Tyler Moore Show line about Chuckles the Clown: “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

His nickname came from a childhood mispronunciation of “Supman” kids started calling him “Soupman,” then “Soupy.” He added “Sales” later when he was working as a radio DJ and realized “Soupy Hines” might get him sued by the soup company.

Soupy got his big break in Detroit with a kids’ show called Lunch with Soupy Sales , part comedy, part chaos , where pies to the face were more common than commercials. Over the years, he took his brand of slapstick to Los Angeles and then New York, hosting The Soupy Sales Show and sharing the stage with everyone from Frank Sinatra to The Supremes. Sinatra even signed Soupy to his record label, Reprise, and had a pie thrown at him for good measure.

For those of us who grew up in the black-and-white TV era, Soupy was must-see madness right up there with Winchell Mahoney Time and Bozo the Clown. I vaguely remember watching him as a kid, before later catching him tossing out one-liners on The Gong Show.

He was part comedian, part jazzman, and part lovable lunatic a man who once got suspended from TV for telling kids to “go into your parents’ wallets and mail me the green papers with presidents’ faces on them.” You just don’t get that kind of live TV anymore.

So how did Soupy and the Mets collide? That brings us to Hullabaloo , NBC’s short-lived but unforgettable primetime music show that aired from 1965 to 1966.

Think of Hullabaloo as the groovier, better-lit cousin of American Bandstand — the network’s attempt to capture the teenage explosion of rock ’n’ roll. Every week a different celebrity host would take the reins: Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli, Petula Clark, even Jerry Lewis. They’d sing a tune or two, crack a few jokes, and introduce the biggest pop acts of the day , The Yardbirds, The Supremes, Herman’s Hermits, The Lovin’ Spoonful, and just about every band that wore matching suits and held guitars below their knees.

The show’s dancers “The Hullabaloo Dancers,” naturally became stars in their own right. Two of them, Michael Bennett and Donna McKechnie, would later conquer Broadway in A Chorus Line. Another, Lada Edmund Jr., was the “go-go girl in the cage” everyone remembers.

Though the show only ran two seasons, Hullabaloo became a time capsule of the Swinging Sixties , right down to the psychedelic lighting and the choreographed finger snaps. And just as Hullabaloo captured the sound and spirit of that era, the Mets were trying to capture something of their own.

When the team was born in 1962, they needed more than just players. They needed a personality. They had the colors , Dodger blue and Giant orange and the lovable underdog energy. But they also needed a sound

Enter songwriters Ruth Roberts and Bill Katz, who penned a jaunty tune called “Meet the Mets.” It wasn’t just a song , it was a pep rally set to music, complete with brass, bounce, and that iconic invitation: “Bring your kiddies, bring your wife.”

Glenn Osser, a top arranger of the era, recorded the first version in 1963, and it’s been living rent-free in our collective heads ever since.

Fast-forward to 1966, when Hullabaloo decided to celebrate Opening Day by turning the Mets’ theme song into a televised musical number. Hosting that week’s episode: Soupy Sales.

Soupy’s sons, Tony and Hunt Sales, were teenagers at the time, fronting a rock band called Tony and the Tigers. The brothers were regulars on the Detroit music circuit and even appeared on the local show Swingin’ Time. They were legit musicians Tony on bass, Hunt on drums , who’d later play with Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop, and, believe it or not, David Bowie in the late ’80s supergroup Tin Machine. (Yes, the kids who sang “Meet the Mets” on Hullabaloo ended up rocking out with Ziggy Stardust himself. You can’t make this stuff up.)

On April 4, 1966, Soupy, Tony, and Hunt took the Hullabaloo stage together. The Tigers kicked things off with a little rock groove, and then Soupy joined them for a full-throated, wonderfully earnest rendition of “Meet the Mets.” It was pure showbiz equal parts baseball, brass band, and father-son goofiness. Halfway through, the Hullabaloo Dancers bounded onto the stage, swinging their arms like they’d just hit a triple.

The whole thing felt like someone took Shea Stadium, American Bandstand, and a pie fight and tossed them in a blender. And yet, somehow, it was pure magic.

Watching it now, nearly 60 years later, you can’t help but smile. It’s joyful, silly, sincere , everything the early Mets were. I defy you not to grin if you watch this clip , odds are, if you have a pulse, you’re smiling

“Meet the Mets” isn’t just a fight song. It’s an anthem for dreamers , the perfect soundtrack for a franchise built on hope, heartbreak, and the occasional miracle.

And Soupy? He was the perfect ringleader: part showman, part kid at heart, always ready to take one for the team preferably in the form of a pie.

So on this gloomy, postseason-free October morning, my rabbit hole paid off. Because sometimes, in the deepest depths of YouTube, you don’t find heartbreak or heartbreak highlights. You find joy.

Joy with a marching beat, a little doo-wop harmony, and a father and his two sons reminding us why we love this team and this song so much.