Mornings With Barney by Dick Wolfsie (e book reader .TXT) 📕

pieces of scenes that were then assembled to make sense by an editor. For one thing, he never would have seen the point of doing the same thing over and over again until the humans decided it was right.

By helping to define me as an offbeat, out-of-the-ordinary reporter, Barney allowed me to do the kind of silliness I craved, even if Barney wasn’t always the star ... as in my second encounter with my childhood hero, Soupy Sales.

In 1996, Soupy called me from his home in New York City. He wanted to do some stand-up comedy in the Midwest. “Would anyone in Indianapolis be interested?” Honestly, I wasn’t sure. The clubs were run by a younger generation, but fortunately Soupy’s legacy had survived and the current owner of the main venue in town was a student of humor and knew who Soupy was. Or had been.

Soupy played Crackers Comedy Club in Indianapolis for a week in 1996. I saw almost every show, three of them a night. I ate lunch and dinner with Soupy for five days. “How am I doing?” he’d ask me over a big bowl of jambalaya at the old Dick Clark’s restaurant.

“I’m the wrong person to ask,” I told him. “I’ve seen the show eight times. Your jokes are old. I’m just laughing because you’re Soupy Sales.”

Soupy winked. “That’s why I don’t need new jokes.”

While in town, Soupy made an appearance on WISH-TV’s Daybreak where I did my three-minute segments on location each morning. And I did them live, just the way Soupy loved to do TV.

Soupy was fascinated with Barney. Not just the animal, but the concept. Soupy recognized that his entire career was based on the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, the improbable. The fact I would take a dog, especially an incorrigible one, on live TV during the news was a move right out of Soupy’s playbook.

Of course, Soupy had two canines, albeit just puppets, who had each served as a comic nemesis. But the talking paws of White Fang and Black Tooth—actually barking and grunting—were subject to a modicum of scripting. Not Barney. I think that impressed Soupy, so much so that he requested that we use Barney during his appearance on Channel 8, just so Soupy could see how it all worked.

That morning from Soupy’s hotel, I set up this premise: Soupy Sales was staying here and I had always wanted to meet him. Throughout the show, I asked guests in the lobby if anyone had seen Soupy Sales. No one had. Meanwhile, Barney sat on the lobby couch as if he were a hotel guest. In the final segment, I stood by as the elevator door slid open and out walked Soupy.

“Good morning,” I said. “Have you heard Soupy Sales is staying here?”

Soupy did his imitable take to the camera. “I am Soupy Sales.”

“No, seriously, the real Soupy Sales is supposed to be right here in the hotel,” I said, feigning nonrecognition of the star.

“I’m Soupy Sales,” he repeated, mocking frustration. Another take to the camera.

“Man, you sure got old,” I said—a planned zinger, of course.

Suddenly (as precisely planned), a waiter walked by with a whipped cream pie in his raised hand. With pure comic grace, Soupy swept the pie from the waiter and deposited it squarely on my face. I had been hit with a pie by Soupy Sales.

Barney had no planned role in the comic sketch. Perched on the hotel lobby couch, he was content to simply watch the segment as it proceeded—until he discovered there was whipped cream slathered all over my face. No cue required from the cameraman. Barney leaped into my arms and starting licking the gooey stuff. I’m not even sure why I bothered bringing a towel.

Good Morning, Indianapolis!

Over the years, I’d battled the elements, technology, and human foibles (mostly my own) in an attempt to keep the show lively. I had made many reckless attempts to get laughs and ratings, but only once was I truly injured. Ignoring the warnings of a professional calliope player (a calliope is a type of pipe organ), I sat “inside” the organ and jumped to my feet, like a showgirl popping out of a cake, to start the show. In the process, the calliope pipes whacked me in the head. Blood gushed from my noggin and it appeared as though I was bleeding to death on live TV. The emergency room doctor couldn’t suppress a smirk as he knitted my head together with eleven stitches. “Gee,” he quipped, “this is my first calliope injury.”

“Mine, too,” I admitted.

Despite taking considerable risks for the good of the show, there are some things I wouldn’t do—I’d just pretend I was doing them. I first learned the necessity of this ploy when I booked a segment on bungee jumping. The original plan was to bungee-jump from the top of a 700-foot platform. Great idea, except that I forgot to factor in four problems: I’m afraid of climbing, I’m afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling, and I’m afraid of landing.

I’m also afraid of a dull show. Finally, we dressed a professional jumper in an outfit like mine and she (yes, she!) made the jump. At the end of the segment, anchor Dave Barras expressed skepticism, which was confirmed when my cameraman revealed that I was sitting in a lawn chair reading the newspaper during the jump. In case you think I’m a total wimp, it was the sports section.

A live TV spot coupled with on-air antics is a recipe for the unpredictable. There are no retakes on live television. Ask any reporter who has made it onto YouTube. When our remote truck failed during one show at a local dinner theater, I drove all the sisters from the play Nunsense back to WISH. The nuns invaded the studio and interrupted Vince, our sports anchor, by asking, “How is Holy Cross doing?”

Quick to the punch, Vince quipped, “Beat the devil out of William and Mary.”

Another nun interrupted Randy, our