365 Days #334 - Roger Price - Roger and Over (mp3s)

MP3:
The Amazing Theory of Names Demonstrated at the Village Vanguard (18:17)
The True and Authentic History of Vermont Jazz (13:57)
An Expose of Hi-Fidelity (4:50)
Sound Droodles (3:02)

Roger Price is my favorite forgotten comic, though this album may only give you the slightest idea why. Mr. Price is the self-same Price who co-created Mad Libs with Leonard Stern, and is therefore the Price in Price/Stern/Sloan (or pss!) – but that's not why, either. He also wrote for Bob Hope, Harvey Kurtzman's Mad and Steve Allen's Tonight Show, but that's also not why.

In the early 1950s, Roger Price invented the Droodle. That's why.

More specifically, Roger Price is aces with me because of the two collections of Droodles published by pss! – a little red book called "Droodles" and a little green book called "Oodles of Droodles" (formerly "Droodles #2"). I've had them since I was very young, and they were a major force in shaping my sense of humor. It's not the Droodles themselves so much, though they were certainly amusing and clever, as the commentary beneath them, which would often be ambling monologues only tangentially related to the picture above. Check out the "Crookshank" essay on the back of the "Roger and Over" record jacket for a sample of what I'm talking about.

Droodles were so popular for a brief period in the mid-1950s that Price hosted a game show for a while based on the concept. One Droodle, "Boat Arriving Too Late To Save a Drowning Witch," was used by Frank Zappa as an album cover in 1982. Tallfellow Press (founded by Stern and Sloan after selling pss! to Penguin in the early 1990s, shortly after Mr. Price passed away) keeps Droodles in print, though I don't know if the book they publish is a complete collection of the two books I grew up with, or just a "greatest of." Regardless, you should go right out and purchase whatever Droodle stuff you can get a hold of (the covers of my battered 1970s copies are scanned below to help you locate 'em in used bookstores and such, if you wanna go for the originals rather than the "new" collection).

The first side of the album starts out with an annoying series of pops and a skip right over the first punchline, but don't worry, it clears up right after that.

Incidentally, upon discovering this album, I was surprised to find that Mr. Price sounds somewhat like Hanna-Barbera's Mr. Jinks, right down to the constant use of 1950s "hipster" lingo... albeit with a not-as-exaggerated accent. Compare the stuff on the album with the recording on this page of Daws Butler doing the Jinks voice to tell a hilarious version of "Mary Had a Li'l Lamb." Could Price have been Butler's inspiration when creating the voice... ?

- Contributed by: Corey K.

Images: Jacket Cover, Jacket Back, Label (front), Label (back), Droodles book covers

Media: 33rpm vinyl album
Album: Roger and Over
Label: A.A. Records
Catalog: AR-1
Credits: Roger Price (featuring Sascha Burland, Don Elliott and the Vermont Jazz All-Stars with Meatloaf Pope, Pig-Meat Oaks, Fats Mush, One-Eye Muffin, Nutsy Gasaway, Bombo (at the piano) and Ma Kennedy!
Date: 1960

Comments

[Louis Harrison]

Thanks for posting the Roger Price album and bringing back memories of Droodles. I have a copy of Walt Kelly's 'Songs of the Pogo' on A.A. Records #2 and have long wondered what catalog #1 on that label might be. Sascha Burland and Don Elliott of the Vermont Jazz All-Stars were also the guys behind the Nutty Squirrels.

[Corey K.]

A quick Google search seems to have possibly turned up A.A. Records' third release (at least according to the title of the blog entry):

http://scarstuff.blogspot.com/2006/03/famous-monsters-famous-monsters-speak.html

A.A. Records seems to have been an interesting, if not terribly prolific, little outfit. Anybody know anything else about them?

[BenT]

if you'd like to hear more by The Nutty Squirrels, you can download their album Birdwatching at my blog
http://mrjevil.blogspot.com/2007/06/uh-oh-those-nutty-squirrels-made.html

[Roy B.]

Uh, Roger Price didn't invent those things he called droodles. They were around as far back as the 1500's, at least. Agostino Carracci used to make them up all the time. See:

http://www.archimedes-lab.org/droodles.html

[Scott Mercer]

I thought Price actually sounds a bit like (and even looks a bit like) Stan Freberg. And their humor isn't too far apart either.

[Ted Hering]

Scott Mercer says Roger Price displays similar humor to Stan Freberg. That was my reaction as well, especially with the "Sound Droodles." Three years before this LP was recorded, Freberg presented a character named Herman Horne on his CBS radio show (now available on CD). Herman would present "hi-fi sounds," such as "Benny Goodman in a skin diving suit playing 'Danny Boy' in a kelp bed." These sketches were likely the direct inspiration for Roger's "Sound Droodles."

[Pinball King]

Roger Price also did a third Droodles book with an orange cover called "Droodles: A Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch". Frank Zappa had an album with the same title and cover art. A newer Roger Price book is called "Classic Droodles".