Wednesday, September 09, 2009

DOODLES WEAVER does ELEANOR RIGBY


It's an outrage...The Beatles albums have gotten re-mastered, but Doodles Weaver's "Eleanor Rigby" has been forgotten.

The dude named Doodles has been championed before at Illfolks, but obviously not enough to lead a major label into remastering and releasing his stuff.

To briefly offer the highlights of the tragic comedian's life: while his brother Sylvester "Pat" Weaver was a fairly reasonable looking guy who ended up as president of NBC, brother Winstead was so odd looking that his own mother called him "Doodle Bug," which got shortened to "Doodles." Doodles began and ended his career as a strange looking character actor getting half a minute to play someone kooky, dazed or confused.

For a few brief years, he was a successful corny comic, most notably in the Spike Jones band, and for kids, as the star of "A Day with Doodles," a low-budget series of cornball TV shorts in which he played all roles. He favored ridiculously bad jokes told with manic glee ("He said to me, 'Doodles, your hair is getting thin." I said, 'Who wants fat hair!' Haa, isn't that a killer???") He turned up on Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life," as a mere contestant, with Groucho asking him his profession. When Doodles admitted he was a comedian, and told a few jokes, Groucho sympathetically declared that he should be working more, because he was an amusing guy.

The last most people heard of Doodles was when he self-pressed "Feetlebaum Returns," an album that revisited some old jokes and routines, and tried to find more modern tunes to fracture.

For "Eleanor Rigby," Doodles dusts off his inimitable spooner-spazzing:

"Eleanor Rigby picks up the dice - raises the price - chops up the ice - traffics in vice- oh no no no! Kills all the mice..."

He takes a page out of the Frank Fay playbook as well. Fay, a well-loathed comedian once married to Barbara Stanwyck, used to get snickers by taking apart pop tunes and pointing out the absurdities in the lyrics. Here, Doodles sings about Father McKenzie writing the words to a sermon that no one will hear, darning his socks in the night...and stops for analysis:

"What a weirdo priest this guy is! Heh heh heh. First he writes a sermon for a bunch of deaf people, then he turns out the lights in his room and darns socks!"

Darn it, the song didn't climb the charts with a bullet, and eventually Doodles ended his spiral downward with one.

ELEANOR RIGBY by DOODLES WEAVER
Download or listen on line. No capcha codes. No porn ads. No percentage going to the blogger for his "hard work." The hard work was done by the artist.

11 comments:

  1. Doodles will always be known as a well-loved comedy genius. Pat was just another cold dull executive.

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  2. Doodles was loved, and obviously loved his work. But one has to question the genius of a comic who seems to have chosen the worst godawful jokes in the history of mankind. As for Pat, did you know the man, sir? If not, then how can you testify that he was "just another cold dull executive?" I rather imagine he was anything but.

    The truth about these brothers probably lies somewhere in between your assessments.

    And don't forget, they gave the world La Siggy.

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  3. Did you know these guys personally? Otherwise, how could you testify that Sylvester W. was "another cold dull executive?" I didn't know him myself, but would hazard a guess that he was neither.

    And as for poor Doodles, he seemed to love what he was doing, but I would question the "genius" of a comedian who seemed to systematically choose the worst godawful jokes in the history of mankind.

    I think the truth about these two lies somewhere in between.

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  4. Anonymous2:20 PM

    admittedly you're a first class idiot. can't argue with that.

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  5. "You dig six-teen tons, and whaddya get?

    FILTHY!"



    I love it even more than the original "Eleanor Rigby."

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  6. Anonymous10:48 PM

    Lord Illfolks: I covet the Doodles does Eleanor Rigby. Apparently there is not enough bandwidth or some crazy horror according to Box. You Tube yanked the video version and I...yes I, have NOTHING. Help please? LOVE your blog! Thanks

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  7. Anonymous10:21 PM

    Gotta love this weirdo priest MacKenzie (sp.). You rule!

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  8. Anonymous11:44 AM

    Fond memories of my childhood

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  9. Thanks for sending this! I'm probably THE biggest "La Siggy" fan in the known universe. And I liked Doodles too. My dad and I used to get a bang out of him with Spike Jones. And Pat W. was a visionary and, from all accounts, a real Mensch.

    John "Hollywood John" O'Toole

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  10. And La Siggy is a Menschette.evirmit

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  11. BTW I'm not imafirstclassidiot. Don't know why they posted my comments with that tag. ????

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