Doodles Weaver

Doodles Weaver
Born	Winstead Sheffield Weaver May 11, 1911(1911-05-11) Los Angeles, California United States
Died	January 17, 1983(1983-01-17) (aged 71) Los Angeles, California United States
Occupation	Actor, comedian, singer, pianist

Winstead Sheffield Weaver (May 11, 1911 – January 17, 1983),^[1] who used the professional name Doodles Weaver, was an American actor and comedian on radio, recordings, and television. He was the brother of NBC executive Sylvester "Pat" Weaver and the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.

Born in Los Angeles, Weaver was given the nickname Doodlebug by his mother when he was a child. He attended Stanford University, where he engaged in numerous pranks and practical jokes. He was a contributor to the Stanford Chaparral humor magazine.

Radio and recordings

On radio during the late 1930s and early 1940s, he was heard as an occasional guest on Rudy Vallée's program and on the Kraft Music Hall.

Weaver signed on in 1946 as a member of Spike Jones's City Slickers band. He was still appearing with Jones in the 1958 NBC variety show Club Oasis. Weaver was heard on Jones's 1947-49 radio shows, where he introduced his comedic Professor Feetlebaum (which Weaver sometimes spelled as Feitlebaum),^[1] a character who spoke in Spoonerisms. Part of the Professor's schtick was mixing up words and sentences in various songs and recitations as if he were suffering from myopia and/or dyslexia.^[2] Weaver toured the country with the Spike Jones Music Depreciation Revue until 1951. The radio programs were often broadcast from cities where the Revue was staged.^[3] One of Weaver's most enduringly popular recordings is the Spike Jones parody of Rossini's William Tell Overture. Weaver gives a close impression of the gravel-voiced sports announcer Clem McCarthy in a satire of a horse race announcer who forgets whether he's covering a horse race or a boxing match ("It's Girdle in the stretch! Locomotive is on the rail! Apartment House is second with plenty of room! It's Cabbage by a head!"). The race features a nag named Feetlebaum, who begins at long odds, runs the race a distant last—and yet suddenly emerges as the winner.

In 1966, Weaver recorded a novelty version of "Eleanor Rigby"—singing, mixing up the words, insulting, and interrupting, while playing the piano.

Madness

Weaver was a contributor to the early Mad, as described by Time's Richard Corliss:

Among the funny stuff: Doodles Weaver's strict copyediting of the Gettysburg Address, advising Lincoln to change "fourscore and seven" to eighty-seven ("Be specific"), noting that there are six "dedicates" ("Study your Roget"), wondering if "proposition" isn't misspelled and, finally exasperated, urging the writer to omit "of the people, by the people, and for the people" as "superfluous."^[4]

Films and TV

Appearing on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Weaver did an Ajax cleanser commercial with a pig, and the audience reaction prompted the network to give him his own series. In 1951, The Doodles Weaver Show was NBC's summer replacement for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows; it was telecast from June to September with Weaver, his wife Lois, vocalist Marion Colby, and the comedy team of Dick Dana and Peanuts Mann. The show's premise involved Doodles dealing with an assignment to stage a no-budget television series using only the discarded costumes, sets, and props left behind by more popular network TV shows away for the summer.^[5]

He also hosted several children's television shows. In 1965, he starred in A Day with Doodles, a series of six-minute shorts sold as alternative fare to cartoons for locally hosted kiddie television programs. Each episode featured Weaver in a first-person plural adventure (e.g., "Today we are a movie actor"), portraying himself and, behind false mustaches and costume hats, all the other characters in slapstick comedy situations with a voiceover narration and minimal sets.^[5] The ending credits would invariably list "Doodles... Doodles Weaver" and "Everybody Else... Doodles Weaver."

He portrayed eccentric characters in guest appearances on such TV shows as Batman (where he played The Archer's henchman Crier Tuck), Land of the Giants, Dragnet 1967, and The Monkees. He appeared in more than 90 films, including The Great Imposter (1961), Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (as the man helping the Tippi Hedren character with her rental boat), Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1963) and, in a cameo, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). His last movie was Under the Rainbow (1981).

The four-DVD collector's boxed set Spike Jones: The Legend was released October 30, 2007. It features Weaver's appearances on 1951-52 Spike Jones TV specials.^[6]

Death

Weaver committed suicide at age 71 on January 17, 1983, via a self-inflicted gunshot wound.^[7] Rudy Vallée delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

Weaver's book, Golden Spike, remains unpublished.^[8]

Notes

• Doodles' horse race routine has been quoted and parodied by many performers over the years.
• A children's board game called Homestretch featured horses named Cabbage, Banana, Girdle, and the misspelled/simplified "Beetle Bohm." This was a direct lift of Weaver's number, with Cabbage "leading by a head" and Beetle Bohm eventually winning the race.
• Mike Kazaleh's comic The Adventures of Captain Jack took place on the planet Pootwattle and featured a character who used many of Doodles' jokes and catchphrases, such as "That's a killer!"

Quotes

Doodles Weaver on The Andy Griffith Show

• "On the radio this year I hope to score / With some funny jokes you've never heard before / I resolve not to tell a corny joke / [phone rings] Hello, what's that? The church burned down? Holy smoke!" (From "Happy New Year," available on various Christmas novelty CDs)
• "A man came up to me today and said, 'Doodles, your hair is getting thin," and I said, "Well, who wants fat hair?" (From "The Man on the Flying Trapeze" on the CD The Best of Spike Jones, RCA, 1967. The antics of Doodles and "Feetlebaum" are also to be found on this Best of... album.)
• "(A man said) 'Doodles... did you put the cat out?' I said, 'I didn't know he was on fire.'" (From "The Man on the flying Trapeze").
• (In a motor race at Indianapolis): "Every eye is glued onto that car. It looks very funny with all those eyes glued on it." (From "Dance of the Hours," ibid).
• "You dig 16 tons and what do you get... filthy!" (from "Eleanor Rigby")

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Young, Jordan R. Spike Off the Record.
2. ^ Spike Jones Murders Them All
3. ^ Dunning, John (1998). On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-507678-8.
4. ^ Corliss, Richard. "That Old Feeling: Hail, Harvey!" Time, May 5, 2004.
5. ^ ^{a b} TV Party: Lost Kids Shows
6. ^ Amazon
7. ^ "Doodles Weaver, 71". The New York Times. 1983-01-18. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A14FC3A5C0C7B8DDDA80894DB484D81. Retrieved 2008-06-26. "Doodles Weaver, a rubber-faced comedian and musician who helped pioneer improvisational television comedy with his show in 1951, has died of what the police believed were self-inflicted gunshot wounds. He was 71 years old. Mr. Weaver also pioneered comedy recordings in the 1950s." 
8. ^ Doodles Weaver at the Internet Movie Database

External links

Biography portal

• Doodles Weaver at the Internet Movie Database
• Doodles Weaver on Batman
• Doodles Weaver at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Weaver, Doodles
Alternative names	Weaver, Winstead Sheffield; Weaver, Doodles Win; Weaver, Winstead
Short description	Comedian, actor
Date of birth	May 11, 1911
Place of birth	Los Angeles, California, United States
Date of death	January 17, 1983
Place of death	Los Angeles, California, United States