The Noisy Eater

This is the first of several tributes to Jim Copp: an overlooked master in the art of sound recording during the era of magnetic tape. In the field of postwar children’s records, Copp was Les Paul, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and Lee Perry rolled into one. Copp wrote, performed, engineered and produced a series of children’s records throughout the 1950s and ‘60s. Recorded in his home with only the help of partner Ed Brown, Copp used overdubbing to create an unforgettable cast of characters, comic scenes, and vignettes. He edited his tapes by hand until they resembled works of musique concrete, and used ingenious lo-fi recording techniques to create fantastic soundscapes. The resulting mini-masterpieces were then released on his own independent label, “Playhouse Records,” and Brown and Copp distributed them on cross-country tours of department stores. The records themselves contain darkly funny skits and songs that resemble Edward Lear or Fleischer Brothers animation, and came in Brown’s elaborate LP packaging designs that included Copp’s Thurber-esque line drawings. Put it all together and you get a sense of the richness of the Playhouse Records catalog, what one critic called the “Disney alternative” for thousands of kids in the postwar era.

Born in Los Angeles in 1913, Copp studied at Stanford and Harvard. After college he performed In New York nightclubs as a piano player and surreal comic in an act billed as “James Copp III and His Things.” Legendary producer John Hammond saw his act and liked it, and booked Copp in nightclub appearances in the early 1940s, including an appearance opening up for Billie Holiday. After a stint serving in an intelligence unit during World War II, Copp relocated to Los Angeles, where he wrote a society column called “Skylarking” for the Los Angeles Times from 1950 to 1956. His first column demonstrates his absurdist sensibility: “a few things we are NOT going to write about. WE ARE NOT going to write about orangutans. That is final. If a group of them get together to hold a dance, and ask to have their names in the paper, they may rest assured we’ll be uncooperative. This column will not be concerned with orangutans.” After “Skylarking,” Copp’s off-the-wall approach became even more pronounced in a mock-prognostication column he wrote for the Times called “The Eyes of Argus.” In a typical entry, Copp had the reader work out their daily score: “If you are outdoors at this moment, score yourself 5 points. If you are in a room with papered walls, score 10. If the wallpaper has a flowered design, add 1…if you have (or have ever had) an uncle younger than you, add 6. If you read any part of a novel yesterday, add 3. Now add up your score.” Copp then gave his predictions: “If your score is zero, you will meet a sailor within the year. He will become a real pal… If your score is 3-6, your nails need attention… If your score is 8 or 9, eat a radish… If your score is 14-16, the wife of a bricklayer will call you by mistake… If you score is 17-20, you would have excelled at the hammer throw”, and so on.

It was around this time that Copp made his first children’s record. In 1952 he approached Capitol Records with a pitch for a project called “The Noisy Eater.” Capitol liked the idea but wanted Jerry Lewis to record it instead of Copp. Copp got writing credits on the record, which was performed by Lewis and produced by Alan Livingston, the Capitol executive behind their hugely successful Bozo records.



On the surface, the “The Noisy Eater” is similar to many other “manners” records being released at the time, but there are some notable differences. First, there is a certain dark, Edward Gorey-esque humor to the depiction of parental authority: notice how his parents kick him out of the house for his bad table manners. What is more, the record comes close to overturning its own pedagogical motives by lingering for so long on the wonderfully repulsive sounds of Lewis’ noisy eating. In that way, the record is the sonic equivalent of cheap, garishly colorful candies like “Space Dust” and “gross-out” toys that are the antithesis of adult conceptions of healthy or quality kids’ culture, and are indeed enjoyed by children precisely because they disgust their parents. Finally, we should note the quirky musical number and the unexpectedly clever way in which the record ends. All of these distinctive qualities would become even more pronounced when Copp began making his own records.