Roger "Hubba Hubba" Huebner (1950-2005)

Roger Huebner died Friday, December 16, 2005, of a heart attack. He died sitting calmly in his chair at the top of the stands at about 6:30 pm, an hour before show time. Roger was fifty-five.  He had had two strokes previously and was "borderline diabetic”. He didn't take real good care of himself.

We all loved this strange man.

Roger was the third of three Huebner children and much younger than the other two- "an accident" according to his brother Don. Roger is survived by Don and Arlene. Their mother died the year Roger joined CSz, and his father died exactly thirty years before Roger, on this same date.

There are many Roger stories because Roger (one name, just like Elvis; always say it with a smile) is larger than life. We invite all who knew him to get together and tell those stories on video. Let me know if you want to participate.

Here’s some Roger trivia to start:

In the (1970’s Roger traveled the world while in the Navy. Back in those days, he was an accomplished buff gymnast.  Assigned to an aircraft carrier, he honed some of his sound effects skills while walking the decks alone during third shift.  Ironically, he was asked to lead public tours of the ship.  He would also film things on the ship; once, he filmed a bad take-off accident. The plane plummeted into the ocean in front of the ship.  The clip made it to National Television, which was a source of pride for Roger, as well as a source for several new sound effects.   Once out of the Navy, Roger worked third shift at a factory where he would again walk the floors at night, practicing sound effects.   

Back in 1984, Roger took our first workshop at Kalts.  It was obvious he was pretty non-verbal. One night, the group on "stage" was doing a musical, and Roger stepped out and recreated a trumpet.  We said "whoa!" (our exact words) and asked him to do it again.  He did that and more, and a star was born.  I thought that instead of having players provide their own sound effects, it’d be cool to have one sound effects person instead. Think of the possibilities!  Roger has been with us every since. Twenty-two years. Other than Bob "Orvy" Orvis, Roger has probably done more CSz shows than any other player in the world.

Roger was a very very funny man who was very very serious about his sound effects.  Ask some of those who worked in the booth with him and had to battle him for control over the volume of the mic. He was always working on and building his library of sounds.  We all had favorites.  Mine was the 747 Jumbo Jet landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier.  The plane would approach with an ever- louder airplane whine, and then screech to a halt within two feet of the referee who was guiding the plane onto the runway.

Roger was an artist- a very talented artist.  A genius, in my humble genius opinion. Some of his works include: A woman who has her breasts and butt on the same side of her Venus de Milo body;  a flock of flying chickens (a favorite theme of his that is recreated in the v-formation over our middle section of seats); and a bust of one of his co-workers.  He never knew how much to charge for a work of art…because they weren't for sale.  He'd bring his modeling material to the sound booth and work for hours on “a knot" or a "face (of a player) peeking out of a swamp." 

Roger had one of his cartoons published in Time Magazine.  It was the evolution of a Tyrannasaurus Rex (big feet, little hands, big head) into a Rabbit (also big feet, little hands, big head). In the 1960’s, Disney asked Roger to work for them, but he said no because "the work was too repetitive."

He made giant things out of foam.  For example, Roger make a giant foam hammer that we used to use during vending; we’d hit kids over the head with it, accompanied by perfect sound effects from Roger. I had just asked if he could replace the hammer, which had been lost in our move.  He said "sure" and then explained how he was going to make a bigger, stronger, funnier hammer.

Though Roger didn't create the original drawing of our Howie the Ref, he did create the huge Howie foam head that we still use today. That Howie has appeared in thousands of shows, in Todd Bishop’s "Pizza Race Video”, and in the Milwaukee Wave’s half time "mascot soccer showdown”, which was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Roger also transformed the original Howie into mascots for all the League cities.  The Boston club (yes, we were in Boston at one time) Howie, for example, was baking in a tub of baked beans.
Roger had what we "in da bizness" would call a weird sense of humor.  But it was also a brilliant sense of humor.  He would come up with idea after idea and present it to me by standing patiently behind me until I would hear a very quiet voice say:  "I have an idea."  Then we would rate the idea and perhaps include it in his "one out of ten" idea list, which was so-named because one out of ten ideas of his was good enough to use. The flying chickens, the hammer, the big pizza, and the chicken for the Pizza Race video were a few of his ideas. He was always coming up with new and sometimes workable ideas for judges’ paddles and lights.  Roger even made our WCL trophy.  All 750 pounds of it. 

Not so genius, however, were Roger's dealings with the practical world.  He had a car.  Once.  But the engine froze on the freeway.  We asked him if he saw a red light on the dashboard.  He said yes, but thought that meant that the engine was A - Ok.  Light good.  No light bad.

Roger told his brother Don that he wanted to be buried in a CSz hat and sweatshirt. Furthermore, Brian “Creator of the Groaner Apology” Green, had the idea to install Roger’s ever-present cap and microphone on the chair from which he worked the shows.  We did that last night. A single spot shone on the “shrine” while we observed a few seconds of silence. The hat seemed a fitting memorial since Roger always wore a hat, except for once when he lost it while intentionally tumbling down a hill at a Csz picnic. Head over heels, not sideways like kids and CSz players do. In fact, I don’t think Roger did alot of things that the rest of the universe did.

We're going to miss the man.

Condolences can be sent to our e-mail address or can be posted on
our fan forums.

Thank you.
You take care of yourself. Now go inside and play!
Love,
Dick Chudnow (Founder of ComedySportz)

From Milwaukee's Dave Bogan:
I remember going to High School League shows a Kalt's back in 1985. The shows were fun, but what made them really unique was Rogers sound effects. Those were my earliest memories of him. Roger has seen and been a part of more shows than ANY of us. That's quite the accomplishment, with the number of players there are. He was there when I took my first workshops. He was there for my first show. He was there when I became a ref. He was there. He was always there. Over the years, I had hundreds of conversations with Roger. Usually they lasted only several sentences, because Roger was a man of very few words. We'd talk about shows, new sounds to try, or occasionally, he'd joke about a player here and there. Roger had a surprisingly biting wit that not many knew about. You could always count on Roger to be there an hour and a half before showtime, eating a fish sandwich, some corn dogs, or some tater tots in the arena. In shows, he would never disappoint us. At halftime, before we would demonstrate his talents, I would always ask, "You can do like 5 million sound effects, right Roger?". His response was always the classic "Err, yeah..sure." We will never be able to replace Roger. Our shows will never be the same. Comedy Sportz has always been, in my opinion, one giant, dysfunctional family. Within that family of attention craving extroverts, was one introvert. Roger was the purest of souls among us, and that's what makes it so hard for me to let him go. Roger loved to be in ComedySportz. It was his life. He may have been a man of few words, but those few, were priceless.

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