Well, I can’t say for sure all the flavors Archie’s Ice Cream cart or truck has onboard, or if Archie even has Cookie Dough ice cream at all, but I can tell you that his ice cream wanderings throughout the Los Angeles and Hollywood area produce both frozen treats and warm smiles because Archie’s Ice Cream has started an online gallery of photos taken of rock stars, celebrities, and sports celebrities side by side with Archie’s ice cream cart or truck. The celebrities sign the cart and have their photo taken.

It seems as though Archie takes his refreshing and “say-cheesy” road show to different events and catches up with the notables, and with his Archie’s Angels, he’s able to dish out some ice cream as well as some funny and interesting photos.

Archie’s Ice Cream even managed to catch up with Roger, although I’d have to ask Roger if the photo was taken outside Dodger Stadium or at some other event.

I’m curious as to the names of the ice cream flavors in a town like Hollywood. Any ideas??

I was looking through the Los Angeles Dodger Message Board and found a bunch of comments about Roger. I’ve put them in order from oldest to most recent. I’ve also included the original forum thread. Enjoy!!

From dodgerlodger - 6/11/2002 5:52 pm - Full Thread
As far as I’m concerned, there are only two people who deserve the nickname “Roger the Dodger.” The first is Roger Owens and the second is Roger McDowell.

From BigBlaster - 6/12/2002 10:46 am - Full Thread
Roger Owens should get “Roger the Dodger emeritus” status, and McDowell was certainly a favorite (and yes, Craig was a Roger and a Dodger, too.) Trust me: If, while still a viable pitcher, by some miracle Roger Clemens were to join the team, he’d be called “Roger the Dodger” in milliseconds.

From bluetide2112 - 1/27/2004 5:41 pm - Full Thread
That peanut vendor you speak of is none other than Roger “Peanut Man” Owens, a stadium legend since 1962.

From Squad 51 - 9/23/2004 3:25 pm - Full Thread
Roger Owens is probably the most famous peanut vendor in the world. He has been long-tossing bags of nuts on the Loge Level in Chavez Ravine for somethiing like 30 years. He even has a new biography out. There’s a link to it in the recommended reading list here - toward the bottom of the page: http://www.ballparktour.com/Dodger_Stadium.html

From uscdodger32 - 5/31/2005 11:32 pm - Full Thread
His name is Roger Owens. He still works at the ballpark, I think on the first base field level. Been with the Dodgers since the Colliseum days. There’s a book out about him.

From bluebleeder81 - 9/18/2005 12:59 pm - Full Thread
you said >>>peanuts from roger owens the world famous peanut man<<<
I've never seen him miss & I've seen him throw those peanuts from WORLD RECORD DISTANCES!! GO DODGERS!

From mikensfv - 2/15/2006 10:41 pm - Full Thread
It’s 1992. I’m at the Ravine, we are about 85 losses on the way to 99, and I realize I can’t give these last season tix away. Then it happens bottom of the 5th I come back to my seats complaining about the overpriced beer and how Arthurs food was so much better, and I forgot my Peanuts! I stand up and Yell at Roger Owens, who had already passed my section “Hey Roger, I missed ya and need my Peanuts” . He steps into one of many empty rows and fires a double bag 1 and a half sections across 4 rows up. whizzing behind a straw hatted attendent who had just moved up the stairs for the start of the Inning. Perfect Strike!!!!!!! That was “THE THROW I WILL NEVER FORGET!!” 

From 25yrssince81 - 2/17/2006 12:45 am - Full Thread
My 81 year old mother caught a Roger Owens peanut bag toss last season. That was a throw AND a catch to not forget.

George Washington Carver, the brilliant argricultural chemist, and also known as the original “Peanut Man” and the “Wizard of Tuskegee,” had left behind a legacy of finding hundreds of ways to use the sweet potato and the peanut when Carver himself passed away about a month before Roger was born that same year - in 1943.

When Roger was invited to former Pres. Jimmy Carter’s Inaugural parties in 1977, the Washington Star newspaper noted with an appropriate headline the following day, “Two Peanut Men in Town, Carter Who Grows ‘Em, and Owens Who Throws ‘Em.”

However, Roger wasn’t allowed to toss the bags of peanuts directly at the president at one party in particular. A secret serviceman grabbed hold of Roger’s arm in mid-toss and said,”Roger, we know who you are, and we know why you are here, but have those peanut bags been x-rayed?” to which Roger replied that no they weren’t, obviously. So the secret serviceman didn’t allow the peanuts to be tossed to Pres. Carter, citing that they “cannot allow any missiles to be thrown at the President.” Carter never noticed Roger at all that night but finally got that presidential peanut pitch nearly 20 years later when the Dodgers donated food and drinks to Carter’s Habitat For Humanity, allowing Roger to meet Carter for the first time, and finally having the “ok” to toss him the peanuts.

Roger’s film and TV acting career have spanned nearly 40 years. How many actors can say that?? Then again, his total on screen time probably amounts to more like 40 seconds. His first role was an extra in the 1968 movie “The Split” starring Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, and Gene Hackman, among other well known actors. Owens also appeared in the 1977 epic mini-series, “Testimony of Two Men.” He appeared in couple of sitcoms in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including “227″ and “The Drew Carey Show.” He also is set to appear in the Disney Channel show, “The Suite Life With Zack & Cody.”

But the biggest role he ever landed is the role specifically created just for him by comedy legend, Mel Brooks, in Brooks’ classic 1993 spoof, “Robin Hood: Men In Tights.”

Roger has thrown out the ceremonial first pitch of the season twice, both night games, one in 1976, and one in 1995. He has also thrown out the first pitch of a regular season
game on July 30, 2005, making it the third time he has done the honors. However, this time, he tossed out two consecutive peanut bags from the mound to two different bat boys at home plate.

Would be an interesting record if that is the first time a first pitch has been thrown, but with something other than a baseball. Roger already holds the Major League Baseball record for the longest ceremonial first pitch of the season when he tossed the baseball from the loge level all the way to home plate in 1976.

The origins of the phrase “peanut gallery” aren’t definite but according to World Wide Words “it does have a theatrical origin, and goes back to America at the end of last century. The peanut gallery was the topmost tier of seats, the cheapest in the house, a long way from the stage. The same seats in British theatres were (and still are) often called “the gods” because you were so high you seemed to be halfway to heaven, up there with the allegorical figures that were often painted on the ceiling. On both sides of the Atlantic, these seats attracted an impecunious class of patron, with a strong sense of community, often highly irreverent and with a well-developed ability to heckle, hence the modern figurative meaning. A significant difference between the American and British theatres is that American patrons ate peanuts; these made wonderful missiles for showing their opinion of artistes they didn’t like.

Most Americans of a certain age will know the phrase because it was used in a slightly different sense in the fifties children’s television program, the Howdy Doody Show. There it was the name for the ground-level seating for the kids, the “peanuts”, though the phrase was almost certainly derived from the older sense. They were just as noisy and irreverent as their theatrical forebears, or indeed the groundlings of Shakespeare’s time, with a liking for low humor and a total lack of sense or discrimination.”

World Wide Words- copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2005.- copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2005.

Welcome. Right off the top, I’d like to thank you for visiting. After having the simple .html version of “The Peanut Gallery” online for a while, I decided to give it a more fitting and personable home on this blog. I also realized I hadn’t been adding much to it. So now I have no excuse. It’s a blog, afterall, a growing, flowering little…ok, enough of the violin background music. Let’s get right to it.

Actually, I’d rather have you decide the point of this blog, so how about you take a guess why this blog is here??

“The Peanut Gallery” is taking up valuable bandwidth/server space on this wonderous, spinning planet because:
A) The technology is available and that’s good enough for me.
B) Because this blog is a growing, flowering, little…
C) Roger likes the extra attention.
D) Roger deserves to have a site so dedicated, cool, informative, professional-looking, and filled with invaluable information and trivia about him and his amazing story.

The correct answer is, of course, D).

Actually, it is exciting and an honor to be able to share with you as much fun facts, cool links, and entertaining stories about Roger Owens, the Famous Peanut Man at Dodger Stadium, his family, and his family of friends and fans, as chronicled in the book “The Perfect Pitch” and as contributed here further on this blog.

So, enjoy yourself here at ”The Peanut Gallery” as much as you would on a swaying hammock by the beach, or listening to your fan hum in steady oscillation on a warm, lazy, Sunday afternoon with the Dodger game on TV or on your portable radio.