Have you ever seen the funniest joke book the world has ever known? If you’ve even been in Eugene anytime after 1986, chances are that you have.
On Saturday, Nov. 2, the fantastically bearded, impeccably tye-dyed, positively corny and endlessly loved David Henry Miller, known by any and all Eugeneans as Frog, crossed over to the great lily pad in the sky at age 76. His roommate, David Rogers, announced Sunday morning on Facebook that Frog had passed away in his bedroom. Rogers told KLCC that Frog had symptoms of congestive heart failure and recently tested positive for COVID.
Frog was the Cher of Eugene, only if through their mononymous similarities. That, and he was an absolute superstar, one of Eugene’s top celebrities.
This is because, when it came to telling jokes and winning Oregon Supreme Court cases, Frog was just like a scarecrow: outstanding in his field.
Frog was known for selling his hand-written and hand-illustrated books, “Recycled Jokes by Frog,” all over Eugene for four decades. Just like a leopard, he was always spotted at the Saturday Market, the Oregon Country Fair and the corner of 13th Avenue and Kincaid Street next to the former University of Oregon bookstore (which is now the Duck Store) selling his books to children and adults alike, until the children grew up and bought his books for their children. He also had UO alums quacking up for generations.
Frog moved to Eugene from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1981, because “I had some friends living here, and I realized why they were living here,” he told The Oregonian’s “Here is Oregon” in 2022. He would soon become Eugene’s unofficial mascot, and a human representative for all things weird and amazing about Eugene.
Unlike when a cat meets a lemon, Frog was anything but a sour-puss. An interaction with Frog always included his friendly smile, his great hats and his very confident catchphrase to any passerby who would listen: “Have you ever seen the greatest joke book the world has ever known?” with an invitation for a free peek at the book he was selling.
He was accompanied by a handmade sign advertising the books, and his constant companion, Squeeze the Rubber Chicken, whom anyone could squeeze for free. If you bought one of his books, he would happily autograph it with a self portrait. If you didn’t buy his book, a “hello” and a smile always made him just as happy as if you did.
He started selling his joke books on the street in 1986. When readers voted him Best Local Visionary in 2022, he told Eugene Weekly that “People kept telling me I know so many jokes, I should write books,” Frog said. “I wrote Volume 1 and kept going from there.”
He wrote three joke books a year, every year, selling his children’s joke books for $2, and his (very crass) adult joke books for $3. By the time he died, it is estimated that he had written 117 “groan worthy” joke books (as he called them) with titles such as Frog Meets The Powerpuff Girls and Frog Becomes an Evangelical Preacher.
Frog’s joke books have become such a staple of Eugene that several have ended up at the Lane County History Museum.
He also posted a “Joke of the Day” every day on his Facebook page. This is the last joke (that is clean enough to be published even in an alt-weekly) he posted:
“A guy goes to this Halloween party. He has a woman strapped to his back. Everybody at the party wants to know: ‘What are you supposed to be?’ The guy says, ‘I’m a turtle!’ Everybody says ‘We don’t get it!’ The guy says, ‘This is Michelle!’”
Aside from being a joke-telling master, Frog was also voted 2018’s EW Best Rabblerouser for his impact on free speech in the ’90s.
In 1991, after he’d been selling joke books on the street for four years, the city of Eugene tried to shut him down (when vending laws at the time only accounted for flowers, balloons and food). When this happened, people had the same reaction to the police officer who ticketed him as they would for someone who stole your milk, butter and cream: How dairy? How could someone try to ticket Frog for spreading laughter? It was as much of an “oar-deal” as two rowboats in an argument.
Eventually, he lawyered up. In 1994, he took things higher. “We took them to the Oregon Supreme Court and had their law struck down for being unconstitutional,” he said in the same “Here is Oregon” article. Because of Frog’s political heroism, Oregonians can now freely sell joke books on the sidewalk. Thanks!
Unlike an unemployed archaeologist, Frog’s career was never in ruins.
In true Frog fashion, he didn’t let something silly like the government stop him from selling his joke books. In the four years between when he was cited and when he won the Supreme Court case, he continued selling joke books the whole time, and then kept selling them for about 30 more years.
While he never got rich from selling books, Frog made tons of palimony with the friends he made along the way. There has been an outpouring of responses on social media, including Facebook, as well as local and statewide news stories.
A Reddit response to his passing said, “I remember being a kid at what now is the intersection of Willamette and Broadway. There was that big block fountain there back then. My dad and I saw Frog and my dad bought me a book from him, and said he was a local legend. 15 years later, I was at the WOW Hall and knocked someone down that was stealing his rubber chicken/fucking with him. I ran into him many times over my life and he was always kind.”
Frog, this is truly the end of an era. Generations of Eugeneans and college alumni will forever be united by memories of your gentle soul, epic beard and terrible puns. Like evaporating water, you will be mist.
Thank you for the laughter. Thank you for the groans.