A fixture on local California radio since the 1950s, Owens branched out into television announcing and his baritone has been the lead-in to everything from the seminal sketch comedy show Laugh-In (the source of this post's title) to America’s Funniest Home Videos. He was the original host of The Gong Show in 1976, and has also lent his voice to over 30,000 commercials.
In the field of animation, Owens' voice provided the narrative thread through such programs as Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Garfield and Friends, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. He also did a substantial amount of character work on Saturday morning cartoon shows, and when his flexible voice wasn’t relegated to the background as any number of cameo parts, his gallant intonations allowed him to take the lead as a quite a few memorable heroes including:
Gary’s voice boomed and echoed through the minds of countless young Saturday morning junkies as Hanna-Barbera’s first original superhero Space Ghost. His heroic battle cry carried the character through his first two incarnations in 1966 (on Space Ghost and the Galaxy Trio) and 1981 (on the SG segments of Space Stars) before he handed the character off to George Loew for the 1994 meta-cartoon Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. However, in a twisted bit of SG:CTC brilliance, Space Ghost, Zorak and Moltar manage to summon a Space Ghost doppelganger named “Gary” (voiced by Owens) allowing for the two Space Ghosts to ego maniacally argue who the real Space Ghost is before Gary turns into Owens, himself, and is blasted by Space Ghost.
A year before Space Ghost, Owens was putting his heroic baritone to use as the titular Roger Ramjet, a product of the Cold War, Ramjet was a jingoistic, yet somewhat dimwitted, agent of the government whose arch-nemesis was Noodles Romanoff of N.A.S.T.Y. (the National Association of Spies, Traitors and Yahoos). An heroic daredevil whose powers and pep were fuelled by taking Power Energy Pills which gave him the “power of twenty atom bombs for twenty seconds” - a plot-point that wound never have been possible later in the decade and for the next 30 years when parents would be taking note of ANY manner of drug reference in children’s programming.
Possessed with a great sense of humor (he was even a writer for the screwball and pun-laden animation styling of the Jay Ward Studios), Owens is not above poking fun at his past work as demonstrated when he re-used his Space Ghost voice to comedic effect on Dyno-Mutt: The Dog Wonder (though he played the straight-laced Blue Falcon) and then as the super-surreal Powdered Toast Man on Ren and Stimpy. Farting his way into children’s hearts and breakfast nooks, Powdered Toast Man and his SpaceGhost/Birdman-esque shouting of his own name, allowed for a surreal look at the superheores of Saturday Morning’s golden age that Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi had such a twisted love and a slight dose of contempt for.
After creating the quintessential superhero voice with his portrayal of Space Ghost, spoofing it as the Blue Falcon and Powdered Toast Man, Owens was cast to pay a loving homage to his own legacy as the voice of the Silver-Age Batman in the landmark 1998 episode “Legends of the Dark Knight” of The New Batman Adventures. In an episode largely remembered for a segment faithfully adapted from Frank Miller’s grim and gritty Dark Knight Returns, Owens brought levity and old school heroics to the proceedings in a clip inspired by Dick Sprang’s run on the comic as well as the 1960s Batman live action show. Clearly a forerunner to the current Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the segment does stand-out after multiple viewings and may actually be the better of the short stories with a fair amount of credit due to Owens somewhat ironic portrayal of the not-so-dark Knight.
Gary Owens was inducted to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1994 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, also for his contributions to the medium of radio. At 75 Owens is still going strong and is currently the voice of Antenna TV, a satellite television station dedicated to airing retro programming from the 50s through the 90s.
No comments:
Post a Comment