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G.O. has Died

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On KFI today, afternoon co-host Mark Thompson said Gary was 78. Then Elizabeth Espinosa said Gary was 80. The story in Variety says he was 80 but I can find no source giving his birth year as 1934. IMDB, Wikipedia, Fandango, FilmReference and many other sites say he was born in 1936.

"Fnork!" That Gary Owens word is how a 9th-grade classmate signed my school yearbook. Like me, he was a big fan of "Garish." One day during speech class, he sat at a desk blocked by a huge screen and, with a record player and tape player in front of him, did his best to re-create a Gary Owens radio broadcast.

Nobody on radio was funnier than Gary Owens. One time he announced, "I'm wearing three hats today. I'm not doing three jobs---I'm just wearing three hats." In his 46-year career in Los Angeles, he worked at KFWB, KMPC, KPRZ, KKGO, KFI, KGIL, KLAC, KJQI and KSUR. Gary was the announcer of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and contributed to hundreds of episodes of Seasme Street and The Electric Company. He also released several comedy albums and voiced characters in 3000 cartoons. Does anyone remember Roger Ramjet and Powdered Toast Man? And then there is the infamous "Season's Greetings from Preparation H."

I concur with ChannelFlipper: He was a classic and will be missed.
 
Never looked at the Wikipedia entry. He had told me, years ago, that he was born in 1936.

Oh, well ... isn't going to matter now, is it. :(
 
Many people only remember Gary as the "Laugh In" announcer and his cartoon work. His afternoon show on KMPC was incredible. That wonderful voice, off the wall humor and a nice music mix made 3 to 6 on 710 between 1962 and 1981 quite memorable.
 
Gosharooties, K.M.---this confusion over Gary's birth year is getting downright insegrevious. I see that somebody has gone to Wikipedia and changed Gary's birth year to 1934. NPR is also saying he was 80. Gary started in radio in 1952 as a news director at KORN in Mitchell, South Dakota (not to be confused with KORN and Charlie Farquharson from Hee-Haw). If Gary was born in 1936, he would have been 15 or 16 then. I can't imagine someone that young becoming a news director...but if he was born in 1934, he still would have been awfully young to be a news director.

Gary also voiced around 30,000 commercials and hosted a daily program on the satellite-fed Music Of Your Life network. And I can never hear my favorite Andy Williams song without remembering how Gary often announced it as Can't Get Loosed To Using You. :)
 
benale said:
Many people only remember Gary as the "Laugh In" announcer and his cartoon work. His afternoon show on KMPC was incredible. That wonderful voice, off the wall humor and a nice music mix made 3 to 6 on 710 between 1962 and 1981 quite memorable.
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Gary's mornings on "the Music of Your Life" KPRZ and Whittinghill's afternoons made KPRZ a great Los Angeles station. Those guys had more talent than Rick Dees will ever have. In fact I will never forgive Gannett for what they did in the name of Dees in 1985
 
Somewhere in TV land Space Ghost, Blue Falcon and Mordo The Friendly Dwelve are in mourning over the guy who made them icons. He will be missed.
 
K.M., could Garish have lied about his birth year because he didn't want people knowing how old he really was? Other entertainers have done so. A few that come to mind are Eartha Kitt, Jennifer Lopez, James Blunt, Sandra Bullock, Nicki Minaj and Charo. On the other hand, Louis Armstrong claimed to be a year older than he really was because his press agent convinced him that claiming to be born on the 4th of July in 1900 would benefit his career.

Didn't Gary fill in for Casey Kasem once or twice on the American Top 40 countdown show? It seems to me that he did...but my memory isn't perfect. I do know that my helicopter was never hit by a grenade.
 
LARadioRewind said:
Gary started in radio in 1952 as a news director at KORN in Mitchell, South Dakota (not to be confused with KORN and Charlie Farquharson from Hee-Haw).
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Who is also recently deceased:
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/don-harron-dead-charlie-farquharson-1201408505/

And as I said a few posts previous, the date of the late Mr. Owens' birth is no longer an urgent matter. However, to answer your later question about his possibly fudging it, the subject came up when I discovered he was born on May 10 (my birthday is May 9), and when I called him to wish him a happy krenelimoffen ... er, birthday I mentioned that I'd never forget his because mine was the day before. He asked me what year (1956) and he pointed out that I was born one day shy of his 20th birthday. That's how I remember 1936.

I suppose he could have said "22nd birthday" but "nd" doesn't sound like "th", even when said by G.O.

He was a wonderful human being and I don't think he left behind any enemies, only friends.
 
The TV station I once owned aired "Roger Ramjet" on Saturday mornings. Not sure if my viewers loved the show but I sure did. I remember Gary from his KMPC days. He made radio fun to listen to.
 
K.M., thank you for posting the link to that Preparation H commercial for all of us friends who have...ah ha ha hah...been so kind and generous to them over the years...oh ha ha ha hah! It's also on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0fxtJXJzTk -- and appeared on a 1984 album, Dick Clark Presents Radio's Uncensored Bloopers. Gary often said that more listeners asked him to replay the Preparation H message than anything else he had ever done. I met him only one time but he was gracious and charming...and funny. It was on October 11, 1987, at a book-signing party for Don Barrett's L.A. Radio People. Gary signed my book: "Hello Steve and Hello Steve FM. Gary Owens, 10-11-1897." :)
 
I spent about an hour with Gary every morning from 7 to 8 am at 6255 Sunset. When I'd get up to go he'd say, Scott don't go, let me tell you about... The funny thing he never told me he had a son Scott. Always wore a gun in his boot. I will never forget him and Whittinghill too, super nice person when so many say how hard he was to get along with! One morning right before the KPRZ MOYL format was to end, Whittinghill came in to talk with Gary at about 7:30 AM. Gary turned pale and said "my god". I learned the two hadn't talked in years going back to the KMPC days and Whit was so upset that the FM & AM were going to a Shadowcast. I conveniently excused myself and went home.

A final thought. He was 48 in October of 1984, I remember thinking how 'old' he was. I was 26. He had to be 80, I've done the math
 
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