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G.O. has Died

Well, I guess there is something to be said for two of the "suits" here confirming Gary's birth date based on our personal conversations with the man in the past.

Some may be aware that G.O. was also the voice of the digital television subchannel network Antenna TV. The past few days they have been running a quick ten-second tribute to him in place of the station identifications and promos between programs, beginning with a piece of video recorded when he recorded the original voice-over liners in late 2010 (the network launched New Year's Day, 2011) in which he says "Hi, Antenna TV fans, this is Gary Owens" with his hand cupped to his ear in that oh-so-familiar pose.

They got his birth year right.
 
LARadioRewind said:
Hey, Michael, since you're so smart, what can you tell us about the Zootmeister Broadcasting Network? :)
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Your bringing that up reminded me of a photo I added a caption to a few years ago and sent to Gary on his birthday.

Zootmeister2.jpg

He loved it.
 
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michael hagerty said:
Just that their logo was the first two notes of the NBC chimes followed by what sounded like Sheldon Leonard saying "ding".
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Sometimes.

Other times I heard it, he had a goose honking, an explosion, and Gary himself saying "fnort". (Among other things.)

He always identified ZBS at the end of his Friday show, and the logo was always followed by the KMPC legal ID jingle.
 
I remember the Zootmeister chimes also ending with a loud exaggerated sneeze. And gosharooties, K.M., what an insegrevious photo caption! For many years, I could hardly wait for another Monday to roll around so I could watch Laugh-In and see how many hands were on the clock...and what positions they were in. One time the clock had no hands at all...but two hands were side by side next to it on the wall. I have all the DVD compilations of Laugh-In. Thanks for the memories, Gary!
 
Why is the L.A. Radio site sticking with age 80 for G.O. when he passed., and his wife of 57 years is now listed as his wife of 47 years? That's strange
 
In 1961, in the San Francisco Bay Area, your mommy listened to KEWB Channel 91, with Gary Owens in the morning. A few of these surveys are floating around the internet, so I was trying to find one that featured pics of GO, along with Casey Kasem, and Michael Jackson, who were at "Cube" around the same time...but couldn't find one. But here's Garish, in any case:

http://bayarearadio.org/surveys/kewb/kewb_survey_jan-23-1960.shtml

FYI - Other KEWB alumni were Robert W. Morgan and The Real Don Steele who were both at KEWB less than a year before the premiere of Boss Radio on KHJ.
 
HotHits: To borrow a word from Alice, this gets curiouser and curiouser. This morning, LARadio.com publisher Don Barrett spoke with Vicki Greenleaf, head of Greenleaf & Associates, the public relations firm that represented Gary. She had spoken with Gary's widow earlier today and confirmed that Gary was 80. If that is the case, then why did every reference site show his birth year as 1936 and not 1934? Why did Gary's true age not come out until after his death? Don speculates that because many station managers prefer younger talent, Gary may have shaved two years off his age in order to continue working in radio.

Llew: I have a KFWB "Foolish Forty" survey for the week ending April 1, 1961. It was on the inside of the folder and the actual Fabulous Forty appeared on the back. The DJ pictures were not altered. The "Foolish" song titles are real but the names of the artists were changed. We older people will understand the references:

The Blizzard - Hank Snow
It Won't Be Long - the Barbers
On The Rebound - Wilt the Stilt
First Name Initial - B. Mitchel Reed
Let The Little Girl Dance - Arthur Murray
C'est Si Bon - Lassie [Get it?]
Them That's Got - the Rockefellers
Along Came Jones - Princess Margaret
Apache - Cleve Hermann [sports announcer who wore an eyepatch]
 
LARadioRewind said:
This morning, LARadio.com publisher Don Barrett spoke with Vicki Greenleaf, head of Greenleaf & Associates, the public relations firm that represented Gary. She had spoken with Gary's widow earlier today and confirmed that Gary was 80. If that is the case, then why did every reference site show his birth year as 1936 and not 1934? Why did Gary's true age not come out until after his death? Don speculates that because many station managers prefer younger talent, Gary may have shaved two years off his age in order to continue working in radio.
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I think this whole business of Gary's age has gotten out of hand. The man is dead, we loved him when he was alive, we will miss him tremendously, and I don't care if he told me he was two years younger than he was.

I, for one, refuse to say another word about it ... and I suggest the rest of you do likewise.
 
I agree---we should be focusing not on Gary's age but on his amazing career and his creativity and his willingness to help anyone and everyone who came to him. And in three months, when K.M. celebrates his 40th birthday, I hope I'm invited to the party. :)

Here is a September 19 1970 aircheck of Gary at KMPC, posted by someone who does not know how to spell the name of Noel Blanc. By the way, I saw Noel on a Mike Douglas tv show in the 1970s. Mike asked people in the audience to try to talk like Bugs Bunny. The first two were terrible. The third person was perfect. Mike then revealed that the guy is Mel Blanc's son. I wish I knew why Warner Bros. hired several different voice actors after Mel died in 1989. Noel could do all the characters all by himself, the same way Mel did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs2oXf1wAMs&feature=youtube_gdata
 
I hope everyone here is sitting down. On another site, Mike Argo posted a nice photo of Gary Owens with two other men named Casey and Wink. I think they, too, might have worked in radio. Anyway, I wondered how old the lone survivor is and I found this:

From Wikipedia: "Winston Conrad 'Wink' Martindale (born December 4, 1933) is an American disc jockey and television game show host..."

From AmericanProfile.com: "Winston Conrad 'Wink' Martindale, born December 4, 1934 in Jackson (pop. 65,211), has hosted a variety of television game shows..."

Several sites say Wink was born in 1933 and several say 1934. Fortunately, I have his autobiography, Winking At Life. Wink says 1933. That settles it.

The Gary/Casey/Wink photo is at http://www.xmfan.com/viewtopic.php?t=124024
 
K.M. Richards said:
I think this whole business of Gary's age has gotten out of hand. The man is dead, we loved him when he was alive, we will miss him tremendously, and I don't care if he told me he was two years younger than he was.

I, for one, refuse to say another word about it ... and I suggest the rest of you do likewise.
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Please don't tell others what to think or do KM? You were the first to correct my thread from the L.A Radio bulletin , according to your first hand knowledge. Michael also confirmed what you said. Then after correctly counting on my hands, I confirmed what the both of you had posted. I find it odd he would tell us all the same thing?
 
Hot Hits said:
Please don't tell others what to think or do KM? You were the first to correct my thread from the L.A Radio bulletin , according to your first hand knowledge. Michael also confirmed what you said. Then after correctly counting on my hands, I confirmed what the both of you had posted. I find it odd he would tell us all the same thing?
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Not so odd. Gary obviously had a reason he wanted the world to believe he was born in 1936. I remember seeing it as far back as the early 1970s. He needed to be consistent for that story to hold up. But the Class of '52 high school thing clinches it....he would have graduated the month after turning 18, and that makes it May 10, 1934.
 
michael hagerty said:
Not so odd. Gary obviously had a reason he wanted the world to believe he was born in 1936. I remember seeing it as far back as the early 1970s. He needed to be consistent for that story to hold up. But the Class of '52 high school thing clinches it....he would have graduated the month after turning 18, and that makes it May 10, 1934.
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Now Steve has to go back to the Wikipedia site and correct his correction after giving you two credit. I wonder how that will be handled? I will say he looked 50 in 1984, not 48 for what its worth but I always thought 40 was ancient as well when I was 26. With that said you sure looked younger than I thought on your Car TV show and I had no idea how old you were so there. Mike Harvey had a Car or Truck TV show running at the same time and looked like an old Kenny Rogers, all in your jeans and eating good, avoiding Bashas' at all cost I hope?
 
I checked Wikipedia and somebody had already changed Gary's birth year to 1934 but the footnote citing this thread was still there so I removed it. I can't speak for K.M. or Michael but I know I have learned a valuable lesson when it comes to the World Wide Web. I can sum up what I've learned by quoting a line from a famous song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong: "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."

I'm going to start telling people that I'm 80 so they'll say, "My, you look awfully young for your age." :)
 
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