Gary Owens: 1934-2015

Longtime voice-over specialist, disc jockey, radio and television personality Gary Owens has died at the age of 80. The cause of death is Diabetes related.

The first time I remember hearing the voice of Gary Owens is back in the 1980's most definitely. Although at that point in time I wasn't really into learning the names of the voice actors and actresses, I had been unknowingly hearing Gary's voice for several years before I found out. My first memory of hearing that voice is on the cartoon series, Space Ghost. I found out the name behind the character in the late '80s on Nick-at-Nite. Although the cable channel aired it after most kid's bedtimes, I couldn't help but stay up just a little longer and see a particular program that aired at 11pm called Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

Does someone around 14 or 15, seeing the program for the first time in the late 1980s, really comprehend all of the one-liners and late 1960s topical jokes? Unless the child is amazingly gifted in American culture history at that age then my answer is "no". Why did the series appeal to me? I think it appealed to me because of it's cartoonish delivery and it's zany atmosphere. Also...the presence of that voice...the voice of Gary Owens and his hysterical seriousness amongst all the chaotic happenings around him.

He served as the program's off-screen announcer, calling the names of the host and cast members, but doubled as an on-screen broadcaster, cupping one hand to his ear, and delivering all sorts of insane dialogue in the guise of a serious news bulletin. Most often a scene would cut from one joke and then to Gary and then to another joke or back to a cast member just looking into the camera and not saying anything until they break up in laughter and leave the stage.

The comedy series had a major impact on television viewers and created several catchphrases. It ran 6 seasons, 1968-1973. Due to it being a mid-season replacement series it had the opportunity of having roughly half a season's worth of programs on the air several months before the start of the official 1968-1969 season. It premiered on January 22, 1968 and initially ran until April 29, 1968. It returned in the fall of 1968 to begin it's first full season and it officially remained in production until early 1973. Gary appeared on every episode during it's five and a half season run. Some of the notable guests that appeared were Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Tiny Tim...and most of them appeared in split second fashion on-screen uttering a one-liner or one of the program's catchphrases. John Wayne appeared in a much longer clip, by comparison to the usual rapid fire pace of the surrounding clips, and delivered a poem in a manner parodying Henry Gibson. Laugh-In also aired, originally, as an hour long program. During it's rerun life on Nick-at-Nite those half hours were cut and edited and spliced into individual half hours.

Unfortunately by my living in the Midwest I didn't get to experience hearing Gary's legendary radio programs that aired in California throughout the '60s, '70s, and into the '80s. His most durable role is that of disc jockey/radio personality and in between songs there'd be comical sketches or banter heard on the air. I wouldn't call him a shock jock, based on today's definitions, but he certainly became legendary for the insertion of humor and intentional blatant nonsense in his broadcasts that you just didn't hear that much of anymore on radio. I've heard snippets of a couple radio broadcasts from his Los Angeles program and the closest thing the Midwest had to Gary Owens happened to be a Cincinnati radio personality named Gary Burbank. The Cincinnati radio entertainer has since retired but he often replied, if asked, that his on-air name is inspired by "Gary" as in Gary Owens and "Burbank" from Gary Owens' Laugh-In catchphrase "...beautiful downtown Burbank". After hearing snippets of the radio program from Gary Owens and being familiar with Gary Burbank's style of radio comedy for so many years I can definitely hear the influence.

Here's an air-check from a 1969 Gary Owens radio program...click HERE. It features the sort of comical banter he'd fill his programs with between songs or introducing commercials and it includes real and fake commercial readings. It's nearly half an hour. Scroll down to the audio button after you click the link. Gary makes on air mentions of Geoff Edwards, Dick Enberg, and more. It's a fabulous audio time capsule. After listening to that, you can click HERE for an air-check from 1970. You'll hear the voice of another Los Angeles DJ, Dick Whittinghill, in that audio clip and other personalities at KMPC in that era. A promo for the California Angels baseball game from Dick Enberg is included in that air-check.

His radio career can be traced back to the early 1950s. He held his KMPC job for 20 years (1962-1982). In his career he had stints at KORN, KMA, KOIL, KROY, KEWB prior to KMPC. After KMPC he found himself working at several stations throughout the 1980s. Those included KKGO, KPRZ, and much later for a brief time on KFI. He continued being associated with radio, on and off, and throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s he was part of the Music of Your Life format of programs. The series, by the time Gary came aboard, featured celebrities and former AM radio disc jockeys hosting individual radio programs of their own and so Gary happened to be a natural choice. He remained hosting radio programming for Music of Your Life until 2004 according to most sites I've read over the years.

I purposely haven't included a really thorough detailed time line (such as providing specific months, dates, or years) about his radio, voice-over, and television careers because the information is easily available on other sites and blogs all over the internet. This short tribute is more about my thoughts, opinions, and memories.

Along side his radio career he did the announcing on a diverse list of programs and did voice overs for commercials for both radio and television. Myself being a cartoon fan, Gary had the biggest impact on me through not only his Laugh-In appearances but through his vocal performances as Space Ghost and Blue Falcon. Later on in the 1990s I learned about Roger Ramjet thanks to the reruns that were airing at the time on The Family Channel. You can click the collage for a bigger examination. Space Ghost used to air in reruns on a USA Network program called Cartoon Express. This USA series is also where I first seen episodes of Blue Falcon. Technically, though, Blue Falcon didn't have his own self-titled program. Blue Falcon appears on the series, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder. In each series Gary provided the voice for the superhero...Space Ghost is more of a legitimate action-adventure series. It's set in outer space and the plots typically revolve around Space Ghost and his team of helpers (Jan, Jace, and Blip) fighting all sorts of monsters, creatures, and dictatorial leaders from far off galaxies and universes. Space Ghost travels in a ship called The Phantom Cruiser and all members of the crime fighting team have the ability to turn themselves invisible if needed.

The series aired for one season, 1966-1967, and it contains 42 individual adventures. It remained in reruns for another season, 1967-1968, prior to it becoming a long running series (in reruns) in local syndication for the next 10+ years. The Space Ghost series was revived in 1981 as part of a package series called Space Stars. Gary returned as the voice of Space Ghost and an additional 22 episodes aired. So, altogether, Gary voiced Space Ghost on 64 episodic adventures.

Blue Falcon, by contrast, appeared on a comical action-adventure series. Although Blue Falcon is depicted as a serious crime fighter and his vocals provided by Gary Owens in that deep baritone bravado, his sidekick Dynomutt is a klutzy robotic canine that's forever messing up Blue Falcon's strategies and getting the duo in all kinds of predicaments. Gary voiced Blue Falcon during the 1976-1977 television season and later the character surfaced on Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics and it's sequel, Scooby's All Stars during the next couple of seasons on Saturday morning TV. In those series Blue Falcon and his sidekick had recurring scenes as part of the Scooby Doobie team. The latter two programs are a parody of the Olympics and ABC-TV's Battle of the Network Stars. In all, Gary performed the voice of Blue Falcon on 20 individual episodes during the 1976-1977 season. The adventures are most often aired in reruns as part of package programming due to the limited number of episodes available.

In his later years Owens often appeared on nostalgia programming centered either on AM radio or on the television series, Laugh-In. He had a fascination about Dinosaurs, too, that isn't as widely known as his TV and radio work happens to be. He wrote a book about being in the voice-over business and you can see that book in the above collage I posted. It's available at Amazon. He provided the voice-over messages for classic television network, Antenna TV, during the final years of his life. 

Here's an ARTICLE that features commentary from Barbara Eden and Wink Martindale about their thoughts on Gary.

Gary Owens passed away on Thursday February 12, 2015. The news didn't reach the public until Friday. In a bizarre chain of events the story of his death appeared in a post from Variety magazine early in the morning hours on Friday. There as not a single story confirming the news Variety posted and I immediately assumed it must be one of those death hoaxes that seem to be commonplace particularly with yesterday being Friday the 13th of all days.

Strangely enough more than 8 hours after the news of his death appeared in a social media message from Variety, the publication re-posted the news once again. Suddenly, not long after that re-posting, reports started to pour in from all news sites and from there it became a snowball of reports about him passing away. In the link I posted, if you look at the time it appeared on-line, note it's late in the day on Friday. It happened to be the 5-6pm time frame in which the news of his death spread all over the internet.

Here's something to think about...

Some sites state that he was born in 1936 and others say 1934. All over the internet the various reports say he happened to be 80. His birth month and date is May the 10th and if his true birth year is 1934 then indeed he really was 80. The funny thing is, prior to Friday, all the internet sites listed May 10, 1936 as his birth date. I'm sure 1934 is his accurate birth year...and all of those sites I'd taken a look at Friday have since changed their year of Gary's birth from 1936 to 1934. I'm using the 1934 birth year because that's the one reported by so many outlets and there isn't any conflicting stories using 1936 as his birth year. In the future should it be revealed that 1936 is his true birth year I'll correct the title of this blog entry.

Gary Owens: 1934-2015

Mask of the Blue Falcon review...

I'm fresh off the chair after having just watched the DVD release of Scooby-Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon. The movie is good for the kind of movie it is...it has a lot of visual appeal and high octane action much in the same way the rest of the direct-to-DVD Scooby projects have had over the last 15+ years. This movie isn't necessarily what I was assuming it would be back in late 2012 when I initially heard of it's upcoming release. I originally thought that the movie would bring back the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt and have the duo team up with Scooby and company to solve a mystery of some sort. Instead, the movie is about Shaggy and Scooby's obsession with Blue Falcon and Dynomutt...throughout the majority of the movie Scooby is wearing a Dynomutt costume while Shaggy wears a blue shirt with the letter F on it as an honor to his super hero idol. As always, my reviews feature several spoilers so for those who hadn't seen the movie and do not want to know how things turn out you shouldn't read the remaining of the commentary.

The movie's opening sequence is great. It's patterned after the live action Batman series of the '60s. The action of the movie centers around a comic book convention in California. The event is known more officially as 'Comic Con' but for humor the convention has an outlandish name. Since the movie is set inside a venue housing a comic book convention it makes full use of cartoon characters from a number of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Not only are there posters all over the walls promoting classic programs such as The Mighty Mightor and Hong Kong Phooey but in typical conventioneer behavior we see fans and enthusiasts showing up in costume as their favorite cartoon characters. Blink and you'll probably miss a dozen characters parading across the screen inside the convention center. I spotted an assortment of fans dressed as Zan and Jayna from the Super Friends; I saw a really quick shot of a fan dressed as Apache Chief and Samurai, both from the Super Friends. There's also some screen shots of people dressed as Space Ghost, Coil Man from The Impossibles, and then there are more posters. As mentioned, Scooby and Shaggy dress up as Dynomutt and Blue Falcon. Along for the ride is, of course, the rest of the gang: Fred, Daphne, and Velma. News surfaces that there will be a brand new, ultra-modern depiction of the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt. Fred and Daphne can't wait to see this...Shaggy and Scooby prefer the traditional characterizations while Velma's basically non-interested in the goings-on until she senses a mystery on the horizon when the villainous Mr. Hyde shows up and unleashes his uncontrollable anger on the city. This 'mystery' turns out to, on the surface, tie in with the upcoming movie of Blue Falcon.

As is the case with the Scooby television series, there are several red herring characters who are designed to appear to have a motive for being the villain but turn out innocent. This red herring treatment is given to a couple who are all too eager to receive publicity for the upcoming movie. Meanwhile, Scooby and Shaggy meet the original Blue Falcon at an autograph table. The actor, Owen Garrison, is bitter over the movie's producers overlooking him and forbidding him to wear the Blue Falcon costume during public appearances. The more dedicated of fans will immediately recognize that the name, Owen Garrison, is a reference to the original voice actor of Blue Falcon, Gary Owens. In addition to Owen Garrison we also get to meet a character named Joe Rabble who states that he's a friend of Owen's and an autograph signing partner.

Throughout the movie Garrison is often caught in embarrassing situations as his anger overtakes him and he unleashes his jealousy and annoyance over the 'new' Blue Falcon and the financial turmoil he's gone through due to television channels dropping reruns of the original cartoon in the lead-up to the newer Blue Falcon. Dynomutt, in reality, doesn't have much of an impact as far as screen time in the movie...he's seen in updated 'clips' of the original series where Frank Welker (the voice of Dynomutt) and Jeff Bennett (the voice of Owen Garrison/Blue Falcon) recreate dialogue lifted from the original Dynomutt series. While the Hyde monster unleashes his anger all over the city it becomes apparent that Owen Garrison must be the villain since he's the only person with enough motive to want to see the new Blue Falcon film burn in flames. While all of this was happening, security guard Mr. Becker gets involved and shuts down the comic book convention. Shaggy and Scooby later find themselves on the run of a river of green slime that's raging out of control all over the city. Later, the green slime was revealed to be harmless and nothing more than pistachio flavored foam.

Popping in and out of the movie is the Mayor...drawn almost exactly as he was in the Dynomutt series.

Mr. Becker's physical appearance, with a voice patterned after Paul Lynde, is what you might call a combination of Sylvester Sneekley/The Hooded Claw from The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Mr. Pertwee from Where's Huddles, and Mr. Peevely from The Hair Bear Bunch all rolled into one. Paul Lynde gave voice to the first two characters while John Stephenson used his Joe Flynn impression for Mr. Peevely. Scooby and Shaggy grow disillusioned when they become a laughing stock on 'Scoob Tube'. A nameless spectator had taped their encounter with the 'green slime' and uploaded it onto the internet. The climax of the movie begins at a baseball stadium. It is here where a now giant Mr. Hyde shows up and goes on a rampage. Eventually the giant Hyde monster is defeated, revealed to be a monster robot, and much to the dismay of Shaggy and Scooby, inside the Hyde monster is none other than Owen Garrison!! Well, the mystery is solved now, yes? Not exactly! Fred, Daphne, and Velma conclude that Owen couldn't be the Hyde monster because of it being too obvious. Mr. Hyde shows up once more...and this time the original Blue Falcon and Dynomutt arrive in their Falcon Car. Blue Falcon gives Hyde an upper cut...knocking him out. Velma does the honors and rips off the real Mr. Hyde's mask to reveal it to be...Joe Rabble! Remember him? He secretly hated Owen and was bitter over his own failed business exploits in his younger days. As he was being hauled away he delivered the traditional line nearly all villains stated in the franchise.

As a side note, Owen Garrison's voice, to my ears at least, is patterned after Adam West instead of Gary Owens. The Blue Falcon, after all, was a parody of Batman...and this movie opens with a visual reference to the iconic fight scenes in the '60s television show. It's something to wonder about.

I give The Mask of the Blue Falcon a great rating. There are so many in-jokes and references to the original series and to Saturday morning television and comic books, in general, from the '70s that it's sure to go over the heads of those not too familiar with classic cartoons. A helium balloon of '60s cartoon character, Frankenstein Jr., features prominently in one of the movie's action scenes. Also to look for is a hilarious sequence where Fred, Daphne, and Velma dress as members of The Herculoids.

Scooby-Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon...

In late February 2013 there will be a new DVD that'll hit the marketplace. Scooby-Doo: The Mask of the Blue Falcon is set to be released on February 26, 2013 and it has a runtime of 70-78 minutes according to various web-sites that have been writing about this upcoming movie since the middle of November. 

I have seen the video clip advertisement and for fans of Gary Owens you may be interested to know that he doesn't return to the role of Blue Falcon. Owens voiced the character from it's creation in 1976. The first appearance of the character happened on September 11, 1976 in the series titled Dynomutt, Dog Wonder. Blue Falcon and Dynomutt was a parody of the live-action Batman and Robin series from the mid '60s. The overly excited Blue Falcon narrator, Ron Feinberg, was an exaggeration on William Dozier, the narrator and executive producer of the live-action Batman series.

The Mask of the Blue Falcon film is visually patterned on the current Scooby-Doo series on the air titled Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. This particular series began in 2010 and it's had one of the most bizarre scheduling feats of all time. Rather than airing at a set time and on a select day of the week this particular series has aired on multiple days of the week and at various times on a string of cable television outlets overseas and on the Cartoon Network in America. At the moment there have been 41 episodes produced of this particular series. 

Big City Falcon

Taking place in Big City, crime of all kinds is tackled by super-hero's Blue Falcon and side-kick, Dyn-o-Mutt, who also goes by the name of Dog Wonder. The series is a parody of Batman and Robin. I'm sure most know that Robin was often referred to as the Boy Wonder.

The concept of the series was to have Blue Falcon pursue crime and evil-doing along side Dog Wonder. They receive their missions from an executive known as Focus One who appears on a big screen hidden behind a book case. Blue Falcon's secret identity is art dealer/collector, Radley Crowne. Falcon's lair is the base of operations for the two heroes. Upon getting their mission statement from Focus One, it's time to fly off...which Blue Falcon delivers his catch-phrase, the urgent and up-beat "To the Falcon Car!".

The adventures are basic and simple, nothing really complex...afterall this is a spoof of super-hero cartoons and the plots outlandish and filled with slap-stick cartoonish violence. Dynomutt is a mechanical dog...able to extend all parts of his body. This ability would prove valuable in almost any case but in this case it proves to be a hindrance for Dynomutt is klutzy and his powers are always mal-functioning which leads to a lot of the humor.

A highlight of the show is seeing Dynomutt blunder and get the two of them in trouble with that week's villain. A mal-function would often lead to Blue Falcon uttering another catch-phrase, "D-o-g-g-g-g Won-n-n-n-der-r-r-r-r!!!" said in a hilarious, drawn out, frustrated manner. One of the mal-functions, specifically the net, would almost always capture Blue Falcon instead of the villain. Dog Wonder's enthusiasm makes him a character viewers may feel sorry for because in spite of the mal-functions, he still has the enthusiasm to do things right. An example of this would be "Don't worry, BF...I'll stop 'em with the Dyno super-duper instant glooper glue...".

I made up that line but if it were a real scene we'd see Dynomutt grab the glue gun from his chest, where his props/weapons were stored, and we'd see Dynomutt spray the glue but it probably would go all over Blue Falcon, or, Dynomutt would squirt the glue on the floor, but it would land in Blue Falcon's walk path, and stick him to the floor. That's a typical mal-function that Blue Falcon would endure, often causing him to utter "Dog Wonder!!!" in that drawn out delivery I was writing about earlier.

The villains of the series bordered on the Batman and Dick Tracy style villains. Each villain had a schtick...a lot of them had facial or body defects that added to their personality. Fishface, for example, was a villain that was part man and part fish. The Worm was a villain that played on the cliche of the scientist working on an experiment but is caught in the crossfires and as a result their personality is transferred to the creature they were experimenting on. Low Brow was a cave-man villain. An obvious parody came along with The Queen Hornet whose name was patterned after The Green Hornet. The Queen spoke like a cross between Mae West and Jayne Mansfield. The Gimmick was a megalomaniac genius often did in by his own schemes. Super Thug was a parody of Superman...in fact, in the episode Don't Bug Super Thug the show's announcer parodied the announcing style of the Superman cartoons telling us of Super Thug's incredible powers and abilities. The villains were over-the-top but perhaps the villain who was more down to Earth was The Red Vulture, which parodied Blue Falcon's name.

Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder were tied to the Scooby-Doo show. The cast of Scooby-Doo made several appearances on this series. Everybody Hyde was an episode that featured Blue Falcon and Dynomutt teaming up with Scooby and the gang to capture a villain who used a potion that transformed him into a Hyde-like creature/monster. Willie the Weasel was the unlikely villain who used a Mr Hyde disguise while committing crimes. The Wizard of Ooze is an episode that featured the super-heroes and the Scooby gane on the pursuit of a swamp rat, going by the name of Swamp Rat who teamed with a henchman with the peculiar name of Mud Mouth. The two villains were on the prowl for water pumps...they used the pumps to flood Big City with swamp water in an effort to create an evacuation...leaving the city easy to loot.

If there were still any doubters where Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder's inspiration came from, there was an episode actually called The Injustice League of America which featured many of the villains from the series teaming up to destroy the two super-heroes. For those who don't know, Batman and other super-heroes in the DC Comics universe, mostly those depicted in the Superfriends TV series, were collectively referred to as The Justice League of America, or JLA for short.

Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder were introduced in a series known as The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Adventure Hour, which ran for 16 episodes in 1976. The series was released on DVD a few years ago. There were four further adventures of Blue Falcon and Dog Wonder produced in 1977 that aired on Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics program...the four episodes were broken into two parts each, parodying the cliff-hanger, and allowing the series to claim eight 11 minute episodes instead of four 22 minute episodes.

Those 1977 episodes and the 1976 episodes were later ran together in numerous syndicated airings throughout the late '70s and '80s leaving some to wonder why those four episodes from 1977 weren't a part of the DVD release a few years earlier but technically since those 1977 episodes weren't part of the 1976 show that is why they weren't included in the Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt DVD.

Dog Wonder's pet-name for Blue Falcon is "BF". In turn, BF's pet-name for Dynomutt is "Dog Wonder" or often, "Dog Blunder". The voices are Gary Owens, in the role of Blue Falcon; and Frank Welker as the voice of Dynomutt. Ron Feinberg is the emotionally-charged announcer, which is a parody of the style heard on the 1960's live-action version of Batman. Larry McCormick, a news anchor, was heard as Big City's Mayor. John Stephenson was heard as several of the villains: Red Vulture, The Blimp, Von Flick, and The Glob. Stephenson was also the voice of Big City's Chief of Police as well as numerous other incidental characters.