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Gary Owens, 'Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In' Announcer, Dies

Gary Owens performs in a skit at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 2008. Owens, best known for announcing "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," died on Thursday.
Mark J. Terrill
/
AP
Gary Owens performs in a skit at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 2008. Owens, best known for announcing "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," died on Thursday.

Gary Owens, the voice-over star known as the announcer on Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In, died on Thursday at his home in the Los Angeles area.

NPR member station KPCC reports that Owens parlayed his role on Laugh-In into a long career of voice-over work. KPCC adds:

"Owens hosted thousands of radio programs over his seven-decade career. He appeared in more than a dozen movies and on scores of TV shows, including Lucille Ball and Bob Hope specials. He also voiced hundreds of animated characters, recorded a comedy album and wrote two books."

Variety reports that Owens lent his voice to 3,000 cartoons, including Space Ghost, "Blue Falcon, Roger Ramjet, Powdered Toast Man and even Batman."

Owens was 80 years old.

We'll leave you with video of Owens' trademark one-hand-over ear delivery on Laugh-In:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.