Trivia

Prolific radio announcer, DJ, narrator, broadcaster and animated voice specialist, one of the best in the business, who has marked over 3,000 cartoon shows and appeared in over 12,000 radio shows. His cartel of cartoon characters include Roger Ramjet, Space Ghost, The Blue Falcon and Ren & Stimpy's Powdered Toast Man.

Added to the insanity as the on-camera ("from beautiful downtown Burbank") hand-cupping-the-ear announcer with the inimitable, over-modulated voice on the cult TV slapstick romp Laugh-In (1967) from 1968-73.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6743 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 20, 1981.

In 2000 he appeared in a USO show for the US Army at Camp Garry Owen, South Korea.

First job was delivering news as a teenager on radio in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame (1994).

Honorary sheriff of Encino, California

Guest-hosted America's Top 10 (1980) for Casey Kasem the weekend of September 12-13, 1981; it was his only time counting down the 40 hottest hit singles from Billboard Magazine's "Hot 100" survey.

In 1983 he organized a campaign to get a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for "The Three Stooges" and received 15 thousand letters from fans who wanted it.

Father of Chris Dane Owens and Scott Owens.

Was an illustrator and cartoonist before getting into acting, announcing and voice-overs.

As a high-school student in South Dakota, his history teacher was George McGovern.

Had never cupped his ear (done by old-school announcers to better hear themselves) while working in radio. While discussing what he would do as "Laugh-In"'s announcer, he and George Schlatter took a restroom break. Noticing the tiled walls, Owens made the gesture as a joke, commenting on the room's "perfect acoustics" for broadcasting. Schlatter saw this, laughed, and told him to use it on the show. It became his trademark.

He passed away on February 12, 2015, three months away from what would have been his 81st birthday on May 10.

While he was known to some small degree for his voice work in various cartoon series, his greatest fame by far was his six years of weekly appearances as the on-camera comic announcer for the smash hit TV show, Laugh-In (1967).

He was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His urn was given to his family afterwards.