RIP Don Pardo

The legendary TV voice, gone at 96.

http://tvline.com/2014/08/18/don-pardo-dies-dead-saturday-night-live-announcer/

 

RIP.

It'll probably come up in later stories, but was he not one of the first people on the air with word JFK had been shot?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgvwA8UUaC0

You can move ahead to the 1:00 mark.

 

Monday Night Dead.

 

He had worked continuously for NBC since 1944. That's SEVENTY years.

 

We went to the same high school (not at the same time). RIP.

My first memory of him as a child was the voice-over in Weird Al's "I Lost on Jeopardy."

 

That was a parody of the original Jeopardy game show with Art Fleming as host. Interestingly, the modern Trebek version debuted a few months after the Weird Al song (it'll be 30 years next month). I don't know if the song sparked a revival or if it was a coincidence.

 

May favorite line of his on SNL: "Charlie's Angels Catch the Syph will not be seen tonight..."

 

Fun fact: Pardo was the original announcer for the first incarnation of The Price Is Right.

 

Remember reading somewhere - might have been the SNL oral history - that Phil Hartman did such a great Pardo impression that he subbed for Don as the announcer when he couldn't make a few shows and nobody noticed.

 

Always liked hearing his voice when he would do Len Berman's "Spanning the World", with the tag line "See you next time, if there IS a next time."

Also enjoyed it when he would announce that SNL was pre-emptied for Saturday Night's Main Event.

RIP

 

And Jeopardy.


Edit: D'oh! I see that's already been mentioned. Guess I have to settle for a lovely parting gift.

Tell him what he's won, Don Pardo!