Thursday, February 22, 2007

Happy Birthday, Don Pardo. This Is Tiny Speaking.

From Wikipedia.
Don Pardo (born Dominick George Pardo on February 22, 1918 in Westfield, Massachusetts) is a legendary radio and television announcer. Since the 1940s, Pardo has been an in-house announcer for the NBC television network. He is the last of the "lifetime" staff announcers at NBC to still be working (following the retirement of Howard Reig and the death of Fred Facey). His best known announcing work is for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC (which he gave up after the 1999 telecast) and the television series Saturday Night Live; he has been with the show since it premiered in 1975, except for one season (1981-1982).
On one memorable SNL episode in December 1976, Pardo participated in a musical performance by Frank Zappa, reciting a verse of the song "I'm The Slime". Pardo subsequently reprised this role on the live-recorded version of the song for Zappa in New York album (it was, however, not featured on the first release in 1978, but it appears on the 1993 CD re-release). He also provided narration for the songs "The Illinois Enema Bandit" and "Punky's Whips" (an ongoing business dispute between Zappa and his then-record company led to "Punky's Whips" being removed from the 1978 album, but the song was reinstated on the 1993 CD).
Prior to SNL, Pardo made his mark on game shows for NBC as the booming voice of The Price is Right from 1956 until it moved to ABC in 1963. He quickly moved over to Jeopardy!, which he announced from 1964, until the original version of the series ended in 1975. He reprised that role with a cameo voice-over in "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1984 parody song, "I Lost on Jeopardy." He also announced numerous lesser-known New York-based NBC games such as Three on a Match, Winning Streak and Jackpot!.
In addition, Pardo has also been the announcer for WNBC-TV's Live at Five news program, NBC Nightly News and Wheel of Fortune (during special on-location weeks, when the show originated in New York).
Pardo was the on-duty live booth announcer for WNBC-TV in New York and the NBC network on November 22, 1963, and it was he who first announced to NBC's viewers that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. (His first bulletin interrupted a local WNBC-TV broadcast of "Bachelor Father" before the entire NBC network went live with the story.) Because NBC was slow to begin videotaping the assassination coverage, for decades it was believed that Pardo's historic bulletins were lost. However, almost 40 years later an audio tape of the bulletins was discovered in a private collection.
Pardo is the announcer of "Ten At Ten", a daily radio show on KFOG FM, San Francisco. His voice is also heard during the open and close of Len Berman's "Spanning the World" segments on WNBC and Today. His close goes as follows: "Tune in next time for "Spanning the World"...if there is a next time." The Bob and Tom Show also uses a pre-recorded opening of Pardo exclaiming, "It's 'The Bob and Tom Show'!" every morning at the start of the syndicated radio program.
Pardo is the father of Jimmy Pardo, the comedian.

Don Pardo is one of the voices that everyone has heard all their life, yet the man could walk down any street in America and not be recognized. Along with Johnny Olson, Don is one of my earliest influences--one of the guys you could look to and realize that you could actually talk for a living...even if his living (and his exposure) has been much greater than mine.

Happy 89th Birthday, Don Pardo!