From beautiful downtown Gondwanaland!

September 13, 2008 6:57 PM

Gary Owens (previously) and Eric Boardman on dinosaurs: "More Dinosaurs," 1, 2, 3. "Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs," 1, 2, 3. "Son of Dinosaurs," (featuring Jimmy Stewart) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Not dinosaurs, but still cool: "Prehistoric World," 1, 2, 3.

These videos were a huge part of my childhood and I was thrilled when Laelaps linked to them. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any background on these at all. Or maybe I was too busy mouthing the dialogue to notice.

posted by brundlefly (5 comments total)

Yes, my psyche was affected by Garyosaurus.
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 7:29 PM on September 13, 2008

Wow, this is a big chunk of television I missed in the ‘80’s. I recall vividly my visit with the Cabazon dinos (seen in “Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs” part 2) in 1981 or ‘82. Thanks, brundlefly.
posted by bonobo at 8:11 PM on September 13, 2008

Gary Owens Previously on MetaFilter (hard to search for because mattoxic misspelled his name - but NOT a double, that post was about his '60s cartoon Roger Ramjet)

I was going to go all anecdotal about him, but I see I already have here and farther down here.

I suspect that one reason that these Dinosuar shows are so hard to find is that Gary also did some voices for the Henson Productions "Dinosaurs" giant puppet sitcom and confusion does ensue. But also it seems that TV archeologists assume everything made for Cable in the early '80s is not worth digging up.

The Dinosaurs shows are just one of many examples of Gary Owens being a generous team player. When the legendary Los Angeles radio duo of Lohman and Barkley broke up, he worked with Al Lohman (who was both the 'funny one' and the 'difficult one' of the team) and played straight-man for over a year when he didn't need to.

The "365 Days" mp3 for April 7, 2003 is a collaboration "Garish" did with comedic-singer Mrs. Miller ('Phoebe Festoon' was the wife of a character Garish did on his radio show for years).

There is one famous audio clip of him breaking up, as he attempted to do a live cold reading of a generic "sponsor's Christmas greeting" and realized it was from Preparation H. But there exist NO clips of him yelling or swearing at anybody, because he never does.

Okay, one personal anecdote: I talked my way out of working with him when KMPC changed to an all-talk format in 1980 but kept him on afternoon drive. He personally recommended me to station managment (HONEST!) because of my work as Producer for "Sweet" Dick Whittington and the comedy newsletter I did that he had subscribed to from day one. He really wanted creative support to do a 3-hour daily show without any musical time-filler. I went in to interview with the Program Director with enthusiasm, confidence, big ideas and the assumption that this Big Time Hollywood-based radio institution was looking for somebody to do a full-time job. And I explained to the PD that I'd left Whittington because it was a part-time barely-over-minimum-wage gig (his station was a no-budget suburban operation). It turned out they wanted somebody cheap, and it was Gary who called me to explain they thought me "over-qualified" (translation: over-priced) and to apologize profusely for wasting my time and getting my hopes too high. Gary Owens is totally a Class Act and I still occasionally regret not offering to pay THEM for the chance to work for him.
posted by wendell at 8:49 PM on September 13, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

George Bailey is quite the dynosoar. Nice Jimmy Stewart link. Korea was not popular, but be ended it all so very well. So few see a distant past future of hope in such times.
posted by buzzman at 9:40 PM on September 13, 2008

I remember watching this whenever it was on as a kid on the Disney Channel. I sometimes wondered "Who the hell was that guy with the mustache who did that?" and now I know. Strangely, I've since heard of Gary Owens but I never made the connection. Likewise, I totally didn't realize he was the guy who was the announcer on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.

Well now I can die in peace knowing who the guy with the mustache was who said in a magnificent voice "dinosaaaaaaaaurs!"
posted by champthom at 12:19 AM on September 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]