George Lowe, a former Atlantan best known for voicing Space Ghost on Cartoon Network’s “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” felt a sense of loss at the news of voice-over great Don Pardo's death at age 96 on Monday. (Read an obituary here.) On his Facebook page, Lowe, who will appear at Dragon Con over Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, wrote this tribute to his hero:
The great Don Pardo has left us.
I grew up with those wonderful pipes blasting out of the Philco and urging us all to stay tuned for "Jeopardy!"
Credit: hpousner
Credit: hpousner
Naturally, by the time "Saturday Night Live" hit the air, I was already such a Pardo fan I was doing my tribute at the end of every radio shift from the mid-'80s on.
In Atlanta one year I was thrilled to find out you could actually call the NBC switchboard and be connected to the announcer booth. A guy picked up and in a very businesslike tone I said, "Don Pardo, please." I thought I'd get the New York favorite of "Who's calling and what's this about?"
Nope. To my delight the next voice I heard was Don Pardo's!
I asked if he ever got to Atlanta and we spoke for a few minutes and he told me he spent all of his time in New York. Finally I said, "You don't sound like you on the phone..."
And he replied with a great shift from his regular speaking voice to his sound we all knew, saying, "That's because I'm not using my money voice right now!"
What a great guy! There's the proof too ... He didn't know who was on the phone from Adam and still graciously took the call and was charming and funny!
Seventy years with the same gig?! That really was a lifetime contract he signed with NBC.
We're all lucky we got to listen to him for as long as we did.
I think I always wanted to be him. But nobody could be Don Pardo but Don Pardo!
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