You may not have known his name—but your certainly knew voice.

Don LaFontaine—the king of voice over work—died suddenly in Los Angeles following complications from elective surgery he underwent earlier this year.

Back in March, we ran this post which included an in-his-own-words account of how he nearly died after botched elective surgery…

* * * ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 26, 2008 * * *

~~~~~~

JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES…..

The man who has the “voice of doom delivery” that has narrated thousands of movie previews almost ended up on the great cutting room floor in the sky…

Don LaFontaine—who gained on-camera fame with the general public as the “movie announcer guy” in a Geico commercial—was one of several famous voice over artists we profiled in this post last year…

Don’s voice was silenced—and his life almost cut short after a routine bit of elective surgery went bad.

You can read his own words here about what happened—and how he’s now recovering ..

Just like the movies he promotes—Don’s on his way toward a happy ending…

~~~~~

Unfortunately—this movie did NOT have a happy ending. His wife said a blood clot in Don’s lung suddenly appeared last week, and he was unable to recover from it.

Don was the kind of guy who didn’t mind poking fun of himself—as you can see in these clips..

Don was 68 years old.

—Steve

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Over the course of the last few months—we’ve told you about a lot of stuff…

Now—it’s time for an update on a few items…

GNOME MAN’S LAND….

It seems a tiny gnome-like creature spotted a few weeks ago in a remote Argentinian town is now the focus of a major police investigation there..

We first told you about the “creepy gnome” in this post—which included cell phone video of the creature taken by some teens.

Now—as you can read here, it appears the gnome has been terrorizing the town of General Guemes for decades…

Apparently 90% of the people in the town of 30,000 believe gnomes are stalking the streets at night…

Hundreds of people in General Guemes claim to have seen gnomes at one time in their lives —including the Police Commissioner…

Guess you won’t have to work hard to convince him the need to send in Sherlock Gnomes to investigate the matter….

PUPPY TALES….

There’s still no word on the status of the military investigation launched following a soldiers posting of a video on the Internet showing a U-S marine throwing what appeared to be a puppy off a cliff in Iraq.

We first told you about that video in this post—-and in the next few days it spread—creating a stir world-wide…

In that post, we railed about the bad impression of the U-S military it created..

But now—we want to tell you about the OTHER SIDE of the story..

There’s a rescue effort for dogs called Operation Baghdad Pups—that brings dogs who’ve been saved by our G-I’s overseas here to the United States..

Baghdad Pups is an outgrowth of the efforts of Mark Feffer—who brought his dog “Cinnamon” stateside after a long struggle.

You can read the details of his ordeal here…

Mark also shows up briefly in this clip—which shows the work that Operation Baghdad Pups is doing in conjunction with our guys and gals overseas.

JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES…..

The man who has the ” voice of doom delivery” that has narrated thousands of movie previews almost ended up on the great cutting room floor in the sky…

Don LaFontaine—who gained on-camera fame with the general public as the “movie announcer guy” in a Geico commercial—was one of several famous voice over artists we profiled in this post last year…

Don’s voice was silenced—and his life almost cut short after a routine bit of elective surgery went bad.

You can read his own words here about what happened—and how he’s now recovering ..

Just like the movies he promotes—Don’s on his way toward a happy ending…

—Steve

In TV— the audience gets what it sees..

But, back in my radio days—when you were just a voice—-everyone had their own mental picture of what you looked like…

I used to get a kick out of watching the reaction of people when they met me for the first time.

You could see the disappointment in their eyes. They were expecting a tall, handsome, blond guy. Instead they got this…

But there are still some voices that remain a mystery.

They are the folks who you seem to hear EVERYWHERE— from movie trailers to soup commercials.

They’re a small, elite bunch…

But now—you’ll get to not only hear them doing the narrations—you’ll see them too…

They got together to produce this video for an awards ceremony that honors people in the commercial production business… And, they had no trouble placing their tongues firmly in cheek, and making fun of the styles that made them famous.

So, sit back, and watch your impressions evaporate before your very eyes…

Of course, you still might not recognize one of those mystery voices even after seeing him in that video.

More people probably recognize Don LaFontaine now—as he looks today without the wig—in the Geico commercials…

Well, at least he’s not a tall, good looking blond guy either!

—Steve

Link here for the story Steve covered today on NBC-17