Dallas McKennon, an exuberant character actor and voice actor who helped enliven Gumby, Archie Andrews, and many other animated characters, has died. He was 89.
Mr. McKennon, who played the tavern keeper Cincinnatus on the 1960s TV series “Daniel Boone” and dozens of other codgers on film and television, died Tuesday of age-related causes at a care center in Raymond, Wash., according to his daughter Barbara Porter.
Mr. McKennon was easily identifiable on screen, but he could bend his voice in endless variations to bring personality to a host of sound roles.
Stop-motion pioneer Art Clokey used Mr. McKennon for the high-pitched tones of the green animated clay figure Gumby, and Woody Woodpecker cartoon creator Walter Lantz chose Mr. McKennon for Woody’s nemesis, Buzz Buzzard.
Mr. McKennon also provided the typical teenager voice for Archie Andrews and he recorded characters for Walt Disney in the films “Lady and the Tramp” “Mary Poppins,” and “101 Dalmatians,” among others.
At Disney theme parks, Mr. McKennon’s voice warns riders on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to hang on to their hats and glasses: “This here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!”
And at Disney’s Epcot, when the animatronic Ben Franklin in the American Adventure exhibit speaks, it’s Mr. McKennon doing the talking.
“He was an entertainer,” Will Ryan, a friend and fellow voice actor, told the Los Angeles Times on Friday. “There was something of the 6-year-old in him, no matter what his age was.”
“He had a gift for mimicry, but there’s that spirit behind it. … It wasn’t so much that he could do different voices, but that he could enthusiastically do different personalities.”
Sometimes called Dal, Mr. McKennon had been imitating sounds since he was a youngster growing up in rural northeast Oregon.
Mr. McKennon had small parts in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 suspense film “The Birds” and the 1967 Elvis Presley vehicle “Clambake.”
He also inhabited bad-guy roles in a seemingly endless string of TV and movie westerns, including “Gunsmoke,” “The Virginian,” “Wagon Train” and “Bonanza.”
“I specialized in barn burnings,” he once told an interviewer.
Mr. McKennon is survived by his wife of 66 years, Betty, as well as six daughters and two sons.
![Residents and taxpayers of Barrington School District 220 rated safety and security, and a new auditorium at Barrington High School, as priorities for the school district, officials learned as community input was collected in preparation for a potential multi-million-dollar referendum that would be placed on the ballot in the November election. The data was shared with school board members April 2 by EO Sullivan Consulting, which was hired by the district to collect community feedback through phone and online surveys, four public engagement sessions and referendum advisory committee meetings. Information had been collected in three phases and began earlier this […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/PPN-L-bcr-district-220-feferend-002.jpg?w=390 "Residents and taxpayers of Barrington School District 220 rated safety and security, and a new auditorium at Barrington High School, as priorities for the school district, officials learned as community input was collected in preparation for a potential multi-million-dollar referendum that would be placed on the ballot in the November election. The data was shared with school board members April 2 by EO Sullivan Consulting, which was hired by the district to collect community feedback through phone and online surveys, four public engagement sessions and referendum advisory committee meetings. Information had been collected in three phases and began earlier this […]")