Dal McKennon

American actor and voice actor (born 19 July 1919 in La Grande, Oregon, USA – died 14 July 2009 in Raymond, Washington, USA)

After starting out at KGW radio in Portland, Oregon, and running his own recording studio in the Oregonian Building, Dallas R. McKennon moved to Hollywood, CA in 1952. There he did voice work for Walt Disney and Walter Lantz and hosted his own TV show for children, "Captain Jet." Even after moving back to Oregon in 1968 and settling in Cannon Beach, McKennon continued his voice-over work for Disney and others.

In a career that spanned 50 years, McKennon created the voices of more than 160 different characters, including Buzz Buzzard in Lantz's "Woody Woodpecker" cartoons, Gumby in the "Gumby" TV show, and Archie and other characters in "The Archie Show," another animated TV show. For Walt Disney Animation, he voiced characters in "Lady and the Tramp," "Sleeping Beauty," "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," "Mary Poppins," and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." Between 1971 and 1975, he also voiced Zeke, the singing and banjo-playing leader of The Country Bears, a Disney World attraction whose songs were released on LPs.

An avid historian with an interest in early Oregon history, McKennon worked at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center and wrote plays, songs and stories for the Oregon Trail's sesquicentennial in 1993, some of which he issued on cassette tape.