Dayton Allen on African Tours

Here's an interesting short from the early days of TV starring Dayton Allen.

Dayton Allen
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Dayton Allen (September 24, 1919 November 11, 2004) was a comedian and voice actor. He was one of the "men in the street" on the '"Steve Allen Show."' His catch phrase was "Why not, Bubbe?" (pronounced "whooooyyy not!")

Born Dayton Allen Bolke in New York City, he grew up in Mount Vernon, New York, where he graduated from A.B. Davis High School in June 1936. One of his school friends was Art Carney. Allen, like Carney, began his career in radio. In 19378 WINS (AM) hired him as a disc jockey.

Allen was the voice of various New York-based children's television show characters, appearing on Winky Dink and You as Mr. Bungle for five years, and playing "Phineas T. Bluster", "Flub-a-Dub", and various other puppet characters on Howdy Doody (as well as several "live" characters, including Ugly Sam and Pierre the Chef) for 4 years. Dayton was also the voice of Deputy Dawg, Heckle and Jeckle, Luno, and many early Terrytoons cartoon characters. He continued to be a voiceover performer through the 1990s.

He was best known as the "Why Not?" man when he joined the cast of the NBC Sunday night variety show that Allen began hosting to compete against Ed Sullivan on CBS. The catch-phrase began as a stalling ad-lib to an interview question; then it caught on. Allen used it for television commercials and saw novelty toys, a book and a record spinoff the "Why not?" phenomenon. In its day, fans were shouting "Why not?" as often as Mad Magazine's famous "What? Me Worry?"

His brother, Bradley Bolke, was also a voice actor best known as the voice of Chumley (Tennessee Tuxedo's walrus sidekick) on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, and the syndicated version of The Underdog Show.

Allens talents as a mimic were showcased in October 1963 when he appeared alongside Groucho Marx on the CBS-TV game show Ive Got A Secret. The shows panelists had been blindfolded, and all their questions to Groucho were answered instead by Allen doing an accurate Groucho impersonation. Finally, with panelists Bess Myerson, Betsy Palmer, Henry Morgan, and Bill Cullen all stumped, the secret was revealed.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• dayton
• allen
• steve
• alan
• why
• not
• safari
• gag
• schtick
• heckle
• jeckle
• voice
• voice-over
• over
• cartoon
• animation
• bubbe
• deputy
• dawg
• africa
• tv
• television
• 50's
• 60's
• fifties
• sixties
• sketch
• comedy
• 16mm
• oddball
• cinegraphic

[jcwshank1]

Met Dayton when i first moved to White Plains. We were at a party one night and he danced and sang Candy Man, he was great. He was refinishing furniture at the time. He was a good friend Lynn Joseph. jw

[JTACIJ]

im sitting here with his 84 year old brother watching Bradley Bolke- in Dobbs Ferry NY

[67nairb]

2:40 that's a tiger not a lion. There are no tigers in Africa.

[fromthesidelines]

Dayton appeared in a brief series of "five minute" comedy vignettes (with room for a commercial), filmed in 1960 for syndication to local stations. This is one of them. The laughter and applause were dubbed in...

[mzkittymeow79]

hilarious! thanks so much for posting :)

[PopeFlores]

Never heard of this guy before, now I'm a fan!

[umajunkcollector]

You rate, a 5+ for sure!

Tis funny guy reminds me of that ducktor on the Simpsons that sez, "hello everybody"!

[Coins4Cheese]

Keep the cool vids coming!