Allen Swift Voice Over Artist Underdog King Leonardo Diver Dan 1990

This is part of an interview I did with the legendary vice over artist Allen Swift in 1990. Learn more at TVDAYS.com Allen Swift, perhaps the most versatile of the old guard New York-based voice actors, died at the age of 86. Swift was probably best known for his work on Howdy Doody, Underdog and King Leonardo, and numerous Rankin/Bass specials, but his long career encompassed countless commercials, records, theatrical shorts, and live-action dubbing.Swift was born Ira Stadlen in 1924 but took his professional name from his two favorite satirists, radio wit Fred Allen and Gulliver's Travels author Jonathan Swift. A versatile dialectician and impressionist, Swift's earliest voice work was on the live puppet series Howdy Doody in 1949, replacing Dayton Allen. Swift played nearly all the puppet characters, including the ill-tempered mayor Phineas J. Bluster; incompetent detective Inspector John J. Fadoozle; salty sea captain Windy Scuttlebutt; and, for a time, the voice of Howdy Doody himself, while host "Buffalo Bob" Smith was ill. He also appeared on-camera on the series, in such roles as a French painter.