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John Byner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Byner (born John Biener on June 28, 1938 in New York City) is an actor, comedian, and impressionist who has had a lengthy television and movie career.
His voice work includes the long-running cartoon series The Ant and the Aardvark, in which the title characters are voiced by Byner's dead-on impressions of Dean Martin, and Jackie Mason, respectively.
On The Ed Sullivan Show, where he made his first early TV appearances, he mimicked Ed Sullivan as well as anyone, including the "master" Sullivan impersonator, Will Jordan. His other impressions included John Wayne and sang as Dean Martin and Johnny Mathis. His ability to mimic "Toastmaster General" George Jessel came in handy during his appearances on panel programs such as celebrity "roasts" and other tributes.[1]
On a 1967 episode of Get Smart, Byner played a KAOS agent who made a phone call to the Chief of CONTROL (played by Edward Platt), performed a perfect impression of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and told the Chief he was fired and replaced with agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). Smart, the Chief and Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) foiled this plot to undermine CONTROL, and Byner's character was arrested.
In 1970, he hosted about 25 episodes of a syndicated half-hour musical variety series called Something Else.
In the late 1970s, he had a featured role as Detective Donahue on the tv series Soap.
In the 1980s he hosted the Canadian TV comedy series, Bizarre. That show introduced many people to hapless daredevil Super Dave Osborne, played by Bob Einstein.
Over the years he has done straight acting work and also light characters in otherwise serious dramas, such as the mostly-harmless con artist "Cotton Dunn" in the 1990s cop series Silk Stalkings.
One voice of his own invention is a high-pitched, raspy voice that defies easy description. It is vaguely similar to Donald Duck, only more intelligible. He has sometimes given that voice a character to go with it, "Felix Fossididdi". It was actually a voice that he and his brother came up with, which they would sometimes use when ordering in restaurants in order to try to spook the waitress.
Currently married to fourth wife, Anne Gaybis, he was previously divorced three times, and has at least 4 children from his first marriage.