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| - __NOEDITSECTION__ Image:Information-silk.png|Character Template rect 0 0 20 20 Staff Template desc none Allen Swift Real Name Unknown Job Titles Voice Actor First publication Unknown
- Ira Stadlen (January 16, 1924 – April 18, 2010), known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, known for playing characters including Simon Bar Sinister on the Underdog cartoon show. He provided the voices of many of the characters in The Bluffers, most of the voices for the 1960s underwater puppet show Diver Dan, and the voices in Gene Deitch's 1960–1962 group of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Swift was a children's television show host on WPIX in New York City as "Captain Allen". He took his professional name from radio comedian Fred Allen and 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift.
- He was also heard in several 1970s animated Sesame Street inserts, including "Melvin the Moving Man" (EKA: Episode 0276), as various alley cats who learn about harmony (EKA: Episode 0926), and as a giggling man presenting the letter G (EKA: Episode 0514).
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| - __NOEDITSECTION__ Image:Information-silk.png|Character Template rect 0 0 20 20 Staff Template desc none Allen Swift Real Name Unknown Job Titles Voice Actor First publication Unknown
- He was also heard in several 1970s animated Sesame Street inserts, including "Melvin the Moving Man" (EKA: Episode 0276), as various alley cats who learn about harmony (EKA: Episode 0926), and as a giggling man presenting the letter G (EKA: Episode 0514). Swift was born Ira Stadlen but took his professional name from his two favorite satirists, radio star 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 until roughly 1956 (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. Swift continued his association with kiddie programs, providing the voices of assorted fish and the title character on the puppet series Diver Dan before landing his own local TV berth as "Captain" Allen Swift, hosting a block of Popeye cartoons. This led to Swift playing himself and Popeye on records, and filling in for Jack Mercer in the occasional commercial. His major cartoon voice work began in the 1960s, however. For Total TV's King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, Swift played Odie Cologne (in a subdued Ronald Colman impression), Itchy Brother, and the hapless Tooter Turtle (“Help, Mr. Wizard!”) On Underdog, Swift played most of the villains, notably the mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister (in a Lionel Barrymore imitation), the gangster Riff Raff, and an assortment of alien invaders. For Rankin/Bass, he provided all of the male voices (save Boris Karloff) in their feature film Mad Monster Party? (including Dracula, the Invisible Man, and grunting as Frankenstein's Monster) and was heard in many TV specials. In the 1970s, he dubbed narration and voices for The Barbapppas. Swift also collaborated with animator Gene Deitch on a wide range of shorts(Clint Clobber and Gaston LeCrayon in Terrytoons, and all voices in the Czechoslovakian-produced Tom and Jerry shorts). Other career highlights include dubbing the voice of General Dwight D. Eisenhower to an on-camera impersonator in the classic live action war film The Longest Day. In commercials, Swift gave voice to the Frito Bandito (though the main voice was Mel Blanc), the Burger King, the Vita Herring Maven, a peanut in M&M ads, and was heard in Clio Award-winning TV and radio spots for products as varied as Nair, Pan American Airways, and French's Dog Gravy. Some of his later credits included guest roles on Law & Order and voices on the John R. Dilworth series Courage the Cowardly Dog.
- Ira Stadlen (January 16, 1924 – April 18, 2010), known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, known for playing characters including Simon Bar Sinister on the Underdog cartoon show. He provided the voices of many of the characters in The Bluffers, most of the voices for the 1960s underwater puppet show Diver Dan, and the voices in Gene Deitch's 1960–1962 group of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Swift was a children's television show host on WPIX in New York City as "Captain Allen". He took his professional name from radio comedian Fred Allen and 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift. Swift was an early television star who hosted The Popeye Show from September 10, 1956 to September 23, 1960, until he was forced to leave the program. The reason for his dismissal from "The Popeye Show" was creative differences with station management.[citation needed](Info can be found in"The Popeye Show"aticle in The NYC Kids Shows Round Up"section of"TV Party.Com") Swift did the majority of the voices in Rankin/Bass's Mad Monster Party?, credited as Alan (sic) Swift in the movie's credits. He supplied most of the character voices for the NBC Howdy Doody Show, and when Buffalo Bob Smith, who himself did the voice of the lead puppet character Howdy Doody and had many times proclaimed that "nobody else could do Howdy" suffered a heart attack, Swift took home some recordings over the weekend, came back on Monday and did Howdy's voice for more than a year.[citation needed](Info can be found in Tv Bloq section of TV Party.Com) Swift also served as the second comedy writer for "Howdy Doody." He took on the job, following the abrupt departure of the series' first comedy writer and songwriter, Edward Kean.[citation needed](info at "TV Bloq"/Past entry #168 at "TV Party.Com") Swift was married to actress Lenore Loveman, and is the father of character actor, mimic and singer Lewis J. Stadlen, holistic health practitioner, Maxime Stadlen and psychotherapist, Clare A. Stadlen. He lived in Manhattan. Allen had been "suffering with a series of health calamities for several years, since he fell and broke his hip while walking his dog. From that moment, one thing led to another," said personal friend and director Gene Deitch. "Even though [I've been] here for 50 years, hardly a year went by without a visit to his 57th Street apartment, nor a day go by without e-mail and most recently Skype visits," added Deitch, an American expatriate living in the Czech Republic.
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