His polished baritone speaking voice generally offered deadpan recitations of total nonsense, which he frequently demonstrated as the announcer on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

He was best known, aside from being the announcer on Laugh-In, for providing the voices of the titular superhero on Space Ghost and of Blue Falcon in Dynomutt, Dog Wonder.

From there, he joined the staff of 710 KMPC in 1962, where he remained for the next two decades, replacing previous afternoon host Johnny Grant, working the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. shift Monday through Friday.

Among his trademarks were daily appearances by "The Story Lady" (played by Joan Gerber); the Rumor of the Day; myriad varieties of "The Nurney Song"; and the introduction of the nonsense word "insegrevious", which was briefly included in the Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary.

In the early 1960s, like punster-TV star comic colleagues Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, and Jonathan Winters, Owens created a few comic characters of his own, such as the gruff old man Earl C. Festoon and his wife Phoebe Festoon, the stuffy old businessman Endocrine J. Sternwallow, and the goofy good ol' boy, Merle Clyde Gumpf.

Owens also did amusing radio promotions, such as sending in for "Yours", which turned out to be a postcard from him at the radio station which simply said "Yours" on it; autographed pictures of the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles; and his famous "Moo Cow Report", in which Gary and his character Earl C. Festoon would describe where cows were moving inbound on the crowded freeways of Los Angeles.

During this time Owens was also known as "Superbeard", because like his contemporary radio icon Wolfman Jack, he sported a goatee-beard, Hawaiian shirts, baggy Bermuda shorts, and his "1941 wide necktie with a hula girl on it".

Often during these comedy sketches on the air, he would have the assistance of other radio comics, most notably Bob Arbogast (known as "Arbo" to his fans), Stan Ross (of "Drowning in the Surf" fame in 1963), and Jim "Weather Eyes" Hawthorne.

During this period, Owens became more widely known as the voice of the eponymous television cartoon characters in Roger Ramjet and Space Ghost; the excitable narrator/announcer from The Perils of Penelope Pitstop; and perhaps most well-known, as the hand-on-the-ear announcer in the booth on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, all the while continuing his show on KMPC.

The segments were created by Sesame Street executive producer David Connell and referenced such tongue-in-cheek spy series as Get Smart and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

In 1973, Owens wrote The (What to Do While You're Holding the) Phone Book (ISBN 0-87477-015-7), a comedic look at the history of the telephone, and appeared in the first season of Barnaby Jones, in the episode titled "Twenty Million Alibis", playing the role of Gary Michaels.

The live recording took place on March 24, 1975, at Paul and Linda McCartney's release party for the Venus and Mars album held aboard the RMS Queen Mary.

In that same year, Watermark Inc. chose Owens to replace Murray "The K" Kaufman as permanent host of Soundtrack Of The Sixties, an oldies retrospective show that ran in syndication through 1984.

Owens had a bit part as an emcee for "Pimp of the Year", a dream scene in the 1988 comedy I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

From 1987 to 1992, Owens was the voice of Lt. Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigade, the protagonist of an animated series which was part of PBS's Square One TV.

Owens was also the announcer for America's Funniest Home Videos from 1995 to 1997, the last three years of Bob Saget's hosting tenure, replacing Ernie Anderson.

The cartoon SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron featured Owens as the voice of Commander Ulysses Feral, a police chief constantly butting heads with the two main protagonists.

In his last years, Owens was the promotional announcing voice for Antenna TV, an over-the-air digital network dedicated to classic shows of the past, like Three's Company, The Monkees, Adam-12 and Gidget.

[4][3] Owens provided the voices for: He also narrated or announced dozens of other cartoons, as well as the fourth and sixth installments of the Space Quest PC game series.

This was done in imitation of the announcers in the early days of radio, who had to rely upon the acoustic feedback of their cupped hand to hear how they sounded to the audience.

In 2001, TV Land released two computer games titled Blast from the Past, hosted by Owens and featuring other TV celebrities including Florence Henderson, Ed Asner, Davy Jones, Bob Denver, Don Adams, Barbara Eden, Todd Bridges, Alan Young, and Marion Ross, among others.