John Cameron Swayze (April 4, 1906 – August 15, 1995) was an American news commentator and game show panelist during the 1940s and 1950s who later became best known as a product spokesman.

[4] Swayze first sought to work as an actor, but his activity on Broadway ended when acting roles became scarce following the Wall Street crash of 1929.

He broadcast news items prepared by United Press Kansas City bureau overnight editor Walter Cronkite.

[5] Some sources claim that the show was first proposed and edited by Fred W. Friendly, later of CBS News,[10] who co-produced it with his first wife, Dorothy Greene.

[2] It was a precursor of the modern television network news program, sponsored by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, maker of Camel cigarettes.

Swayze read items from the news wires and periodically interviewed newsmakers, but he is remembered best for reporting on the Korean War nightly and for his two catchphrases: "Let's go hopscotching the world for headlines" and his signoff: "That's the story, folks—glad we could get together.

"[13] Veteran broadcaster David Brinkley wrote in a memoir that Swayze got the job because of his ability to memorize scripts, which allowed him to recite the news when the primitive teleprompters of the time failed to work properly.

His rival broadcast on CBS, Douglas Edwards with the News, began to attract Swayze's viewers, hurting his ratings.

He hosted the ABC daytime television game show Chance for Romance[16] as well as the syndicated travel program It's a Wonderful World (1963).

[16]: 1089 Over a period of twenty years beginning in 1956, Swayze became widely known as the commercial spokesman for Timex watches, and for the slogan "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking."

[19] He also appeared in a Volvo television commercial, driven in an early 1970s two-door model on a muddy racetrack by a professional rally driver.

In the refrain, Ray's character calls out to John Cameron Swayze (who, in a series of 1960s commercials, would subject a Timex watch to a grueling physical test, then show it still to be ticking away) to tell him how crazy it sounds to say that the cowboy had busted a watch that had been shot at, dipped in beer, and tied to a motorboat and dragged on a beach.

[21] Swayze's line at the end of each commercial, "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking," became an iconic phrase and part of American pop culture.

Both John and Patrick's father were descendants by seven generations of Judge Samuel Swayze and his wife, Penelope Horton.