Tonken was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and was a graduate of City College of New York (where he majored in public speaking)[1][2] and served in the United States Army during World War II.
For a few years, he hosted a Sunday morning program on WOR, Hyacinths and Biscuits, which featured poetry readings and little vignettes.
Besides Tonken, only two other people were known to have participated: organist Jon Gart and voice artist Joseph Boland, who played the robot characters.
Tonken's distinctive modulated baritone voice – once described by Jean Shepherd as sounding like "a combination of King Kong, the organ at Westminster Cathedral, and wind whistling through Mammoth Cave"[3] – was also heard in two feature films, The Secret of Magic Island (a 1964 English language release of a 1956 French movie called Un fée... pas comme les autres) and In Search of Bigfoot (1975).
In addition, for many years he did radio commercials for different products and services, including a long-running ad campaign for Barron's Magazine, as well as voice-over work for corporate and other clients.