Danny Dark (December 19, 1938 – June 13, 2004) was an American voice-over artist. For nearly four decades, he narrated memorable lines in advertisements for Budweiser ("This Bud's for you"), Raid Ant & Roach Killer ("Raid - Kills Bugs Dead"), StarKist tuna ("Sorry, Charlie") and Parkay ("Parkay Margarine from Kraft. The flavor says 'butter'."). The trade paper Radio & Records said, "Dark's distinctive voice has been heard in more award-winning commercials than any announcer in broadcast history."
Biography
Early life and career
Dark was born Daniel Melville Croskery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but his family moved to Tulsa, shortly after. He attended Tulsa Central High School, where he studied under a well-known teacher of future performers, Isabelle Ronan. He started in Missouri as a radio D.J. in the late 1950s, while studying at Drury University. He quickly advanced to stations in Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans, St. Louis, finally landing a 1963-66 stint as the evening DJ for KLAC in Los Angeles.[1]
Notable voice-over work
Over the course of his career, Dark was the spokesman for Keebler Cookies, the Chevrolet Camaro, AT&T, Kmart, Texaco, Armor-All, Whitman's Chocolates, Dreyer's Ice Cream, and many other Blue Chip companies. Dark was the voice of the long-running TV western Bonanza, voicing their intermission commercials for the program's sponsor, Chevrolet. Dark was an announcer who came to be known as the "voice" of the CBS network during the 1970s and later, on the NBC television network during the 1980s and early 1990s, doing promo advertisements for night-time programming, as well as an announcer for NBC's flagship station, WNBC-TV, and the imaging voice for many of the network's affiliates and O&O stations for their local newscasts. [citation needed] Dark also provided the "This program is about Unsolved Mysteries..." opening narration for the popular 80s and 90s true crime series. He also voiced the NBC News 1983 "Go Where The News Is" advertising campaign.
