The legendary Don LaFontaine, the movie-trailer announcer guy who laughed harder than anyone else at the whorey cliches he was paid to repeat hundreds if not thousands of times over the past 33 years (led by the all-time groaner “in a world where…”), died yesterday at age 68. Good God. It’s like a trapdoor opened and he just fell through it. I’m terribly sorry for his family and friends. And for Don also, of course. I bet he’s pissed about this. I sure would be.

I knew Don slightly. I first met him in ’95 or thereabouts when i interviewed him for my L.A. Times Syndicate column. I then came to know him socially through Cedering Fox over the past couple of years. A good man, quite the wit, always laughed at himself, always with the grin.
And The Winner Is blogger Scott Feinstein has written a short tribute to Don, which includes the audio of a 40 minute interview LaFontaine granted two years ago, as well as clips of a self-parodying video that he and four colleagues shot a decade ago (which has since became a YouTube sensation) and his recent GEICO commercial.