Loyal readers here are very much aware that we religiously steer (or as religious as a steer can be) clear of politics of politics on Wapella.com. But today, we have to offer a congratulations to a Hollywood and Vegas Great who made his way over to the House of Representatives...not, not Sonny Bono, who sadly passed years ago...this is for our new Speaker of the House, John Byner.
Byner, the noted Dean Martin impressionist, takes a career stretching back to the (1967) Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows to bring 43 years of entertainment experience to Washington DC.
A little from John Byner's bio
On a 1967 episode of Get Smart, Byner played a KAOS agent who made a phone call to the Chief of CONTROL (played by Edward Platt), performed a perfect impression of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and told the Chief he was fired and replaced with agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). Smart, the Chief and Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) foiled this plot to undermine CONTROL, and Byner's character was arrested.
In 1970, he hosted about 25 episodes of a syndicated half-hour musical variety series called Something Else. He then hosted his own show in 1972 called the "John Byner Comedy Hour", where the character Super Dave was first introduced. Also that year, he had a cameo appearance in Barbra Streisand's blockbuster comedy film What's Up Doc?. In the late 1970s, he had a featured role as Detective Donahue on the tv series Soap. In the 1980s he hosted the Canadian TV comedy series, Bizarre. That show re-introduced many people to hapless daredevil Super Dave Osborne, played by Bob Einstein. He was also a regular celebrity guest on Hollywood Squares during the Peter Marshall years and later hosted the 1988-89 syndicated game show Relatively Speaking Over the years he has done straight acting work and also light characters in otherwise serious dramas, such as the mostly-harmless con artist "Cotton Dunn" in the 1990s cop series Silk Stalkings and appeared in the PBS 1994 Halloween special "Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio".
Sworn in yesterday, Byner is the 61st and current Speaker of the House. Congrats John Byner!
Here's Byner doing a Benny Hill Style sketch with some topical humor, yet Byner was doing this in 1980, 31 years ago. A man ahead of his time.
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