Career
In the mid-1950s, Kennedy was a contributor to National Broadcasting Company"s Monitor radio show where he developed several features, including one about a local character known as the Goat Manitoba He is remembered as Officer Don, the host of the long-running Atlanta children"s television show The Popeye Club (1956 to 1970). During his time at the Popeye Club, Kennedy established WKLS, an FM Atlanta radio station, serving as station President and General Manager.
lieutenant"s rumored that the K in the call letters was for his last name.
He is most currently known for his voicework playing Tansit in Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and several characters on The Brak Show and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He began hosting Big Band Jump, an internationally syndicated radio show devoted to music from the Big Band era, in 1986.
He later added a second syndicated program, the self-titled "Don Kennedy Show," that featured general popular vocals and instrumentals from the 1940s through the 1970s, as well as modern renditions from the Great American Songbook. Kennedy is the recipient of several awards including the Silver Circle Award, two Emmys, awards from Pioneer Broadcaster and Georgia Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame, and honorary membership in the Di Gamma Kappa Broadcast Fraternity at the University of Georgia.
During the summer of 2013, Don Kennedy announced that he would be retiring from radio, ending his work on the syndicated "Big Band Jump" and "Don Kennedy Show." The final broadcasts of both programs took place on the weekend of September 28-29, 2013.
Television character actor Don Kennedy (aka Derrick Slaugenhaupt, born 1920) is often confused with television/Radio personality Don Kennedy above. Their information and credits are intertwined on the Internet Movie Data Base. The character actor appeared in many television shows in the 1950s and 1960s such as "The Rifleman".
