His face may have been familiar to people from the Geico commercial he did recently, voice-overing a woman's description of her car's flood damage. (Sadly, they refer to him as "that announcer guy from the movies," which is kind of insulting. He had a name, jerks, and so did "sound effects guy" Michael Winslow.) But his voice was a lot more familiar, gracing thousands of film trailers over the course of his career, becoming so ubiquitous that whenever somebody emulated a voice-over announcer, they were emulating LaFontaine. (Or that guy who did The Price is Right.)

Trained as a recording engineer in the army, LaFontaine went into promo production, but a fill-in behind the microphone on a 1965 Western led to a lot more work. With his deep, rumbling voice, he eventually did some of the biggest movies of the century, including Batman Returns, The Terminator, and The Godfather Part II. He did lighter comedies as well, mocking his own dramatic delivery in the trailer for The Simpsons Movie. His trademark phrase was "In a world...," a line that many would say he made popular -- so popular that it was the first of many voice-over clichés that were mocked in the Comedian trailer. But who has the last laugh now? ...Oh, right. Sorry.