From a Washington Post obit by Bob Levey headlined “Willard Scott, Today show weatherman and resident merrymaker, dies at 87”:
Mr. Scott first made his name as an irrepressible comedian of Washington radio trading in shtick and satire as half of “The Joy Boys.” On local TV, he was the original Ronald McDonald — the hamburger chain went with a thinner actor for the bulb-nosed clown mascot in the national campaign — and had stints as a weather forecaster and Bozo the Clown.
In a broadcasting career spanning six decades, he was best known for his role on “Today,” the popular NBC weekday morning program. He debuted in 1980 and immediately made his presence known, draping his 6-foot-3 frame in outrageous costumes. He once dressed up as Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian entertainer known for her outré fruit-covered hats and garish dresses. On Groundhog Day, he appeared as the rodent.
His tomfoolery drew private scorn from “Today” show contemporaries and predecessors such as Hugh Downs, but Mr. Scott was unapologetic. “People said I was a buffoon to do it,” he said. “Well, all my life I’ve been a buffoon. That’s my act.”…
Before his first year on “Today” was out, the Los Angeles Times called him a “big friendly man who’s become a national folk hero.” When “Today” went on the road, as it often did, Mr. Scott was routinely besieged by well-wishers and autograph seekers. Just as routinely, he kissed babies and pressed the flesh.
With his sunny disposition and jovial personality, he became a favorite of Madison Avenue and the lecture circuit. He reaped a small fortune giving upbeat talks to trade associations and promoting products from Diet Coke to Florida oranges.
He once described himself as a “human after-dinner mint” compared with the more polished anchors on the show, including Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley, who liked to conduct serious-minded sit-downs with world figures.
Unlike viewers who embraced Mr. Scott’s sincerity and warmth, his co-hosts did not find him refreshing. Pauley once publicly called him “an alien being,” and he endured an embarrassing public scrap with Gumbel.
In 1989, when “Today” had slipped behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” in the ratings for the first time, Gumbel wrote a stinging memorandum to his bosses. It was soon leaked to media outlets.
In the memo, Gumbel savaged Mr. Scott for holding “the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste. This guy is killing us and no one’s even trying to rein him in.” (Gumbel, widely regarded by colleagues as distant and haughty, issued scathing comments about other “Today” personnel, including film critic Gene Shalit, noting that his reviews “are often late and his interviews aren’t very good.”)
NBC brass insisted that Mr. Scott and Gumbel make up, and they soon did, at least publicly. Mr. Scott, who told a reporter that the memo “cut like a knife,” had the last laugh. The weatherman was soon earning $1 million a year from NBC, even though he was seldom on the air for more than three minutes an hour….
Mr. Scott professed to being a country boy at heart, and he was the first to acknowledge that his on-air style was hokey. He liked to joke that, in him, NBC had finally found a successor to J. Fred Muggs, the chimpanzee who was a mainstay on “Today” in the 1950s.
“If you watch, you’ll see that I am trying to weave a web of love,” he said in 1980. “I want to make the whole country feel as if we are one. I may be a cornball, but I am me — not a sophisticated, slick New York wazoo act.”
Willard Herman Scott Jr. was born in Alexandria, Va., on March 7, 1934….He was raised as and remained a fundamentalist Christian. He seriously considered becoming a minister before several right-place-right-time breaks vaulted him into Washington radio.
In his youth, Mr. Scott organized a radio club on his block….An announcer befriended him and allowed him to launch a high school show called “Lady Make Believe,” for which Mr. Scott was the announcer.
The success of that program led swiftly to three other youth-oriented shows on local stations. Meanwhile, he studied religion and philosophy at American University, where he graduated in 1955. He later served in the Navy.
He met Ed Walker, a fellow student, at the AU campus radio station, and they developed a comedy show that became “The Joy Boys.” They had a long tenure at WRC, an NBC-owned radio station, and in one skit mocked NBC’s flagship news program, “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” as “The Washer-Dryer Report.”…
Mr. Scott thrived as a Washington personality, doing product pitches, popping up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and appearing as a fill-in weatherman on WRC-TV in 1967, when the incumbent suddenly walked off the job. He was doing the job full time when “Today” beckoned.
He went into semiretirement in 1996 and retired fully in 2015. His final show drew a chorus of good-natured protests, including a message from former first lady Barbara Bush….
“If you were to look at my resume,” Mr. Scott wrote in his 1982 autobiography, “The Joy of Living,” “you’d see that I’m … bald, I’m overweight, I don’t make all the smooth moves, and I dress like a slob.
“I take tremendous pride,” he added, “in the fact that I beat the system.”
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