WEBVTT - How TV Weathercasters Work 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.400 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Chip Clark. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.959 There's Charles w Wayne Action Bryant, and there's Jerry the 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:24.360 Weather rolland and put the three of us together, you've 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.080 got yourself the weather team of Stuff you should Know. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.800 That's right. This is a kind of a fun one 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.000 that Dave Ruse helped us out with. Yeah, you commissioned 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:41.240 did a great job. Weather people, that's right, weathercasters, broadcast meteorologists. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.199 We're talking about not just meteorologists in general. That's a 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:51.240 this is a very specific subset of meteorologists. They're meteorologists 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.560 who are on TV presenting the weather TV weather people. Yeah, 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:56.600 this is Ken Cook. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:00:59.160 Oh I forgot about Ken Cook. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.240 Oh my gosh, dude, he's still around. 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:02.160 Really. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.039 Yeah, And that's kind of the fun thing that you 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.959 will see partially in this episode. And if you just 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.200 are from a city that has local news, which is 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.640 to say everywhere, right, if you if you get a 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.200 gig like this and you want to and you don't 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.600 do anything wrong, sure like the idea from the weather, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.120 from the from the TV station is that they will 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.480 have you for thirty years if you will stay on, 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.240 because that's what they're after. They're after a someone that 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.399 the local audience bonds with, they trust, they know and 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:41.160 love you. Just these jobs don't go away unless you're 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.000 just not any good at it for some reason. But 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.440 if you lock in, like if you're like a Dallas 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.080 Rains or a Ken Cook and you lock into your 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.240 job as the local weather personality, you're set for life 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:52.600 as long as you don't screw it up. 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.840 Yeah, which, interestingly, like a little corollary to that, Chuck, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:00.080 is that that that low turnover makes the jobs really compare. 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.240 Oh sure, I read that TV weather people are not 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:09.040 friends with the other channels weather people really. Yeah, it's 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.880 super competitive from what I heard, which is strange because 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.000 when you think of the TV weather person they're like 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.280 the friendliest, nicest person in the whole group. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.920 Yeah, it's like the gang fight and Anchorman in the Alley. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.679 Yeah, and as we'll see, Anchorman, as hilarious as it was, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.560 was also incredibly accurate. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.320 Yeah. Absolutely, So we're talking. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:35.000 About weathercasters, broadcast meteorologists, TV weather personalities. I'm going to 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.919 give those examples every time. No, And there's a really 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.120 long standing joke that says, what other profession could you 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.160 be wrong half of the time and still get paid 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:46.079 a million dollars? 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:46.560 Yeah? 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.880 Yeah, put around a very, very long time. And it 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.080 kind of underscores just how people typically think of the 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.640 weather person. They remember when the weather person gets it 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.600 wrong a lot of times, but whether people are Do 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.360 you remember we talked about how incredibly stressful a court 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.640 stenographer's job must be. I think the weather person on 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.440 TV might have a job that's equally stressful to that. 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.040 You think, let's talk about the components of the weather 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:17.079 person's job, Chuck. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:18.720 I think it looks like a good gig. And in 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.959 fact I wanted for a very brief time. And I've 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:27.639 mentioned this before aspired not aspired, that's overshooting it. Thought 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.200 briefly in college about trying to be a weather person. 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.400 I don't because I was into meteorology. As I mentioned before, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:37.920 I used to watch the Weather Channel with my best 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.640 friend Rat in high school. Yeah, while we hung out, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.040 and I took a weather and climate course in college, 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.640 and that further reinforced that. I was like, this is 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.440 really cool. And I was a pre journalism major I 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.600 was in. I wanted to be I thought I wanted 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.560 to be like a broadcast news kind of reporter type. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.120 But I thought no one, And this was, you know, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.280 eight nineteen year old Tack. I was like, nobody's trying 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:03.400 to be a weather person these days because it's so uncool, 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.000 like that would probably be a pretty easy gig to get. Yeah, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.040 not to little dude. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.160 And there's so much work to it too. So first 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.960 of all, not everyone's a meteorologist. And this is a 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.440 big boat of contention among the meteorologists who do present 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:18.919 on TV. 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.040 Yeah, most of them are now, but not all of them. 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.440 Yes, but from what I saw, by most, that means 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.680 slightly over fifty percent. Oh really, Yeah, it's not like 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:28.440 the vast majority from what I've seen, I. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.000 Guess I'm thinking most major cities. But yeah, you're right, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.880 I guess sure. Sheboygan doesn't have a meteorologist. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.719 I think if you are an actual meteorologist on TV, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.600 you command more money and probably a little more respect, 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.720 who knows, of course, But while you're while you're working. So, 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.760 say you are a meteorologist, okay, so you have to 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.600 have an understanding of how the weather works. You have 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.520 to understand how you can communicate that understanding to the public. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:58.080 In an understandable way, So understanding all around you have 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.359 to have. It's a good personnel, Like you can't be 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.000 like me some dark smow. You know, you have to 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.560 be nice and people people want to like you, and 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.920 so you got to be likable in return. You also 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.320 have to have like a lot of poise because you're 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.080 up there on live TV. Don't forget, all of this 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.200 is live And one of the things I didn't know 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.920 about weather people they don't have a script. And if 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.000 you ever watch a weather person deliver their spiel in 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.880 a couple of minutes, most of the time they do 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.960 not mess up. They don't have to correct themselves. They 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:38.919 don't like like accidentally say half of a word. They're like, 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:41.279 they're like the opposite of us. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:41.640 Right. 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.840 They do not screw up, and sometimes they do, of course, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.640 but most of the time it right. So the fact 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.240 that they're they know what they're talking about. They're getting 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.800 it across in a logical manner that's spread out in 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.239 like some understandable way that you can follow that makes 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:03.440 sense on live TV, while manipulating images on a green 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.839 screen that they can't see except for monitors on either side, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.360 while also just being fun and chipper and doing it 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.120 all within your time limit. That's I say that that 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.280 is a high stress, really admirable job. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:23.040 Okay, here's what I say. That's your take. My take. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:29.640 Admirable for sure, high stress for week one, and then 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.560 I think you're on cruise control. Okay, next thirty five years. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:34.880 Maybe not week one, but I see what you mean. 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.039 Sure, And I'm not saying again, not saying that they're 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.240 not doing a good job or whatever. But I bet 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.480 you once they had that down, it's it's a pretty 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.920 great job. Sure, that's not super stressful. All right, that's 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.120 just my guess. Yeah, I no, you won me over 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.680 to your side. I'm usually my opinion is almost always correct, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.359 but it was. Let's go back in time, though, to 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.479 eighteen seventy went a very sort of mind the mental 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.840 thing happened in the United States weatherwise. It's when the 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:08.040 National Weather Service was founded, and they from the get 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.960 go said, here's our mission. We're going to collect data 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.800 from all over the country from these weather stations. We're 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.080 going to send it out on the telegraph and people 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.440 can put it in newspapers if they want. And that's 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.800 just what happened. Starting in the eighteen eighties with New 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.360 York World, they started putting their own local weather forecast 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.720 on the front page. And then it took another cheese 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:36.240 probably fifty years or so, maybe not quite before a 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.440 paper would do the national weather and that would of 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.640 course be the New York Times did a national weather map. 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.600 Yeah, and so weather's always basically been associated with news, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.400 like right from the get go. And as news has 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.200 evolved in the way that news is delivered, the weather's 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.800 evolved alongside it. So when the news made the jump 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.000 to radio, weather was right there basically from the outside. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.880 And there was a guy named Jimmy Fiddler and he 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.800 was out of WLBC and Munchie Indiana and uh. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.600 Munchie Monsey's Munsy. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:12.600 If it were Italian, it'd be Munchie. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:14.160 Oh, I love Munchie. We should go. 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.120 Okay, it is Monsy. I know that because it's not 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.040 that far from Toledo. So thank you for corre. 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.720 Apologize about my asthma throat too. If people think I'm dying, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.360 I'm not. It's just a pollen season, dude. 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.200 It is so bad up here, it's crazy. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:30.040 Yeah, it's really bad. 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.079 Yeah, three thousands we're talking about people, Is that the 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:35.160 level is high. 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.480 Yes, yeah, because usually I don't get it too bad. 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.800 But I've been wheezy and asthmatic for like six weeks plus. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.360 There's also the nice little bonus of it being cold, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.040 super cold, like it's February cold here right now, and 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.360 it's not like it was cold on one day. It's 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.960 set in cold. I don't know what's going on. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.120 Yeah, uh. And I should also point out that laughing 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.840 uh triggers like that asthma, wheeze and cough. 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.800 Well, I'll try to be funny. I'm not making any promise. 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.840 I know. I'm trying to contain my laugh because if not, I'll. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.439 Go I would find that satisfying. 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.160 All right, try and kill me, Okay. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.840 So anyway, he was out of WLBC in Muncie, Indiana, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.960 and he's known as basically the first weatherman, the guy 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.120 who created the what we saw as the weatherman and 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.960 eventually weather person all the way back in the nineteen thirties. 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:32.840 Yeah, and that's sort of the more personality driven weather reporter. Yeah. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:34.880 As we'll see you know, well we can talk about 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.160 it right now. Actually, as we'll see if TV, as 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.319 TV became a thing that sort of came and went 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.360 over the years until it firmly established itself as like 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:49.080 whether people should be probably just a little more personality plus. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.440 But he was also the first human to be on 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.280 the television reporting the weather. TV in the late nineteen 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.440 thirties and early forties was not a very big deal, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.599 only about and it's hard to find good numbers, but 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.360 they found a stat that said about six thousand TV 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:13.800 sets nationwide man after the war, that became in less 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.280 than a decade close to ten million TV sets. So crazy, 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.640 that's when that boom happened. But he old Jimmie phil 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.560 almost At Fielder Fiddler went on TV in Cincinnata either 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.880 in nineteen thirty nine or nineteen forty as the first 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:31.080 human TV weatherman. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.319 Yes, and I'm glad that you Caveat did that with 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.960 human because a lot of people were like, oh no, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.520 the first weather person of all time was Wooly Lamb, 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.080 a cartoon character a Lamb. He didn't catch that from 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.280 the name. Who was just a total shill for Botany 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.320 wrinkle proof ties. Botany, I take it is the same 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.960 as the Botany five hundred company that outfitted guys like 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:56.520 Rod Serling and all of them in the. 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.760 Fifties oh, nice looking suits. 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:03.400 So Wooly had a goal that was that preceded every forecast. 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.839 And I have not heard this, but I guarantee, just 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:07.880 from reading it, I can recreate it. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.559 You ready, that's it. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.520 It's hot, it's cold, it's rain, it's fair. Way, I 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.720 already screwed it up. Hold on, let me try again 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.439 one and it too. It's hot, it's cold, it's rain, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.920 it's fair. It's all mixed up together. But eyes Botany's 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.160 Wooly lamp predict tomorrow's weather. 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:27.800 I think that you nailed it. 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.760 That's the only way you could thank you. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.760 Or what was the star search? Four and three quarter stars? 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:36.920 Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:44.079 Wooly lamb though was a full year or more after uh, Fiddler, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.800 So I don't see why the date is under dispute. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:48.520 So I don't care. That's probably just the internet thing. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.880 Yeah, I don't know if Fiddler was considered a big 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.520 liar or something because they date says that there's no 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.880 archival footage of it. But if he said that, he did. 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.240 Well just because they didn't cord that stuff back then. 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.840 Right exactly? Remember in our sitcoms episode, they didn't start 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.800 recording until the late forties early fifties. Maybe it was 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.280 just live, not even live to tape, right, But the 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:12.920 fact that he's saying he did it, I don't see 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.440 why they would be like, no, you're lying. It was 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:16.600 really Wooly Lamb. 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.600 Yeah, it was in his obituary, so I'll go with that. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.280 But there was one other thing that Jimmy Fiddler did 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.120 that created the persona of the TV weather man in 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.400 addition to that whole you know that the personality that 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.400 you were talking about. He took weather data from all 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.280 different sorts of places and put it together and interpreted 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.160 it in a way that he could then present it 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:44.160 to the public who would then know what the weather 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.120 was going to be like tomorrow or the day after. 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.839 That was Jimmy Fiddler who created that. 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.559 That's right, and that set the standard. 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.240 It did, and Wooly Lamb kind of set a weird 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.640 standard too in the post war years, right. 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.080 Uh, I don't know about this what happened. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.400 Oh well, so Wooly Lamb. So imagine a cartoon Lamb 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.920 as your weather person on your local TV station. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:08.280 I've got I'm there. 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.800 Kind of weird. There was a period in the late 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.360 forties early fifties where that would kind of be a 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.600 fairly normal thing. Or in addition to cartoon lambs, there 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:21.320 were puppits. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:22.440 Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean. 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:27.040 There were other cartoons. There were there were all clowns, 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.040 all sorts of just weird stuff, rhyming guys like we'll 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.040 talk about a little bit of that. But Wooly Lamb 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.920 and Jimmy Fidler really set the stage for whether people 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.520 would come. And I think, Chuck, I have just set 0:13:38.559 --> 0:14:00.559 the stage for our first at break well done. 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.719 All right, So I mentioned before TV's booming post war, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.560 close to ten million TV sets in the end of 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.480 the nineteen forties. By that time, they had about seventy 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.280 local TV stations, which you know, doesn't sound like a 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.680 lot compared to today, but obviously you know your major 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.560 cities are going to have them, and it took a 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.800 long time. And we'll talk about when the FCC broke 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.000 things up and allowed more than one per city as well. 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.720 So a little bit. But in the forties, this is 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.120 where I was talking about sort of personality plus kind 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.800 of coming and going. There were a couple kinds of 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:48.000 weather forecasters on television when it first started really rolling 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.480 out postwar, and that was the really sort of dry kind. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.960 Some of these people were former there were veterans from 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.760 the military who knew about the weather from you know, 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:03.800 do that in the military. Sometimes they were just really 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.600 stuffy science types. Sometimes they were not science people at all, 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.040 and they were just stuffy, but they were just kind 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.360 of boring. But if you you know, like I said 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.880 at the beginning, you could lock into a job even 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.240 back then, right and have it through the nineteen sixties 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.280 and into the seventies. And that happened in a few occasions, right. Yeah. 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:27.200 There was a guy the chief meteorologist at WTP in Washington, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.680 D C. Lewis Allen, and he was there for many decades. 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.880 I'm not sure when he retired, but he was around 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:36.840 for a very long time. There's people still alive that 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.840 remember him as their weather man, right, yeah, And he 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:45.359 was really well known. He was an incredibly accomplished meteorologist. 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.800 But he was also a pretty good little drawer, and 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.400 so he would draw in like what the next day's 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.360 weather was going to be like he called it a woodle, 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.560 a weather doodle. And I've seen from the research, if 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.160 you have a little thing like that or a good 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.080 sign off for something. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean talk 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.360 about endearing the public to you, that's all. It takes 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:06.880 a woodle. 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:13.640 Yeah, go screw yourself, San Diego. Yeah. Clint Yule was 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.160 another one. He became known nationally as mister Weather because 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:21.080 he became the first national deliver of weather in the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.360 late nineteen forties when he debuted on the Camel News 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:29.640 Caravan on NBC. Camel Cigarettes of course sponsored that, and 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.560 he worked out of Chicago, but kind of invented a 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.040 system that would become the green screen later by putting 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.520 a map, a Rand McNally map of the United States, 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.880 under plexiglass and then drawing on it with a race marker, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.640 and he would you know, draw you know, like weather 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.200 fronts and rain and dry weather and stuff like that. 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.960 He would draw words on it. Then it moved to color. 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.840 He made those color markers and he was the first 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.600 sort of national do to come around. 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.960 One little tidbit about Clint Yule, that Ram McNally map. 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:07.320 He had to bring it from homes. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:08.359 Yeah, it was his. 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:10.280 It's hilarious. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.240 They didn't cover it. I mentioned the two types of 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.160 weather people. This was sort of into the nineteen fifties, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:18.359 so I guess it was three types. You had your 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.359 sort of dry types, but in the fifties they really 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.200 wanted to spice it up, and that's when you got 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:27.680 either your wacky men, like you mentioned the rhyming weatherman 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.879 that was out of Billiams out of Nashville, or people 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:36.320 that had puppets. Willard Scott was very famous weatherman his 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.800 entire career, but had always been pretty wacky, and was 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.600 Bozo the Clown on TV before that, and was Ronald 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.560 McDonald and TV commercials before that, I think the first 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.840 Ronald McDonald. Yeah, but you had those wacky types, these 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.439 weird men trying to inject a little entertainment into the 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.439 news weather. And then you had what were known men 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.720 as weather girls, which was hey, let's get in a 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.200 track a young woman. Let's put her in a nice, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.119 fashionable outfit. Who cares if she knows meteorology, Let's just 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:07.320 put her on her TV screen. 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.200 Yeah, And the first weather girl was Carol Reid at 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.679 WCBS in New York and they brought her on to 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.280 go head to head with the weatherman tex Antoine at WNBC. 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.960 And the reason why was because it's like you said, 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.760 the FCC opened up competition in nineteen fifty two for 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.120 TV licenses, So that's where we got more than one 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.360 local TV station. Yeah, so all of a sudden there 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.440 was that competition, and they figured out, well, people don't 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.480 really take the weather all that seriously. It's not like 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.800 crime or something like that. Let's use that to kind 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.400 of gain viewers by just being a little wacky. So 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.160 tex Antoine he had a cartoon named Uncle Webby and 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.280 he would blame Uncle Webby the Weather Bureau if he 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.240 got it wrong, it was Uncle Webby's fault and it 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.919 was kind of like a gruff sidechick. And he was 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.879 extraordinarily popular. So they brought Kyl Reid on as an 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.520 attractive twenty six year old who didn't have any training 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:09.760 in meteorology, right, but she was very likable. She had 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.320 a good smile and she had a good sign off. 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.920 Chuck, I'm going to give it to you. You can't 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.840 you can't not take this. Have a happy, have a happy, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:20.760 that's very nice. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.440 Yeah, so she kicked off the whole weather girls thing. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.439 Oh yeah, there was another one named Ginger Stanley. She 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.679 would sometimes get in her bathing suit and get in 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.800 a tank of water on the CBS Morning Show to 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.160 deliver the weather. Yeah. Another one, and this is hard 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.840 to believe. They had in lingerie in bed Yeah, in 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.240 nineteen fifty two, I know, which imagine the lingerie then 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.920 was just some head to toe Yeah, I had to toe, 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.560 you know, gown that just looks sort of silky to 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:50.640 the touch would be my guest. 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:51.159 Sure. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.520 And then you had the fact that it was a 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:59.399 legit entree point though if you wanted to do serious news, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.800 so you would just get in. However you could, like 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.560 Diane Sawyer was one of these quote unquote weather girls 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:10.400 in Louisville, and they said take those glasses off, hin, Yeah. 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.040 And then seldom make passes at girls who are glasses. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:17.640 You looked too smart. And Roquel Welch was in fact 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.200 in San Diego and she was the sun up weather girl. 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.040 Fact to the podcast, Roquel Welch at the time was 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:24.359 known as Raquel. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:29.400 Tahata Yeah, which means lime tree. Oh does it? Yeah, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:30.479 Roquel lime tree. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.720 That's also Raquel means squeeze. 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:35.439 And Welch means grape juice. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.680 Wow. I'm all I'm starting to see the pattern now. 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.399 I think in the nineteen sixty one was sort of 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.800 the apex of the weather girl phenomenon, when they had 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:54.960 four hundred and sixty six TV stations nationwide in about 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.240 three quarters of them were using weather girls. And that's, 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.679 you know, generally not the case anymore. When you see 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.120 a woman that is the local meteorologist, and at least 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.960 in a big city, chances are she has her meteorology degree, yes, 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:11.240 and a certified as well. 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.200 It's definitely not a novelty or like they're using sex 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.840 appeal to get people to watch the weather. That's not 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.760 what they're ostensibly doing any longer. But what I found 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.400 interesting was that Tarol Reid, who started the weather girl era, 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.000 also ended it when she was let go in nineteen 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.239 sixty four. I believe that's considered the end of the 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.080 weather girl era too. And the reason that the weather 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.040 girl era came to an end is because the pendulum, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.560 which had started with stuffy academics and then swung to 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.560 women in lingerie in bed giving the weather, yeah, we 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:48.960 started to swing back the other way where the actual 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.240 like legitimate meteorologists are like, hey, what we're doing is 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.560 actually kind of important and it's not as easy as 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.760 you guys think. So we want a little more respect, 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.399 and so to help kind of give them back, the 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:05.320 American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association started coming 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:09.560 up with certifications and seal of approval, seals of approval 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:14.600 that I, like a legit meteorologist on TV who was 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:18.119 doing good work, could get and basically use as like 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:19.320