Then again, as The Boston Globe reported in 1975, there was this incident, from Mr. Scott, broadcasting from the sidelines, and plant an impromptu kiss on his cheek. In January 1989, the country’s new first lady, Barbara Bush, broke ranks from the inaugural parade for her husband, George H.W. (Among them, the 1987 article in The Times reported, was “an airplane built out of Diet Coke cans.”) Some adored him, inundating him with gifts, which he might display on the air.
Scott’s onscreen persona - by his own account little different from his offscreen persona - divided viewers. “A huckster for all seasons,” The New York Times called him in 1987. The concerns he endorsed included Howard Johnson Motor Lodges, True Value Hardware, Burger King, Lipton tea, Maxwell House coffee, the American Dairy Association, the Florida Citrus Commission, Diet Coke, USA Today and many others. The only scientific asset one actually needed, he pointed out, was the telephone number of the National Weather Service.Ī frequent guest on late-night TV, he was a spokesman for a range of charitable causes and a commercial pitchman with wide television exposure - too wide, some critics maintained. But as he readily acknowledged, the weatherman’s job as reconstructed for the postmodern age did not require any.
Scott, who began his career in radio before becoming a weatherman at WRC-TV, an NBC affiliate in Washington, had no background in meteorology or any allied science. The pig did not take kindly to being kissed and squealed mightily. There was the time, reporting from an outdoor event, that he kissed a pig on camera. There was the time he did so dressed as Carmen Miranda, the “Brazilian bombshell” of an earlier era, dancing before the weather map in high heels, ruffled pink gown, copious jewelry and vast fruited hat. There was the time, for instance, that he delivered the forecast dressed as Boy George. He seemed simultaneously to embody the jovial, backslapping Rotarian of the mid-20th century, the midway barker of the 19th and, in the opinion of at least some critics, the court jester of the Middle Ages. Scott brought to the job a brand of shtick that harked back to earlier times. Though he was meant to represent the new, late-model television weatherman, Mr. Scott went on to sport a string of outré outfits, spout a cornucopia of cornpone humor and wish happy birthday to a spate of American centenarians, all while talking about the forecast every so often, until his retirement in 2015. He began appearing as a weatherman on WRC-TV in Washington in 1970, and got the call to "Today" in 1980.Joining “Today” that March, Mr. Scott played Ronald McDonald from 1963-65, but there would be a bigger gig on his plate. He claimed he invented the character, while some credited Washington, D.C., McDonald's franchisee Oscar Goldstein and his ad agency.
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In 1963, Scott originated the role of "Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown" in a series of local commercials.
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He also hosted a children's TV program, including playing Washington's version of Bozo the clown, which led to him playing a character destined to become an American icon. He served in the Coast Guard in 1956-58, then went back to his radio gig. Scott, a native of Alexandria, Va., got his start in radio, co-hosting a show in Washington, D.C., in 1955. "He was truly my second dad and am where I am today because of his generous spirit. "We lost Willard Scott passed peacefully at 87 surrounded by family, including his daughters Sally and Mary and his lovely wife, Paris," Roker tweeted, along with a series of photos of them together.
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