Weather guy remains as sunny as ever
Dr. George Fischbeck is 90 and effusive as ever, his giddiness over the phone like someone speaking to a longlost friend.
To those of us who grew up in Albuquerque in the ’50s and ’60s, he was a friend — a funny, frenetic one with a bushy mustache and bow tie who beamed black and white through the magic of television into our fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms to teach us science.
Oh, he was a zany one, this science guy, creating his mad little world out of beakers and boxes of spiders and snakes and anything he could come up with to
prove his hypothesis that his world, our world, was pretty wonderful.
What Fischbeck proved along the way was that he was pretty wonderful, too.
“Adios, muchachos, muchachas,” he’d say as he wriggled his mustache at the close of each program, filmed in the tiny studios of public broadcasting station KNME-TV, Channel 5. “See you again, real soon!”
We saw him again for 12 years. And then we didn’t.
In 1972, Fischbeck left for the bright lights of Los Angeles to become one of the most celebrated TV weather guys in Southern California history — still a teacher in many respects, but with a much bigger classroom.
And yet all these years later, he remains an iconic Albuquerque figure of our childhood, a teacher of science and weather and life who through the grainy frailty of those early TV days could reach our minds and touch our hearts and call us friend.
Which is why, I think, Fischbeck is a perfect choice as the first inductee into the Albuquerque Wall of Fame, dedicated by the city to those people who contributed to the social fabric of our community.
The dedication of the Wall, to be located in the Alvarado Transportation Center in Downtown Albuquerque, will be in July (mark your calendars now!) with Fischbeck expected to be in attendance.
Fischbeck will also be feted at several other public events and will sign his recently published memoir, “Dr. George — My Life in Weather.” By then, he’ll be 91. “Be prepared,” he says on the phone this week. “I’m going to give you a big hug. I’m going to give you ALL a big hug.”
I don’t doubt that he’s going to try. That warm, fuzzy and wacky guy on television is just as warm, fuzzy and wacky off screen.
“When I say he is the most beloved person in Los Angeles, I mean that,” said Randy Roach, a former Los Angeles TV news writer, producer and longtime friend of Fischbeck’s who co-authored the memoir. “He always makes you feel better, makes the world a little bit better. And how many people can you say that about?”
Fischbeck’s memoir chronicles his life from his earliest days as a New Jersey farm boy to his unexpected rise to fame as an LA weather guy Marlon Brando called personally for forecasts.
Fischbeck’s memoir also reflects upon on his love affair with Albuquerque, lured here by the anthropology program at the University of New Mexico and rooted here by the students he came to know.
In 1959, the KNME program director asked Fischbeck, then five years into his teaching career, whether he might be interested in an experimental 30-minute TV science program for Albuquerque students. A year later, “Science 5” was launched. The program later expanded its audience to schools in 25 cities across the country.
“It was an absolute joy to be a part of,” he writes. “I wasn’t nervous, because it didn’t seem like television. It was a classroom, and I was the teacher.”
In 1970, he was approached by KOB-TV, Channel 4 — then second in ratings to KOAT-TV, Channel 7 — to anchor the weather report for the 6 and 10 p.m. weekday news alongside news anchors Johnny Morris and Gordon Sanders and sports anchor Mike Roberts.
Within weeks of his joining the news team, KOB shot up to the top-rated news program in New Mexico.
In his book, the everhumble Fischbeck credits his success to faith and family, especially Sue, his wife of 64 years.
And to teaching. It’s estimated that by the time Fischbeck left Albuquerque in 1972 — an anguishing decision, he writes — he had educated upwards of 250,000 students either in class or on the air.
But as those of us lucky enough to have been his students know, he taught us far more than science.
Welcome back, old friend. Be prepared for hugs. Big ones.