WILLARD SCOTT’S WEATHERMAN SNOW JOB!
THE forecast was always “FUN” for Willard
Scott, the iconic weatherman for NBC’s Today show!
But storm clouds in the form of then-anchor Bryant Gumbel threatened to rain on his parade.
“He didn’t like me, period,” said Willard, who did the morning program from 1980 to 2015.
In 1989, grumpy Gumbel demanded Willard’s head. Bryant blistered Willard in an internal memo — that ultimately leaked to the public — for his outrageous on-screen antics, including a stunt where he dressed up as over-the-top singer Carmen Miranda!
“This guy is killing us and no one’s even trying to rein him in,” Bryant sneered.
But show honchos backed the weatherman — he was more popular than Gumbel, who stepped down in 1997.
Ironically, Willard, 87, who died after a brief illness at his Delaplane, Va., farm on Sept. 4, was not a meteorologist!
“A trained gorilla could do it,” Scott once quipped, adding all he needed to appear on TV was the National Weather Service’s phone number.