With my 6000th post coming up and not sure what it’d cover, I did want to avoid anything that’s a downer. However, I don’t remember Mr. Scott in such a light. Sure he was more of an entertainment factor for my grandma who shared the elderly’s obsession with the weather in place nowhere close to where she lived. The guy was really pure joy in the rather dull, stodgy Today Show NBC has had around since the late Forties, maybe it began during WWII; broadcast TV in the US slowly rolled out in 1939.
Mr. Scott originally got into show business as the first Ronald McDonald but the infamous clown was the invention of the DC-franchise holder, not Ray Kroc. I learned from the podcast Business Wars, Ronald’s costume was nothing like what we’re accustomed to when the fast-food chain took the character national. I imagine Mr. Scott was probably an employee at a local station doing those multiple jobs many used to do until the Seventies: the weather man at night, the clown hosting old cartoons in the afternoon and writing ad or news copy throughout the day.
He certainly enjoyed the role he landed in 1980. Goofy costumes at times. Calling out old people’s birthdays on national TV was something of his trademark. I was a teenager and college student while he was at the prime of his career. Obviously, I was with the David Letterman crowd poking fun at him. Now I’m an adult and I’m glad he embraced his job, poo poo’ing the critics, naysayers and ridiculers. Mr. Scott sincerely loved what he was doing and you could see it in his face, deeds and behavior. He will be greatly missed by everybody, not exclusively by my grandma wanting to see how cold it gets in Fargo, ND.