Always Under the Weather

I was happy to see that our old friend, super meteorologist Tom Skilling, has signed an agreement that will keep him on WGN for another ten years! Without a doubt, Tom is a real professional, a really nice guy with a great sense of humor, and obviously THE Chicago weatherman. We’re certainly lucky to have both he and the great Harry Volkman giving us the forecasts via our television screens for so many years. I hope you’ve seen the bit we did with Tom a few years back, where he thought he could control the weather. Tom had no problem wearing a blue pageboy wig, silly hat and cape for the skit, and we both spent plenty of time laughing at each other’s performances while taping the bit. Though Tom takes the weather very seriously, he doesn’t take himself seriously, and is willing to poke fun at himself. Whenever I see Tom, he is always very friendly, and seems genuinely happy to see me- and he is always very kind in assessing the job I did as a weekend and fill-in weather guy over at Fox a few years ago. It was a job I was never really comfortable with- and it came about when Brant Miller, the gentleman doing fill-in for the regular weatherman on the weekday shows (there was no weekend news show there yet) got the chance to move to NBC 5 and do weather all the time, as opposed to every once in a while. This left the local Fox management with a problem- no fill-in weatherman. Since I was already there doing my “Koz Zone” show, they thought “here’s a guy who won’t leave for someplace else, since he has a full-time gig here”- and decided I’d be the perfect fill-in guy. I brought up the fact that a) I had an interest in weather, but was by no means an expert, and b) what about credibility? After all, I was the guy showing “Alvin and the Chipmunks” cartoons and dressing up as “Captain Dustpan” the ecological superhero with a dustpan as a mask. This did not deter the management from thinking I’d be perfect for the job; they felt I’d be getting the information from the national weather service, and ,as far as credibility, the guy in charge said “at a lot of stations, the guy who does the kids show is also the weatherman.” (I thought, yes- in Boise- but not in the third largest TV market…) So, I became the fill-in weatherman. Then, when the station decided to add a weekend newscast- I became the weekend weatherman. As I said, with my lack of knowledge, I never felt comfortable doing that job- I did as much learning as I could while also doing the daily “Koz Zone” show, but always worried that some weather emergency would come up that I couldn’t explain. I pretty much fell back on something I’m good at- wisecracking- to help shore up my weathercasts. I remember once doing the first half of a “tease” for the upcoming weather and sports, and ended my half doing a sort of pro wrestling interview delivery- at which point they switched to my pal Kenny McReynolds for his half plugging sports, and he was just laughing and said “that boy is crazy!” Rob Feder always said that he never felt “cheated” watching one of my weather reports, and that he got the information along with a few laughs. Harry Volkman said I was his wife’s favorite weatherman- even if she couldn’t always tell what the forecast was. I’m happy they gave Tom Skilling another ten years- and that they never sentenced me to ten to twenty…