final credits - bill matheson
Update: answering to an overwhelming response to Bill's passing, Global TV created Remembering Bill, a web site tribute that features links to two video segments sure to bring back fond memories ... and perhaps a few tears.
In today's age of computer-generated weather graphics delivered by those with perfect hair, Bill Matheson would be called a dinosaur.
But in a previous age, Matty was the dean of Edmonton weathermen, once honoured as the world’s best weather presenter at an International Weather Forecaster’s Festival in Paris.
And for 23 years as Edmonton's CITV senior weatherman, he entertained, elucidated, emancipated, enlightened and gave mental emolument to the hoi polloi.
Bill Matheson died September 19th, 2006 at the age of 80 from complications brought on by Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He spent the last few years of his life in a Lethbridge long term care facility with planned memoirs unfinished.
Canadians have a fascination with weather unparalleled by those in other countries.
Living in the largest northern urban setting on the continent, Edmontonians place the bringers of meteorological news on higher platforms than most politicians.
It was at this level that citizens of Alberta's capital city held Bill Matheson. On the day of his death, the news of the resignation of the province's premier, Ralph Klein, seemed an unrelated afterthought.
From 1976 to 1999, television viewers tuned in to Bill -- not just for the weather -- but for the pure entertainment he provided.
Matty held court in front of his old-style dry-erase weather map, tapping out points of interest with a pointing stick.
With his left hand stuck in his pants pocket, his right hand waved the stick about like a conductor trying to reign in a runaway orchestra.
He finished each weathercast by bouncing the stick on end on the studio floor while declaring, "That's the weather. Good night."
He missed catching the stick only as often as his forecasts were wrong.
Bill Matheson was Edmonton television's first professional meteorologist, and his training and wit brought a new awareness of the machinations of Mother Nature to local viewers.
He also brought into common local usage a number of witicisms.
"Keep your eye on the Idaho high."
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."
"Crunching down like the car of juggernaut."
"These systems provide a diabolical dosey-do with an avuncular force surely to be reckoned with."
"There are darkling shadows populating the weather map."
But what caused fearful Edmontonians to plug in their cars and bundle up with an extra sweater or two was news of "The most dreaded of all meteorological phenomena -- the Siberian High."
In truth, Bill was not a better forecaster than the weather office -- he just had better reasons for being wrong.
"Man proposes and Nature disposes," he was often heard to offer as an excuse for a previous day's faux pas.
Bill Matheson retired from broadcasting on November 24th, 1999.
His on-air farewell featured an in-studio performance by the Edmonton Police Pipe and Drum band.
The raising of his weather board into the rafters of the ITV studios -- a dry-iced but not dry-eyed spectacle not unlike the hoisting of an Edmonton Oilers banner.
Word has it the board was destroyed so that it could never be used again. And like his television prop, Bill Matheson can never be replaced.
Bill Matheson was born in Lethbridge, Alberta on April 26th, 1926. His mother died when he was ten, and the youngster was pressed into service to help raise his five siblings.
His first media job was delivering newspapers in the town's "red light" district at the innocent age of twelve.
World War II also pressed the prairie lad into national service. Enlisting in the First Canadian Parachute Battalion late in the war, peace broke out just days before he was to see action overseas.
Matheson joined the Department of Transport's Meteorological Branch in 1948. With just six months of training, he worked a year-and-a-half as a weather observer in Edmonton.
He then transferred to Fort Simpson, were he worked as a Radiosonde technician launching weather balloons to gather high altitude readings.
In 1954, while working in Suffield, a friend mentioned that a new television station was being built in Lethbridge, CJOC.
"Back then no one knew anything about the approach you should take to weather or how to put it up on a board," Matheson later recalled.
"So I auditioned. I got the job and I have been at it ever since."
Ironically, he didn't own a TV set himself.
Matheson always had the last segment of the Lethbridge newscast -- for a very good reason.
The fledgling station's equipment wasn't the most reliable in the world. On a bad night 10 minutes of prepared material was often lost to technical glitches.
Matheson could ad-lib long enough to fill in for the lost stories, once winging it for 15 minutes straight with material not covered by most meterological courses.
During his two decades in Lethbridge he also worked in the news department, covering the city desk and police beats.
He co-hosted a popular radio talk show (brilliantly called the "Phone Bill Show") with Terry Bland, and once ran as a Liberal candidate in the constituency of Fort MacLeod. Although he lost, he always said it was worth the experience.
CJOC Lethbridge was also where CFRN's legendary sportscaster Al McCann got his start.
A running gag on the old Mary Tyler Moore show had newsman Ted Baxter never taking a vacation, fearing a big network talent scout passing through town tuning into WJM would miss one of his newscasts. It was likely such an event prompted ABC Television to give Matheson an offer in 1974.
"This guy from WABC called me up and asked if I would like to work in New York? And do the weather for the ABC network?" Matheson recalled.
Matheson accepted, and his family moved to a three-bedroom apartment on Broadway and Sixty-Six -- a block from Central Park and across from Lincoln Centre.
One of his daughters was accepted at Fordham University, and a son landed the job of walking Mary, a large dog who belonged to President Nixon's speechwriter who lived across the hall.
But at ABC, Matheson was pressured by the network's union to take out U.S. citizenship. While management loved and encouraged his free-wheeling style, the staunch Canadian balked at "becoming one of them" and returned to his native land in 1976.
Waiting for him in Edmonton were two job offers: one from 930 CJCA radio, the other from the two-year-old independent TV station CITV.
At CJCA, Matheson was paired with Bill Jackson -- a coupling described by former CJCA/current CHED morning man Gord Whitehead as the mixing of gasoline and matches.
The "Bill and Bill Show" aka "The 11 to 2 Show" was must-listen-to radio when CJCA ruled as Edmonton's talk format king.
The show began predictably each morning with the Skitch Henderson "I Get No Kick From Champagne" theme song.
Then Matheson came on with the show's memorable introduction.
"We are broadcasting to you from the crystal gondola in the palatial main studios of 930 CJCA in beautiful downtown Edmonton for the education, elucidation, emancipation, enlightenment and mental emolument of the hoi-polloi."
It then quickly devolved into an exploration of the inner imaginations of the two Bills as they let phone-in callers drive the show to places unanticipated.
For 17 years the pair made light of current events and regular listeners.
Their personalities (Matty liked to have a few pops, Jackson was a reformed alcoholic; one was a flaming liberal, the other a staunch conservative; one an agnostic, the other a born-again Christian) fueled debate that caught the ear of an audience province-wide thanks to CJCA's near clear-channel transmitter.
Frequent callers were often tagged: "On the line is our old friend Jim from Airdrie, the wife-beating capital of Alberta." And there was "Richard from Red Deer" who often called to serenade the hosts.
The show was punctuated with Big Band music and Spike Jones tracks. Matheson was sometimes late returning to air after the noon news break, the result of nipping over to the downtown library to pick up some obscure records for the program.
The records were quickly put on the air by Wade Sorochan, the show's board operator known as the "fastest tone-arm in the west."
The pair were in constant pursuit of the trivial, striving for the final word on the subject of the day lest an error "sully their escutcheon."
The Bill and Bill Show came to an end in 1992. CJCA's owner at the time (McLean Hunter) had been shopping the station for new owners for some time. The station was eventually purchased by U.S.-oriented Western World Communications who brought in a new program director by the name of Peter Weissbach.
Within months, CJCA's flagship personalities left en masse to 630 CHED, who went from a failing rock sound to a soon ratings-leading information and entertainment format.
The exodus was lead by sportscaster Bryan Hall, who had worked at CJCA for 29 years. He was soon joined by Ron Collister and Gord Whitehead.
After his "third annual retirement show" in 1993, Matheson left CJCA but public outcry prompted CHED to bring him out of retirement.
"I agreed," Matheson said, "under the condition that I didn't have to take anything seriously." He finally retired from radio in the spring of 1997.
CJCA went off the air in 1994, 72 years after signing on. The frequency and call letters were bought by Touch Canada Broadcasting, and the station is currently a Christian radio outlet.
Wade Sorochan is now morning host at CKER 101.7 World FM, and Bill Jackson is retired and living in Wetaskiwin.
In the meantime ... Matheson carved out a niche in weather broadcasting history while helping a new-on-the-dial TV station become a local media favourite.
Alongside anchorman Doug Main and other names lost to time, Bill Matheson brought viewers a look at the weather (sometimes described as "an attack") they had never seen before.
Those tuning in at 6 and 10 saw a theatrical eccentric dispensing end-of-the-world predictions that seemed at times much like a weather forecast.
Appearing on camera as if he had just arrived at the station during the previous commercial break, Matheson's hair often reflected wind conditions outside the studio. There was often a ruddiness to his cheeks that gave away his enjoyment of life.
The static features of his weather map were frequently buried under the blur of black felt-pen markings he used to animate such encroaching weather systems as "the Omega block." So black was the map at times he often couldn't find a place to list the next day's temperatures.
"He wasn't low-tech, he was no-tech," recalled Global Edmonton general manager Tim Spelliscy.
Viewers were enlightened with descriptions of Trowals (troughs of warm air aloft), and camera men had to be alert as Bill often ventured to the Gulf of Mexico (a region lost to studio blackness below the bottom edge of his board).
And in a twinkle of his sparkling eyes, there were sudden descriptions of weather in Baker Lake -- the geographic center of Canada in the North West Territories -- that caused studio lights to glare off the bald spot on the back of his head while he posted chilling lows of minus 40 degrees.
“I really believe that Baker Lake, N.W.T., has got to be the epitome of all things Canadians hate about winter,” Matheson said. “The wind is blowing all the time. You're on the tundra. For half the year it's dark. And it’s always the coldest place on the weather map.”
Matheson frequently ventured on descriptive tangents that caught many by surprise, himself included.
Often was heard the sound of studio crews laughing at his outlandish oratory excursions, and anchor persons could barely keep their composure when cameras returned to them to provide the lead into the next commercial break.
A trooper from the days of "The Show Must Go On," Matheson insisted on bringing viewers the weather even while recovering from cartaract surgery.
So entertaining and informative were his weathercasts that in 1995 he was awarded the honour of "The world’s best weather presenter" at the International Weather Forecaster’s Festival in Paris. The recognition was determined by broadcasting peers.
“He was a monster in the TV market,” said Spelliscy. “Viewers were just passionate about Bill.”
In polls conducted by local arts magazines, Matheson was often voted most popular TV personality. He once placed third as "Most sexiest Edmontonian" behind ITV sportscaster Perry Solkowski and Edmonton Oiler goalie Curtis Joseph.
Those who worked with Matheson said that what you saw was what you got.
Always cheerful, Matty entered rooms and lives with the whistle of a Broadway showtune on his lips and the wit of Shakespeare on his mind.
He knew the names of all he worked with and filled studios and newsrooms with his out-sized personality. Even Bryan Hall described him as "loud" -- noteworthy praise coming from a man himself a local media big-mouth.
A successful playwright, he trod the boards as an actor in over 50 Lethbridge theatre productions.
A one act play he wrote called "Chinook," which won a Centennial playwright contest in 1967, is still staged occasionally in his hometown.
Matheson also inspired. Postings at several internet radio forums are filled with tales of Bill encouraging those new to broadcasting.
The most visible of those proteges is likely Claire Martin, Matheson's replacement at ITV/Global, now a national forecaster for the CBC.
Martin used to brief Bill when she worked at Environment Canada. Matty invited her to the station one day ... and a new career for the London, England-born native was launched.
As tribute to Matheson's talent-spotting ability, Martin was presented with the "World's Best" honour -- three times.
Fond of his find, Matheson brought Martin candy every day to the station. On some days, the candy from his pocket was even fresh.
Matheson brought sweetness and light to all who watched and knew him over the years.
Plans to capture his life in print were robbed by the effects of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“I have been missing him for a long time," said his wife Carmen Kole.
"I have to say, in all honesty, I’m thankful that he has been released. Parkinson’s is an awful, cruel disease.”
Former CFRN weatherman Ian Leonard, now at KWWL-TV Waterloo, Iowa spoke highly of his one-time rival.
"He was the brilliant old school talent that is so easily passed over in today's TV world for what I call 'hair and teeth' ... great looks with little substance."
"I have always said that for folks who are for over the age of 40 he is truly the yard stick by which all weather talent in Edmonton will be measured for years to come."
On the day Bill Matheson died, it was 9 degrees in Edmonton with a low cloud deck overhead. Showers were predicted and a building Arctic vortex was spotted near Baker Lake.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
The first version of Global TV's tribute to Bill Matheson can be seen here at the Youtube site.
Answering to an overwhelming response to Bill's passing, Global TV created Remembering Bill, a web site tribute that features links to two video segments sure to bring back fond memories ... and perhaps a few tears.