I watch JEOPARDY every night and here in Los Angeles it's on Channel 7, the ABC affiliate. Right before the show they go to weather guy Dallas Raines for a preview of the weather. And I just want to punch this fucking guy in the face. He has a shit-eating grin and takes great delight in delivering bad news. For Mother's Day: (big smile) "Hey it's gonna rain on Mom. Details at 11."
FUCK YOU!
Hasn't local news moved on from these happy-talk assholes? When I was going to Minneapolis last month I checked in with one of their local weather guys and was very impressed. This was a real meteorologist, who clearly understood weather patterns and was able to articulate them in a clear concise way. Compare that to the yokel on Channel 7.
Now granted we don't get much weather here in LA and a number of stations have gotten by with hot young ingenues who don't know there's another meaning for snow besides cocaine, but come on. A shred of credibility maybe? A tiny thread?
Here's what I'm talking about. Tell me you wouldn't hold him while I punched him.
OMG - I couldn't stand that!
ReplyDeleteI'm located between NYC and Philly and have to check the weather for both cities to figure out what I'm getting. I have my go to station in Philly, NBC 10, which prides itself on its meteorologists and they are fabulous (not flashy, but they really know their stuff!). In NYC the network affiliates are good, but Mr. G on WPIX 11 is my primary source. Granted, as you said, the LA weather is a different beast, but I could never handle a station that doesn't treat its weather forecasting seriously (especially if it's a network affiliate!).
You’re located between NY and Philly? So you’re in Jersey! Lol.
DeleteA George Hamilton wannabe...
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Oklahoma in the 70s. In Oklahoma we take weather seriously. I thought every station in the nation had a true meteorologist and Doppler radar. Personally I would have preferred a young hot ingenue.
ReplyDeleteDid you see the guy from Ohio? He started chastising viewers flooding him with messages and tweets because he had the nerve to cut in with tornado warnings during "The Bachelorette". People like that deserve to have their house blown away.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like he's auditioning for a cheesy weatherman part. Julie, Burlington, Iowa
ReplyDeleteThe Rummy Bishop of weather men.
ReplyDeleteReading your comments, I was thinking "It can't be THAT bad." You had to be exaggerating and downright mean in your use of profanity. After watching the video, "Why were you so kind?" What a total asshole.
ReplyDeleteKen: Dallas is a "real" meterologist, too...but he's Dr. George Fishbeck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrDdu2Thlcw)'s successor. So he does some showbiz.
ReplyDeleteAnd he's been at KABC since 1984---so, while you and I might prefer a different approach, he's obviously been successful enough to outlast pretty much everyone there.
Sure, there are other types of weatherpeople. In Greater Cleveland, we have at least one weather terrorist... that is, the lady or man who says, "Are destructive weather conditions coming your way tonight? Listen to our weather at 6 or 11, and stay pinned to our website and our weather application, or you could be in real trouble." To them, EVERY potential weather condition is life threatening, and listening to ONLY their weather forecast can save your life. You can imagine how older, homebound viewers react to that.
ReplyDeleteWe also had the greatest weatherman of all time, Dick Goddard, who was honest as the day is long and the most accurate meteorologist I ever saw. He was entirely accurate and completely straight about the weather. Now, if HE said you should batten down the hatches, or even evacuate, then it was time to go for real.
We still have some of that, but weather has to sell the local news, which in itself has to be sold. Rather a sad state of affairs.
You remind me of Tony Kornheiser and his dislike for a certain D.C. weatherman because of that person's giddiness whenever a major blizzard hit the area.
ReplyDeleteFor a long time, being a weather forecaster on the West Coast was a useless job because there was no way of knowing what was going to happen, the only data they had came from radio reports from cargo ships. You literately could have a hurricane lurking offshore and no one would know it. So the stations hired people like the cartoonist Bob Cram to give "the Weather Picture".
Mr Raines certainly has grooved his little promo, notably the fist-clenching that ends it. I've no idea what demands the weather puts on LA's TV weather reporters, but meteorology is a big part of the news menu in Dallas, where weather can get pretty wild pretty quickly. I found one web site that reports Dllas Raines is only about 6 inches tall (http://tinyurl.com/y6b6q36f), and compensating for that may explain his manic performances in the promo.
ReplyDeleteI've thought the same thing for quite a while. News and weather has become the domain of buffoons."Because that's what people want". Just ask the consultants.
ReplyDeleteOh man, the hand gesturing does provide some entertainment value.
ReplyDelete🖐☝️👊
God, he reminds me of Trump.
ReplyDeleteGreasy fake smile? Check.
Stupid hand gestures? Check.
Patented (Trump actually tried!) tag line, accompanied by signature hand gesture? Check.
Los Angeles being Ground Zero for the hot weather girl phenomenon, having Dallas Raines pop up has to be even more annoying (In contrast, New York TV stations over the years have trended towards the fat, jolly male weathercaster, where the added girth was there to offset any annoying upbeatness the guy might have.)
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThat weather guy in the video, would you buy a used car from him? He looks exactly like one of those "have I got a deal for you" morons. Lots of different weather conditions up here in Canada so we have tons of these, as Ken says "happy-talk assholes with shit eating grins." I always go to the Environment Canada website instead of trusting big boobed Beatty on the local news. When there is a map of my province Beatty's knockers always cover my city so I don't know what the temp is going to be or if she's covering a "sun", a "cloud" or a "drizzle" pic.
Then there is Brent the old guy who still uses chalk on a clear screen to present his data. Bit of a skill to write backwards but it's always annoying at the end when he throws the chalk up in the air and catches it while simultaneously saying "have a good day, weather or not." I like puns, but not that one.
These guys and women call themselves "meteorologists" but is there an actual course somewhere for this? I've never heard of it being offered at a university or college. It's science I guess, but if there is an actual course it teaches the same fucking thing over and over, have the weather person show this:
Squirrel waterskiing
Dog surfing
Happy Birthday greetings to 100-year-old granny
Polar Bear Plunge into frigid waters
Sunset in Key West
A car being carried by water down a flooded road
Boats anchored in marina bobbing up and down because of strong waves
Car being pushed out of the snow by two guys, one who then slips and falls on his ass
Three guys who move from Chicago to Hawaii and open a surf shop. Oh wait, that's "Big Wave Dave's"
Fat guy cannonball record holder
My favorite, guy walking against the freezing wind holding his hat with one hand and trying to keep his coat closed with the other
I've seen these fucking things a million times and I'm tired of it...
Kiwanis Club holding a bbq, "so get out there and enjoy a hot dog in the sun."
Kids cooling off in a public splash pad
Weather guy outside in a storm yelling his forecast, "and back inside to you Dick and Gwen, if you can still hear me."
An egg being fried on hot pavement
"Golf ball sized hail" hitting a high school football field
"And this picture sent in by Debbie showing her tulips blooming, isn't that nice? Thank you Debbie, and speaking of tulips...."
And last.......Granny and Gus enjoying their 60th wedding anniversary. Yes, it's a beautiful accomplishment, but it's always diminished by some, to paraphrase Ken, chuckleheaded, shit eating grinning, used car salesmen, large boobed, amateur meteorologist looking to crack into the big Toledo market.
By the way, suppose to be nice today, temps in the low 70's, sunny, slight breeze.
Dallas Raines is a real meteorologist (has an American Meteorological Society certification). Seems from this entry like you're comparing his performance in a 5-second tease for the 11:00 news to another meteorologist's performance during an actual newscast, which is unfair.
ReplyDeletejust call him the "Hey, Look at me" Weatherguy...
ReplyDeleteIn the best tradition of car salesman spots everywhere... Ick. But, it's his schtick, and it probably tests well. Where do these guys come from??
ReplyDeleteQuick story about a good weatherman:
In '71, I was the Ensign Pulver of the public affairs division aboard the USS JFK which had an on-board, live radio station. One of the kids I supervised worked as a DJ and asked me how to get into radio after his Navy hitch was up, as if I knew the secret - which I didn't. Later, he was honorably discharged and moved back to the east coast to get a DJ job. We kept in touch a bit and even talked on the phone during our radio shifts (he at WKBW in Buffalo and I at KSD in St. Louis. One night, he told me he was leaving radio to try standup in L.A. I thought he was nuts.
Later at one of the comedy clubs in L.A., an executive at KNBC saw his act and liked it. It all worked out pretty well for...Fritz Coleman who has been a weatherman at KNBC since 1984.
Meanwhile, I'm still looking for "the secret."
:)
Good for Fritz!
Kent Brockman.
ReplyDeleteTed Baxter.
Les Nessman.
These boobs have always been with us. So I wouldn't punch the guy in face-- pacifist here-- but I wouldn't mind telling him "you're fried".
And of course he wouldn't get it.
My wife and I live outside a small city in Pennsylvania (pop around 59,000) and the tv station has real meteorologists a fact that makes me very happy. The county population is 542,903.
ReplyDeleteNepotism is a fine way to get in the biz..... especially in a Major market..
ReplyDeleteWe had a guy in Corpus Christi we called Dead Wrong Dale. I swear he forecast whatever would help the ratings. His only redeeming value was that once there was a storm in the gulf, he became very serious and accurate.
ReplyDeleteSome may remember that Dallas Raines was one of CNN's chief meteorologists before he came to KABC in '84. Always had the spray tan and the grating personality. I always wondered if his name was made up.
ReplyDeleteI would love to punch him in the teeth.....details later tonight!
ReplyDeleteYou leave Dallas Raines alone. He's a Los Angeles treasure!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to keep in mind: Greater Los Angeles has an incredible mix of altitude, topography and wind conditions, perhaps more so than in any other metro area I've lived in (Syracuse, D.C., Des Moines, Philadelphia, New York, to name a few). As a result, L.A. radio and TV weather reports forecast "the basin" (downtown and immediate environs), coastal regions, the valleys (San Fernando, San Gabriel, etc.), the mountains (Big Bear, Arrowhead) and the "high desert" (Victorville, Barstow). Weather conditions are vastly different throughout the area, a drawing card for visitors and tourists since the legendary -- and now largely forgotten -- Mount Lowe resort, accessible to Angelenos from downtown via streetcars for decades until fires destroyed the venue in the late 1930s. Weather is crucial to living in Los Angeles, especially since it isn't particularly well-equipped to handle substantial rain (or, conversely, sustained drought). It shouldn't be trivialized.
ReplyDeleteHa Ha Ha.... that clenched fist. Yes, I would hold him Ken.
ReplyDeleteHere we don't have the sort of weather updates like in US. Just plain shouting at each other 24*7 news.
On YouTube, it always fascinated me that there are so many videos on bloopers by weathermen/women. And almost all of them get thousands of views. And the comments section is full of Americans who love the bloopers. I guess Americans love the weather section of the news the most :)
On the other hand, I love Family Guy's Ollie Williams
here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOLN6_U3NGQ
Raines is basically the LA weather version of John Sterling: Someone who knows his stuff, but knows even better how to stand out in a crowd. I honestly don't understand how Ken can rag on Raines but praise Sterling. They're cut from the same cloth.
ReplyDeleteI agree with ELS about Dick Goddard. One of the current weatherman [who's been here a number of years] fires up his "Doppler of Death" any time there's a threat of rain or tornadoes even if it's 3 states away or in the winter how every snowstorm is "The beginning of a new ice age? Details at 11!" I call it "Weather Terrorism". I love how they break into TV shows but when it's time for those commercial breaks they just mute him down and shrink the picture down until the commercial is over, then it's but to full on non-stop interruption of whatever is showing at the time.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous KB said...
ReplyDeleteYou leave Dallas Raines alone. He's a Los Angeles treasure!
Yes, and like most treasure he should be buried so deep he'd never be found.
I can't decide if he's trying to rise to used-car-salesman credibility or Vegas-wannabe. Either way, he should end up a great victim of the week on some murder-of-the-week show.
ReplyDeleteP.
He used to be on all over the country when WGN was a superstation, but Tom Skilling to me is the Vin Scully of TV weather people. Taught me about cold fronts, warm fronts, how dew point correlates to humidity levels, the whole deal. He is, far and away, the best, and has been almost 50 years.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, there is a meteorology certification for TV weather people. It's through Mississippi State University.
We also watch Jeopardy every night but this is why we watch it on the DVR after it has aired so we can race past this stuff. That guy is doing the Donald Trump handshake maneuver by making a fist and pulling it toward him!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of weather people...in most of the country you can be reasonably accurate about the upcoming weather but the prediction might be off by a day or two. These weather people have a bad habit of saying that it IS going to be like this or that rather than saying something like 'we're expecting it to rain' or 'the National Weather Service is predicting sunny skies for the weekend'. And when the weather turns out, as it often does, to be different than what they predicted they never come back the next day and 'own' their mistake. People make and cancel their plans based on weather forecasts. I have often kept a mental batting average on these people and most, if not all of them hover down near the Mendoza line.
I'm from Boston where we always had literate meteorologists.
ReplyDeleteBut I would like to pay special tribute to Denis Phillips of the ABC affiliate in Tampa Bay. When hurricane Irma was coming, and watching The Weather Channel for even 30 seconds was giving him palpitations, and one errant Google on my part let me see Lawn Mower From The Sky, he was calm and always telling us what to do. Mostly rule 7, Don't Panic until he does.
Also he told us that lots of branches were going to fall on our house in the dark when we couldn't see what was going on. That helped.
I noticed the guy's "thist" and flat-hand gestures. Is he running for public office?
ReplyDeleteMinnesotans are obsessed with weather, and the local stations know this so they treat it incredibly seriously. I moved here in 1987 and was shocked when the local NBC affiliate had a two hour recap special on a local storm during prime time. At the time I though it was insane, but now, my opinion is: Well, it did rain hard enough to flood the mall, so that IS a pretty big deal.
ReplyDeleteIf you are ever in Chicago and need a great weatherman call Tom Skilling. He is the best.
ReplyDeleteI watched the video. Hams need gotta make money too Ken.
ReplyDeleteWhile I wouldn't hold him down for you while you punch him, I think I'd need a drink after talking to the guy for any length of time.
Sean
When I was growing up in the middle of the last century, we had two weather folks in the NY Metro area. Carol Reed (not the British director) was the "weather girl" on CBS and played it straight, while NBC, I think, had Tex Antoine, who put together a puzzle called "Uncle Weathbe" (for Weather Bureau) while he read the forecast. If rain was coming the puzzle frowned, if sunny -- well, you get it. Then Tex thought it would be funny to follow a news item about rape with a joke, and that was it for his career. And we didn't even have the term "political correctness" yet. Back in the day it was called "bad taste."
ReplyDeleteDoes your guy offer free advice? Like "It'll be around 65 when you head out to church, so be sure to bring a sweater." Maybe that's just a southern thing. I don't care for it.
The Nathan Fillion character Rainer Shine is obviously modeled after DR at ABC7. Or maybe not. Chilling to think that there are others who might have been the prototype. Somebody stop the insanity. Think of the gene pool. Oh the humanity!
ReplyDeleteAnd when you're done, you hold him while I hit him.
ReplyDeleteKen Levine gives me a bloody nose! The forecast, later tonight...
ReplyDeleteYes, I would hold him still for you.
I live in small market television Duluth, Minnesota. We have a perky morning weather meteorologist who knows her sh*t! She just got her masters degree in meteorology. Her camera presence makes Duhlass Raines' look the overpaid monkey he is. Betting she makes less than $30K in Duluth. But she doesn't even break stride on camera when she's standing in front of her "green board" while doing her thing! She makes America's weatherman WGN TV's Tom Skilling proud as she hails from the Chicago area. LA is too much fluff and little brains. No wonder Paul Magers retired young. The morons in media are in charge. Brittney kicks ass and she's ours at least for now.
ReplyDeleteLove doctor George and I found out after I moved here to Albuquerque, to that he's beloved here too as well. But I think you're forgetting that Dallas pretty much replaced Johnny Mountain.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, this video has been going viral in the last couple of days. Viewers were upset that the local ABC affiliate in Rockford OH was covering their tornado watch instead of airing "The Bachelorette". I think this weatherman had every right to go ballistic. And you wonder why Ohio voted the way they did? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vww1IeQ02is#action=share
ReplyDeleteI watched the video and it took a minute to work out who this guy reminds me of.
ReplyDeleteIt's the annoying reporter in Predator 2 played by Morton Downey Jr who gets a kick out of covering gruesome news.
Coincidentally, Danny Glover's character in Predator 2 also has the desire to punch the guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y0oZcPkyTo
Two Philly weatherman related stories: One night as we sat down to dinner with the TV on John Lennon was doing the weather on the 6PM news. Apparently he had taken a train (left Yoko home) alone from NYC for a charity appearance and hung around the station. The second involves "Meteorologist" John Bolaris and the Storm of the Century.The city was totally shut down in anticipation and nothing happened. He got death threats and someone actually peed on him. LOL Janice B.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how long Raines has been around, it's a little late to start complaining about him now. KABC has a place for him until he's no longer able to do his crouch.
ReplyDeleteLighten up Ken.
ReplyDeleteCould be worse. For years I would not watch any local news on KABC because of that buffoon "Dr. George" Fischbeck.
ReplyDeleteUnnecessary slam on a guy who has worked for 30+ years in a major market, fought cancer, and actually brings personality to a newscast that spends half the broadcast plugging Disney products (KABC owned by the Mouse).
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your blog, but this was kind of a out of the blue low blow.
I saw a comment comparing him to tRump. Funny. I saw Biden!
ReplyDeleteI also watch Jeopardy on this station though on DVR. The 5 seconds of him on the air (basically before I have a chance to start forwarding through the intro) are about the only exposure to weather people I have since, well, I have a phone. Except the morning show weather ladies which always seems to brighten the days of the old guys at work.
ReplyDeleteI hope you really don't get that worked up about this little thing and it's just fake outrage for your blog.
I've always hated the dumb-assed weather people who make it sound like they are the ones bringing us the good weather. "I'm bring you nothing but sunshine today!" Yeah, like they control the weather. Conversely I hate the stupid banter when the news guy, before passing it over to the weather guy, blames him for the bad weather of the day. Stick them all in a field during a lightning storm!
ReplyDeleteI have sympathy for So Cal weather people. After all, we have no weather. It’s fun watching their hand gestures, body positions, everything and anything they can think of to make nothing sound like it may actually be something. Weather person Liberté Chan on KTLA is particularly fun to watch as she almost disjoints her hips in front of the temperature screen.
ReplyDeleteDallas is wild, but I do like some of his suits.
That's why I watch CBS2 in LA. Garth Kemp, who was canned by KABC, is the anti Dallas Raines. Get the LA weather straight with a little humor. Plus he was a rock DJ in previous life. You really don't need the AMS logo to do weather in LA.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I watch CBS2 in LA. Garth Kemp, who was canned by KABC, is the anti Dallas Raines. Get the LA weather straight with a little humor. Plus he was a rock DJ in previous life. You really don't need the AMS logo to do weather in LA.
ReplyDeleteDallas Raines — sounds like a north Texas forecast — is a performer, not a weather reporter. But such is the state of modern TV “journalism.”
ReplyDeleteMinnesota meteorologists are the best. The weather here changes so rapidly and there's so much geographical influences that it's a challenge to forecast. A long-time meteorologist from Duluth is a friend of mine. He was always frustrated because Lake Superior could affect the weather so unexpectedly that he said he was lucky if he was exactly right a third of the time.
ReplyDeleteI can't disagree that these promos are at least cringe-worthy if not punch-worthy. Then again, I have to stick up for Dallas Raines for those rare times when SoCal weather is truly serious. The best example would be on May 22, 2008 when an EF-2 tornado spawned in Riverside County and ran parallel to the 215 during the afternoon rush hour. I'm originally from tornado-prone states and I have an admittedly odd interest in watching live streams of severe weather coverage. In addition to KABC-TV being the only station that gave constant coverage (KTTV was intermittent while the others were all AWOL), Dallas did an excellent job of describing the situation, showing the areas threatened, and did it all in a calm but serious manner without using a lot of meteorologist jargon that often confuses viewers. It's a shame he and many other TV mets have to go the chuckle-head route especially here where the forecast often remains the same for weeks on end. On the other hand, when it's crunch time, at least Dallas can put that away and get the job done.
ReplyDeleteOk, I rarely make comments like this, but it's just a bit too obvious, so I'mma' goin' for it. The first thing I thought when seeing this weatherman (who I've never seen before), was that his gestures imply "Weather forecast soon - grabbin' my dick later!"
ReplyDeleteThis probably says more about me than about him. Oh well.
I love this guy, although granted I've only seen the youtube reels rather than having to put up with him in real time on the air. To me he seems like a frustrated game show host or chat show host who's making the best out of what he's given. Alternatively, he could be subversive and is secretly enjoying how much he's annoying people - kinda like when David Letterman was a weatherman.
ReplyDeleteAt least he is amazingly consistent. Isn't that a talent?
ReplyDeleteOk first timer but I was amazed when I moved to LA that all the weather people seemed to be comedians. I grew up with real meteorologists delivering weather. In fact, the guy on my parents’ favorite station, NBC affiliate KSNW in Wichita, was Mike Smith and he had a real company that provided scientific weather data to various clients, including media. So then I go to LA and there’s these guys I see on late night comedy shows who are also the “weathermen” on the news. Blew my freaking mind. Then I figured out LA weather, which is not really all that varied by comparison to Kansas or many other places, and figured the news directors were just looking for an area they could entertain since weather was boring by comparison to other subjects. But the irony was, even on the comedy shows, these comedian-weather guys were about as skilled at comedy as they were at delivering the weather. Which is to say, there’s a reason they needed second jobs.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand Dallas Raines ever since the Thousand Oaks Cowboy bar shootings, everyone else on the newscast like most people were somber and this joker is smiling away with the weather forecast.
ReplyDeleteHe seems okay to me. What do you care?
ReplyDelete