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Catch his visit to Musicians Institute, on TV tonight
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HUELL HOWSER, host of a long procession of series' for local public television, has died, according to numerous reports today.
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His friendly Southern accent and delivery of "Haaaiii, Ahm Huell Howww-ser," has been a fixture on PBS stations throughout the Golden State for decades.
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In too-slick-to-be-called-cool L.A., folksy Huell Howser on TV in his Bermuda shorts was the number-one aberration. You could not have pitched a character with his image to any TV exec in this town. They'd have thrown you out and screamed at you for being a moron who knows nothing of L.A. people and their wants. But Huell Howser was real, part Gomer Pyle, part Andy Griffith, and L.A. loved him.
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He hosted a memorable multi-part travelogue through all of California's Spanish Missions, a trek few residents have ever made in person. He introduced viewers to plenty of obscure people and their unique contributions to their communities in "Visiting... with Huell Howser."
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He made it okay to call a comfortably safe, air-conditioned trip to an interesting place, "an ad-VENNN-ture!"
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Everyone knows that the never-seen "Louie" was his longtime cameraman. Everyone kmows the long-lived "California's Gold," produced by his own company, based at KCET even after that station gave-up its PBS affiliation.
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KCET continued as his home base until his abrupt retirement, which took everyone by surprise, late in 2012.
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When the news hit in December that there would be no more new episodes, USC professor MARTIN KAPLAN told the L.A. Times, "No one said 'Wow!' like Huell Howser -- everything about California turned him into a kid on Christmas morning. He was about as far from irony as you can get. He made corny cool."
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When we prepared our "Tunes on TV" edition of the Acoustic Americana Music Guide last week, we included the following listing. You might want to make a special effort to see it, either of the times it airs tonight:
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Mon, Jan 7, on TV:
7:30-8 pm “MUSICIANS INSTITUTE” in Hollywood is profiled in this 2010 episode of “VISITING…WITH HUELL HOWSER.” (Repeats 12:30-1 am.) On KCET.
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Contents copyright © 2013, Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks. All rights reserved.
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8 comments:
Huell was kwell. Like a lot of socal peeps, I grew up on Hyuel Howwser.
Huell, I hope your next ad-venn-ture is the best of all.
We all made fun of his cornpone but he brought something this town needed: he was genuine in a business full of fakes and phonies.
Since your tribute appeared there have been many more. But I like it that you wrote about him. When you were on the radio, I always thought you were like a sophisticated Huell Howser. Both of you had a joie de vivre and excitement over discovering anything new. If we had found it ourselves it would be like 'that's nice' and would be quickly forgotten. But if one of YOU introduced it to us it was fun and exciting and memorable. Hope you don't mind the comparison but I always thought that. - Julie
What disappeared with the Gold Rush, Huell brought back. Huell, you ARE California's Gold!!!
Ben
I'm flattered at the comparison, Julie! Thank you.
Heard this morning that all his TV shows went ad an archive to Chapman College and they will make everything available online. So when TV is crappy without him, we can spend evenings watching his archive.
Thanks for including the show Huell did at Musician's Institute, and calling attention to it again after his death. Watched it and really enjoyed it!!! Sure I would have missed it otherwise. Kam
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