Huell Howser

Huell Howser is the boyish and affable host of several travel and human interest series produced by the Los Angeles PBS affiliate KCET.

Tall and muscular, Howser is invariable smiling and amazed by all the "fascinating" things and "really nice people" he finds on his video travels throughout the Los Angeles area and the state of California, whether it's a restored Spanish mission, or an old man who loves to make yogurt.

Howser is originally from Tennessee and is an American host of the PBS travel series, California's Gold. The show is mainly a tour of several historical and cultural sites in California as Howser investigates and conducts informal interviews with small ethnic groups, local residents, business owners, tour guides and docents, curators, experts, and so on, walking along with them and the cameraman (whom he usually refers to by name). The production of the series is generally low-key but because of Howser's affable on-air personality and his Southern drawl, it is still enjoyable to many public station viewers. Howser is popularly known by his trademark exclamation "Oh My Gawd!" and other expressions, such as "Oh It's Beautiful!". Also memorable is his closing line "...and it is a fine example of California's Gold. S'long everybody!"

Howser hosts other similar programs such as Visiting, in which he visits several neighborhoods (mainly unique business establishments and ethnic communities) throughout the city of Los Angeles. Road Trip is a similar premise to California's Gold where he visits mainly small towns throughout the state of California. Educated in Tennessee and after receiving his Bachelors degree from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, his career in television began at WSM-TV in Nashville, after serving on the staff of Senator Howard Baker (Republican-Tenessee). Howser began a series of "human interest" stories for WSM, such as interviewing the owners of pet pigs. This segment began as a way of filling out the local newscast, which had recently been expanded to an hour format for the first time and had a serious need for additional content. Howser became extremely popular in the Nashville area as the host of a popular segment on what was at that time still a market-dominant station, especially with regard to local news. However, he became the subject of controversy in the summer of 1979. Howser did a story about how the former Tennessee Governor's Mansion was slated for demolition to make way for a Popeye's Fried Chicken outlet. In this story, he made no secret of his outrage and disgust at this development. He was ordered by station management not to make any further mention of this on the air, but ignored the order and did so anyway. At this point, he was given a thirty-day suspension. Before the suspension was over, Howser secured new employment doing essentially the same thing in a far larger market, New York, and left Nashville. He has often since stated that he might still be looking for more pet pigs around Nashville if this incident had never occurred.

After working in New York for several years, he moved to Los Angeles in 1981 to work as a reporter for KCBS-TV. He worked globally from Switzerland and Middle East to Nicaragua, and then from Nicaragua to former Soviet Union, before returning to the type of human-interest local reporting in which he initially made his mark.

Each program has its own underwriter (i.e., a public television term for a "sponsor"). For example, California's Gold is underwritten by Sempra Energy, Road Trip by the American Automobile Association, AAA, and California's Green (a nature-themed program) by BP, an energy company.

Howser was parodied as Howell Huser in The Simpsons episode, There's Something About Marrying.

External Sites

• Huell Howser Productions (http://www.calgold.com)
• http://www.seniorlifeusa.com/huel.htm Biographical article of Huell from Senior Life magazine