A Family Amateur Affair

Willard Scott, the ebullient, effervescent weatherman from NBC’s “Today Show” for 11 years, said he had a ball playing host of the Family Channel’s “The New Original Amateur Hour.”

Except for one slight problem. “I talk too much as you can tell,” Scott, 57, said breathlessly via phone from his office at NBC in New York. “When I get on the air I go crazy. You can’t shut me up, so the first two shows ran over eight minutes. I have to learn to calm down.”

“The New Original Amateur Hour,” which premiered last week, is the latest incarnation of the series which began on the radio nearly 60 years ago. Major Bowes hosted the series until his death in 1946. Ted Mack, who booked acts for the series, took over the hosting chores, bringing it to TV in 1947.

Over the next 23 years, the series aired at various times on DuMont, ABC, NBC and CBS. Frank Sinatra, Ann-Margret, Raul Julia, Pat Boone and Gladys Knight were among the winners who went on to successful careers. One of the show’s rejected tryouts was Elvis Presley, Scott said, laughing. “So their batting average wasn’t a thousand,” he said.

The format of the new version is basically the same as the original “with the exception that there is more physical contact between me and the contestants than there was between (them and) Ted Mack. He used to sit at a desk and I am out there with them.”

Each week, 10 amateurs compete for a grand prize of a cruise. First, second and third prizes are also awarded. Audience members choose the winners.

Scott, who just signed a new contact with NBC, taped the six episodes of “Amateur Hour” during weekends in Orlando, Fla. And he just received the “nice” news that the Family Channel has ordered seven more.

“We are really truly enthusiastic about this show. More than just sounding like a Pollyanna here, I can say it really worked out well. I have done a couple of other pilots (and with each) we knew the day it started taping the show was a turkey. This one, the minute we started working on this show, it has a good feel about it.

“I can’t tell you how much fun I had doing this show. This show might not make it if you put it out there with the 10 million other shows (on TV) because it is not titillating, it is not sensationalized, it is not tabloid. It is a nice, clean, very warm, fuzzy show and the Family Channel is perfect for it.”

Of the 60 contestants who competed on the show, Scott’s favorite was a 70-year-old man who played whiskey bottles. “The guy just tore me up,” he said. “He can play harmony and he was cute. He looked like ‘Mr. Anybody’ over 70, retired in Florida with the funny green pants and the open shirt.

“His lines were so funny. When I interviewed him I said, ‘What do you do at home?’ He said, ‘It is embarrassing. If the preacher comes and asks my wife where I am, she always tells him I am upstairs hitting the bottle.’ The audience went crazy.”

“The New Original Amateur Hour” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. and repeats Saturdays at 8 p.m. on the Family Channel.