By KEVIN WING | Chairperson, Media Museum of Northern California     

Joel Bartlett, who graced Bay Area television screens for more than three decades as a meteorologist for KPIX in San Francisco and later for KGO-TV, has died.

Bartlett was 81 when he passed away March 31 at his ranch in Sonoma County. George Lang, a family friend who worked as a cameraperson with Bartlett at both stations, said the veteran Bay Area TV weatherman died just before 11 p.m. that evening at home, surrounded by his wife, Sahar, his family and all of his animals.

Two days prior to his death, Bartlett received an official city of San Francisco proclamation from Mayor London Breed in recognition for his many years as one of the Bay Area’s most favorite television personalities.

Bartlett was with KPIX from 1974 to 1989, when he joined KGO-TV that year. He remained there until 2006, when he decided to retire after 31 years on San Francisco television. He was inducted into the Silver Circle of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2003.

Bartlett was born in February 1941 and raised in Arlington, Virginia. In 1962, he graduated from Virginia Tech University with a baccalaureate degree in mechanical engineering. He joined the ROTC, then entered the U.S. Air Force, where he was eventually commissioned a second lieutenant. While in the Air Force, his superior officers told him that they wanted him to be a weatherman. They wanted someone with a math and science background, which Bartlett had. Soon, he found out how just how much he loved meteorology. In the late 1960s, he set his sights on moving to the West Coast. In 1968, he landed a job with PG&E as a staff meteorologist, based in San Francisco. After six years there, he was offered the weekend meteorologist job at KPIX.

Throughout the 1980s, the KPIX “Eyewitness News” team, consisting of anchors Dave McElhatton, Wendy Tokuda, sportscaster Wayne Walker and Bartlett, was the team to watch. In 1982, KPIX’s “Eyewitness News’ became the Bay Area’s most-watched newscast.

It was at KPIX that Bartlett, unbeknownst to him at the time, would create something that would become his trademark through the years.

“We had a big weather map, and I’d write the temperatures on that map with a big Magic Marker pen,” Bartlett explained to Off Camera in 2012. “While doing the weather, I started flipping the Magic Marker in the air. I started doing it occasionally, then I started doing it every night, when it was appropriate. I’d then tell viewers to ‘go out and make it a great day.’” That line, and the pen-flipping, would become Bartlett’s signature. Viewers loved it. In fact, Bartlett estimates he dropped the pen only three or four times while live on the air, out of the tens of thousands of times of throwing pens in the air.

In 1989, when he joined KGO-TV, Bartlett was teamed with veteran KGO-TV meteorologist Pete Giddings along with the rest of the station’s weather team to become “The Naturalists”. In addition to reporting on the weather, each filed news stories about ecology, nature and the environment.

Bartlett’s introduction to television news was an indirect result with something considered disastrous, and it began with a wayward sailing trip in 1974.

“I never dreamed of being a weatherman,” Bartlett said in 2012 to Off Camera. “I knew what a cloud was, but that was about the extent of it.”

It was a sailing trip off the coast of the Bay Area that changed Bartlett’s life forever. He was 33 in 1974, living in Marin County and into his sixth year as a PG&E staff meteorologist. Outside of work, Bartlett and a friend always had a keen interest in sailing, enough so that the two purchased a sailboat, eventually becoming members of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club.

“My friend and I did a lot of sailing, and we used to race our boat on Friday nights,” Bartlett said. One evening, the friends set sail on the mighty Pacific Ocean, just off San Francisco. They ventured out despite a weather forecast which called for inclement weather.

“We got caught in a storm,” Bartlett explained. “The boat washed up on some rocks, and we were shipwrecked.” Eventually, they made it back to shore, and the next day, the friends were front page news. A newspaper reporter interviewed them, took a photograph of their broken vessel and put them on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner.

“The whole ordeal was incredible,” Bartlett said. “Because of our horrible experience, all of the area yacht clubs were calling, asking if I would talk about this wreck, and talk about the weather with yacht club members.”

One of the clubs was the Tiburon Yacht Club. Telling his audience there about his sailing ordeal, one man in the audience was listening very intently. His name was Bill Hillier, the programming manager for KPIX at that time. When Bartlett finished his presentation, Hillier walked up to him to ask if he ever considered taking his meteorology background to the world of Bay Area television news.

The rest is history.

At that time, KPIX needed a weekend meteorologist. Bartlett went in for an interview and an audition. Before long, he said goodbye to PG&E and hello to being a TV weatherman.

After retiring from television news, and KGO-TV, in 2006, Bartlett met his future wife, Sahar, at a benefit to rebuild old horse stables in Fairfax. That was the beginning of a loving courtship. Four years later, the couple married on Jan. 16, 2011, at “a beautiful winery in the north part of the South Island of New Zealand.

During his retirement years, Bartlett seemed far from sitting around and doing nothing. He and Sahar purchased a small horse ranch on three and a half acres outside of Santa Rosa. And, he remained active in the community. His activities included serving at one time as president of the Marin Horse Council. He also volunteered for the Blind Babies Foundation in Oakland and was involved with the Giant Steps Therapeutic Equestrian Center for Disabled Children in Petaluma.

In addition to his wife, Sahar, Bartlett is survived by a daughter, Cory, and a son, Todd, his children from a previous marriage, and by a stepson, Alex, as well as by his grandchildren and his many friends and television colleagues.

“A lot of things in my life have been blessings in disguise,” Bartlett said in 2012. “Doing the weather on TV was one of the luckiest breaks for anyone to have, and it happened to me.”

By KEVIN WING | Chairperson, Archive & Museum Committee

Joel Bartlett, who graced Bay Area television screens for more than three decades as a meteorologist for KPIX in San Francisco and later across the street for KGO-TV, has died.

Bartlett was 81 when he passed away late Thursday evening, March 31, at his ranch in Sonoma County. George Lang, a family friend who worked as a cameraperson with Bartlett at both stations, said the veteran Bay Area TV weatherman died just before 11 p.m. at home, surrounded by his wife, Sahar, his family and all of his animals.

Only earlier this week did Bartlett receive an official city of San Francisco proclamation from Mayor London Breed in recognition for his many years as one of the Bay Area’s most favorite television personalities.

Bartlett was with KPIX from 1974 to 1989, when he joined KGO-TV that year. He remained there until 2006, when he retired after 31 years on San Francisco television. He was inducted into the Silver Circle of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2003.

Bartlett was born in February 1941 and raised in Arlington, Virginia. In 1962, he graduated from Virginia Tech University with a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He joined the ROTC, then entered the U.S. Air Force, where he was eventually commissioned a second lieutenant. While in the Air Force, his superior officers told him that they wanted him to be a weatherman. They wanted someone with a math and science background, which Bartlett had. Soon, he found out how just how much he loved meteorology. In the late 1960s, he set his sights on moving to the West Coast. In 1968, he landed a job with PG&E as a staff meteorologist, based in San Francisco. After six years there, he was offered the weekend meteorologist job at KPIX.

Throughout the 1980s, the KPIX “Eyewitness News” team, consisting of anchors Dave McElhatton, Wendy Tokuda, sportscaster Wayne Walker and Bartlett, was the team to watch. In 1982, KPIX’s “Eyewitness News’ became the Bay Area’s most-watched newscast.

It was at KPIX that Bartlett, unbeknownst to him at the time, would create something that would become his trademark through the years.

“We had a big weather map, and I’d write the temperatures on that map with a big Magic Marker pen,” Bartlett explained to Off Camera in 2012. “While doing the weather, I started flipping the Magic Marker in the air. I started doing it occasionally, then I started doing it every night, when it was appropriate. I’d then tell viewers to ‘go out and make it a great day.’” That line, and the pen-flipping, would become Bartlett’s signature. Viewers loved it. In fact, Bartlett estimates he dropped the pen only three or four times while live on the air, out of the tens of thousands of times of throwing pens in the air.

In 1989, when he joined KGO-TV, Bartlett was teamed with veteran KGO-TV meteorologist Pete Giddings along with the rest of the station’s weather team to become “The Naturalists”. In addition to reporting on the weather, each filed news stories about ecology, nature and the environment.

As of April 1, this is a developing story and it will be updated.

 

Charley and Humphrey graced the Bay Area TV airwaves for decades, beginning in 1960 when KGO-TV in San Francisco gave them their own show. An immediate smash hit with grown-ups (oh, and kids, too!), “the boys” would endure throughout the 1960s, eventually switching channels when KTVU in Oakland picked them up in 1968. Although their “Charley and Humphrey Show” on KTVU was a regular series through 1976, they maintained a presence on the station through the end of the 1980s with public service announcements geared toward younger audiences. 

Who is the Silver Circle inductee and puppet master behind Charley and Humphrey? We know, you’re thinking that’s really too easy, but some of you may not know. So let us know! Write us! One of Charley’s lessons to Humphrey was about procrastination. So don’t procrastinate. Send your answer to kevin@emmysf.com. We’ll throw your name in a big drum and pull a name from tiny little slips of paper. The winner gets a $5 Starbucks card!