Thursday at 9 p.m., we’ll air A Golden State of Mind: The Storytelling Genius of Huell Howser, about the Gallatin native whose folksy charm endeared him to legions of television viewers.
Huell Howser of California’s Gold
Huell Howser’s California’s Gold magazine show highlighted areas and people of interest in his adopted state. The show ran for more than 30 years and aired locally on NPT.
Hugh Howser of H Three Events reminisced about his famous cousin and looked forward to this year’s Big Yellow Bird Bash (March 7 at Houston Station), for which H Three Events will provide design services.
Though Hugh didn’t grow up traversing California with his cousin, he did see him on trips out to Los Angeles—and he can do a near-perfect imitation of Huell Howser’s famous drawl. Hugh didn’t contact the elder Howser before a 2013 trip, however, and it was on that visit that he learned of his cousin’s death at the age of 67.
“He passed away and it was all over the LA Times and friends of mine were taking pictures of the LA Times, of billboards and texting me,” Hugh Howser said during a recent phone conversation. “I was like, what is going on? I went to the memorial service, everybody in the world was there, [then-governor] Arnold Schwarzenegger, everybody. It really was a great homage to him; they really loved him.”
Did you watch California’s Gold?
Oh, yeah, we always tuned in. And Huell would mail us hard disks of episodes. He was my dad’s first cousin so he was really close to my grandparents and he was constantly sending new episodes to make sure that they saw them.
People often assumed he’d created a persona just for the camera.
Oh, no, no, no—he would be excited about a rock in the yard. He loved anything old, anything historical, so if there was a bridge somewhere, he’d say—this is like a Huell Howser joke—he’d say ‘that’s the oldest bridge,’ and he’d repeat it. And he would be so excited about the littlest thing. That’s exactly how he was about anything, like a great sale in the grocery story, he’d say: ‘This is the best deal I’ve ever gotten in my whole life.’
You got a sneak preview of A Golden State of Mind—what did you think?
Oh, I thought it was so great. He just made a lifetime out of happy news.
Speaking of happy news, what do you have planned for this year’s Big Yellow Bird Bash? Will you be wearing yellow?
Of course! We’re going with more of a gold-mustard color this year. In year’s past I’ve hung chandeliers, I’ve hung feathered chandeliers, I’ve brought in trees, I’ve done all sorts of stuff—I’ve always transformed the space. It’s perfect for this time of year after all this doom and gloom.