Roscoe Vernon Gaddis (January 28, 1896 – October 21, 1986), known professionally as Gadabout Gaddis, was a 20th-century American
fisherman and television pioneer.[1] Gaddis was born in
Mattoon, Illinois and was nicknamed
Gadabout by a boss who said he could never find him.[2]
Gaddis, an avid fisherman since his youth in
Illinois,[3] was also a
pilot and
adventurer. He began his career in the
early days of television by showing his
home movies of his fishing expeditions.[4] In 1939 he briefly hosted a program about fishing on
General Electric's experimental TV station
W2XAD in Schenectady, New York.[2] When W2XAD became
WRGB in the mid-1940s, Gaddis returned to the station to host Outdoors with Liberty Mutual, which was only the second sponsored television show (
Lowell Thomas's being the first).[2] The show was eventually carried on 73 stations. Going Places with Gadabout Gaddis in the 1950s was less successful,[5] but beginning in the early 1960s Gaddis starred in The Flying Fisherman, also sponsored by
Liberty Mutual.
The Flying Fisherman
The Flying Fisherman was a weekly program, usually broadcast on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, that showed Gaddis fishing in a different location each episode. The show's lone crew member was a
cameraman who paddled alongside Gaddis in a nearby boat.[2] The shows were filmed without sound, and Gaddis would add his low-key and folksy narration in the studio.[5] The program had the look and feel of a home movie, which some analysts theorized was a major factor in its appeal to audiences.[2]
Not all programs showed Gaddis making a catch, including an episode shot at
Thomas Lake in Colorado, where Gaddis filmed for five days without catching a fish.[2]
Gaddis was nominated for an
Emmy Award in 1968.[3] Gaddis earned his
Army Air Corpspilot's wings during
World War I and flew himself to each filming location in his
Piper Cherokee 235.[2] Each episode would open with a shot of Gadabout Gaddis landing his plane, but in reality it was his friend, Jack Phillipps, landing the plane in Gaddis's
cowboy hat, as Gaddis could not "hit the mark"; i.e. he could not touch down on the spot required for the stationary camera to capture the landing.
Gaddis lived in
Bingham, Maine, and Gadabout Gaddis Airport in that town[6] was his base of operations. The airport was built about 1950 and later bought by Gaddis.[7]
Works
Publications
The Flying Fisherman (R. V. 'Gadabout' Gaddis, as told to George Sullivan) 1967, Pocket Books