Weatherman made early morning TV job always sunny

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

During my days of morning television news, there were three questions that constantly came my way: "How early do you have to get up?"; "Do you write your own stories?"; and the big one, "What is Guy Hagi really like?"

I used to always get stopped in Longs by total strangers who would ask, "So where's Guy?" Like maybe he and I were so tight we did our Saturday toothpaste-and-toilet-paper shopping together.

Not that it bothered me any. If you're going to be forever associated with somebody you worked with, you couldn't ask for a better buddy than Hagi.

Guy is exactly the way you'd imagine. He's funny, quick, and dear. At 3 in the morning, he'd bounce into the station like Tigger, always full of energy when the rest of us were slamming pots of coffee just to stay conscious. Lots of mornings, he'd bring brownies, which was nice enough, but the truly amazing part was that they'd be fresh-baked. He'd get up extra early to make them. He'd actually apologize on the mornings when he brought in something he had baked the night before: "Sorry. Not fresh!"

Guy gets tons of fan mail, but not mash notes and love letters. Guy's mail comes from kids who see him as a big brother or favorite uncle, women who say he reminds them of their sons, grandmothers who tell him he's soooooo cute. He's the kind of person who just feels like family.

And he's fun. Wildly fun. The infamous "chair surfing" incident, where Guy stood on a rolling office chair and rode it across the studio (on live television) and wiped out on a taped-down cable seems foremost in people's minds. People still mention that all the time. They ask me if it was real or staged (real) and they ask me how we got away with that kind of stuff (just barely).

The day I remember fondly is when we threw little packets of Kikkoman (or was it Aloha?) at Guy during his weather cast every time he said, "Let me show you..." (Get it? Get it? Aw, heck, it was really funny at 5:30 in the morning.)

Then there's the list of "Hagisms" — sage observations that those of us on the morning crew would collect and treasure.

Like Guy's observation on romantic relationships: "If you going in different directions, how can you ride in the same car?"

Or his advice to men: "Meeting a woman isn't like spear fishing, it's fly fishing. You gotta' make your lure look good." (He goes on with a few "spear" analogies, but I'll stop there.)

Or his description of McDonald's apple pie: "lava in a crust."

And his famous line about Hawaiian heirloom bracelets: "Who is this Ku'uipo and how come she get so much jewelry?"

He'd drop one of these casually into conversation and make us laugh until we cried because they were so true.

When his work was done, he'd bolt for the door like Fred Flintstone hearing the pau hana whistle. If he wasn't emceeing the Hawai'i Pest Control Golf Tournament or hosting a food festival on a Neighbor Island, he would attend his regular "board meeting," what Guy calls his surf sessions with da gang.

Guy is leaving the grind of morning news for much greener (and not so early) pastures in mid-September, and I imagine I'll get more of the "Where's Guy?" questions, like I'm the one who should be keeping close tabs on his whereabouts.

I'll go for my standard answer, the one I always used when I got asked in Longs: "He's busy having fun."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Her e-mail address is lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.