Gadabout Gaddis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roscoe Vernon Gaddis (January 28, 1896 – October 21, 1986), known professionally as Gadabout Gaddis, was an 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.