Fritz Coleman is Weathering Age with Laughter

Joel Beers
Aug 13
5 min read

The legendary Southern California broadcaster is as busy as ever in 'retirement.'

Fritz Coleman spent 40 years as lead weather person for KNBC Channel 4 News before retiring and refocusing on his first communication passion: stand-up comedy. Photo courtesy of Lesley Bohm

When Fritz Coleman retired in 2020 after 40 years as lead weather person for KNBC-TV’s local newscast, he’d more than earned the chance to step away from the public eye and relax. But instead, he’s stayed nearly as busy as he was forecasting three times a day, five days a week.

While his daily reach may no longer match the days when Channel 4 news drew hundreds of thousands of viewers – and his vocabulary may have seen a decline in references to inversion layers and high and low pressure systems – Coleman has branched out online with a weekly pop-culture-themed podcast, and he’s deepened his commitment to the craft that opened the door to his Emmy-winning career: stand-up comedy.

Coleman, who lives in Toluca Lake, brings his act to Orange County this weekend: Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Lake Forest Performing Arts Center, and Sunday, Aug. 17 at the Lake Forest Sun and Sail Club.

His home base is the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood, where he performs monthly, but he says Orange County crowds are among his favorites (he was a frequent performer at the Camino Real Playhouse’s former venue in Southern California).

“I’ve had more fun bookings since the pandemic in Orange County than anywhere else in Southern California,” Coleman said. “They’re just great audiences. I think part of that is that they’re far enough away from Hollywood where they’re not the jaded show business types.”

Stand-up comedy isn’t a retirement hobby for Coleman – it predates his TV career by a decade and continued throughout his years at Channel 4. “Before climate change, all the weather in Los Angeles was pretty tranquil, especially between April and November,” he said. “I’d get to work at noon, prepare my broadcasts, do the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts, and didn’t have to be back until the 11 p.m. broadcast. That gave me time to grab a bite, do a 15-minute set at a club, and return for the late news.”

Coleman averaged three comedy gigs a week – unless a major weather event kept him in the studio. He estimates he had performed about 2,000 stand-up shows by the time he retired.

Inspired by a Stoned Weather Man

Ironically, Coleman’s desire to make people laugh was sparked by seeing a legendary comedian who often worked into his act the personality of a stoned local weatherman: George Carlin.

That came in 1966 when Coleman was an 11^th grader living in Philadelphia. His uncle bought him a ticket to see Carlin. It only changed his life.

“George Carlin is the reason I wanted to do stand-up,” Coleman said. “I’d always been a fan of comedy, but my experience had been limited to five-minute snippets on TV. This was the first time I saw a full show and the inner workings of a comedian’s mind. He walked on stage in front of 3,000 people with nothing but a bottle of water and spoke extemporaneously for about an hour, and the audience was crying, they were laughing so hard. It was the greatest amount of power I’d ever seen a human wield. Honestly, it was like a religious experience.”

That planted the seed, but Coleman didn’t get on a stage for another decade. First came college – “I flunked out the first time,” he said – which ended his draft deferment. He said while he didn’t mind serving his country, “I didn’t want to do it with a gun, and everybody being drafted at that time was being sent to Vietnam.”

Coleman decided to be proactive and enlisted in the Navy. His post aboard the USS John F. Kennedy kept him out of combat, helped him grow up, and introduced him to broadcasting; for three and a half years, he hosted a radio show on the ship and worked for Armed Forces Television.

From Radio to Stand-Up Comedy

Within a day of leaving the Navy in 1971, he had both his first pair of glasses and his first professional radio job. He worked as a DJ through the 1970s in Philadelphia, Syracuse, New York City and finally Buffalo, where he eased into stand-up comedy. As a local radio personality, he was often asked to host at clubs, whether spinning records at dance contests or “goofy stuff like wet T-shirt contests,” he said.

One of his steady gigs was introducing the performers at a local jazz club. To fill the time between set changes, he began writing material and that led him to opening each night with a 15-minute routine, which led the club’s owner to ask him to build a comedy show on Monday nights.

He booked comedians from across New York state and Toronto, a longtime comedy hotbed, producing talents like Jim Carrey and Howie Mandel.

By 1980, Coleman was losing enthusiasm for radio and his appetite was growing for comedy. After realizing he’d grown somewhat proficient as a stand up, he decided to pursue comedy professionally.

That only meant moving across a continent.

California or Bust

“At that time, in order to be truly successful in the comedy business, you had to do it in Los Angeles, and you really had to go to the (legendary venue) The Comedy Store. That was the mecca of the comedy world and all these famous comics like David Letterman, Jay Leno and Freddie Prinze had come out of that.

So I said, "Well, I’ll go work at the Comedy Store.’”

Starting with open mics, he caught the eye of Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore, who made him a paid regular. The gig meant steady stage time but as an opener or in the middle of the bill. It also meant $25 a night, little pay, so Coleman supplemented that with road work. He honed his act, but it was a grind, and after two years, his ears were ready when opportunity knocked.

Buffalo Connection

One night, Channel 4 news anchor John Beard, a friend of Coleman’s from Buffalo, brought the station’s news director to see his act. After the show, Coleman was asked if he’d be interested in doing weekend and fill-in weather. “It took me about two minutes to decide – even though I didn’t know the first thing about weather,” Coleman said.

He aced the audition, launching a 40-year career that earned him five Emmys and made him one of the station’s most recognizable faces alongside sportscaster Fred Roggin. Through it all, he kept performing stand-up, appearing on “The Tonight Show” and "The Merv Griffin Show.”

Coleman describes his style as “conversational observation,” drawing material from fatherhood, divorce and, increasingly, the universal experience of aging. He avoids political humor, both because for 40 years he represented a corporate TV station and his belief that in today’s polarized climate, he can offer something different.

“I’d rather talk about the things we have in common, and my audiences appreciate that,” he said. “We’re in such a dark, politically and socially fraught time. There are divisions even within families and among friends and co-workers. People are nervous, wondering whether democracy will survive. I don’t think everyone wants to come to a comedy club or theater and be reminded of how bad things are outside. I really think live performance has never been as important than now, and I feel I have a responsibility to take the audience out of their heads for an hour and make them forget the cares of the world.”