Al Roker Shares the Sweet Way His Kids Inspired His Show ‘Weather Hunters’

Al Roker‘s PBS Kids series, Weather Hunters, is all about family, so it’s no surprise the show was inspired by his own.

Weather Hunters, which premiered on PBS Kids last year, stars Roker as Al Hunter, a father who teaches his kids about all things weather. However, Roker’s own children weren’t as fascinated by weather as his character’s kids on the show.

“They didn’t really care much about the weather growing up, any more than most kids. ‘Is it going to affect our soccer game? Is it going to affect our trip to the beach?’ Things like that. And so, we would talk about the weather, but their interest basically rose and set on ‘how does it affect me,’ meaning them,” Roker told TV Insider. “But they asked the same [things, like,] ‘Why is the sky blue? What causes a rainbow?’ Things like that, which I think all kids wonder, and, you know, quite frankly, a lot of adults.”

Roker shares his eldest child, daughter Courtney, with his late ex-wife, Alice Bell, as well as his daughter Leila and son, Nick, with his wife, Deborah Roberts.

Kids’ curiosity about the weather, Roker said, was the “basis for the idea of the show.” He explained, “Even though teachers would tell me how much kids loved weather, that it was one of their favorite topics — especially elementary and middle school — [I] realized there were no kid shows about it. And I love animation, and I obviously love weather, and I love my family, so I kind of based the show on my family.”

Weather Hunters returns for an all-new Mother’s Day episode on Monday, May 4. The episode follows Al and his kids as they learn about rainbows while preparing a colorful Mother’s Day present for his wife.

Here, the Today host opens up about creating the series and the heartwarming holiday special.

The new episode of Weather Hunters is all about Mother’s Day. Do you have any fun Mother’s Day plans in store for your wife, Deborah?

Al Roker: Our daughter, Leila, is getting married just before Mother’s Day. That Mother’s Day weekend, actually. So, that’s kind of her Mother’s Day gift, I guess.

Has your granddaughter, Sky, watched Weather Hunters?

Al: Yes. It’s funny because she’s just started watching it, and my daughter [Courtney] says she will say to her, ‘So, who’s that?’ And she goes, ‘Pop-Pop!’ She recognizes Pop-Pop’s voice, even though that’s a much younger, better-looking version of Pop-Pop on the show.

The kids on the show are inspired by your own kids. Any plans for them to make a cameo on the show one day?

Al: That’s an interesting point. We’ve already done 40 episodes, and so, if we do some more, that would certainly be a possibility. I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s a pretty good idea, actually.

What about basing a character on Sky in the future?

Al: One never knows. But then, you know, she might ask to get paid. So, I don’t know.

Your wife on the show is voiced by your friend Holly Robinson Peete, who you’ve worked with in the past. What made her the right person for the role?

Al: She’s a terrific actor and has a very expressive voice. And voice acting, in a way, is more difficult than physical acting, in that you only have one sense to portray a character. Yes, visually there is a character, but you’re imbuing that character with life, with a personality. People, if they close their eyes, you want them to be able to tell who the character is. And with Holly, you get all of that, and she’s just terrific. And she’s a mom. Our kids have hung out together, so she’s kind of parented my kids. I’ve parented hers. So, it was just a natural [fit].

This show has been a passion project of yours for several years. What has it been like to finally see it airing on TV and also receive several accolades?

Al: It’s a great validation, not really so much for me, but for the literally hundreds of people who have worked on this show, from the writers to the artists to the technicians, the sound crew, the computer operators, the animators, all these people, the other voice actors. All these people who have put their hard-earned sweat and talent into it. I don’t think people really know how much goes into one of these animated shows. It’s not just somebody sketching something and, ‘Oh, let’s put this together.’ It takes a lot of work. From when we first started, literally working, really working, on the first episode to finish, was about two years. And so, it’s been just a wonderful validation for all the people. There are so many talented people who had to come together to make this happen, and so, I’m really thrilled that they’re being recognized for their work.

What was the production process like for you? Did you record all the episodes at once or in between Today and other projects?

Al: No. It’s like a pipeline. You turn the spigot on, and it starts with concepts and ideas for shows. And what makes PBS Kids such a great partner is that most kids’ shows, they develop them, they move through, they’re done, and I don’t think a lot of thought is given to it. As opposed to this, where not only do you have to make an informative show, an educational show, but also an entertaining show. And so, you’ve got writers and curriculum folks and science folks all coming together to make sure that script is A, accurate, B, entertaining, C, informative, and has some heart to it, that it’s not just this cut and dry topic of weather. It’s a family with small children, and a mom and a dad who love each other. And that’s just the writing of it.

Then, there’s physically developing the characters and doing what they call storyboards, which are like a graphic novel representation of each story, which is 22 minutes. I want to say each episode was at least 30 pages of dialogue. So, there’s so many different elements. When it’s a movie or a TV show, you film it, you cut it, you did it, but it exists in the real world. We’re creating a world of the Weather Hunters. They live in a great American town, unnamed, and go on weather adventures together. But at the end of the day, what was most important was that this is a family who cares about each other, respects each other, and has a good time with each other.

The show has featured several famous guest stars, including Sheryl Lee Ralph and LeVar Burton. Who’s your dream celebrity to make an appearance on the show next?

Al: Oh, gosh. I would love to have Oprah [Winfrey] maybe make an appearance. I’d love to have, maybe, President [Barack Obama] and Mrs. [Michelle] Obama. That would be terrific. I would love to have any number of my TV weather compatriots, like Sam Champion or Lee Goldberg, maybe show up, or maybe some of my Today show cast members show up as part of the news team that Al works at, because he’s a TV weatherman. I mean, boy, the sky’s the limit.

You could throw Dylan [Dreyer] and Craig [Melvin] in there as your character’s co-workers.

Al: You never know, and that’s the beauty of animation. Anybody can show up, as long as you can get them in front of a microphone. And that’s the best part about doing this job. You had asked did we do all the voices at once, and no, because different scripts are coming in at different times. And even once the scripts are written … sometimes you have to do retakes. Sometimes the action didn’t quite work, and you had to change the script a little bit, so we have to re-record dialogue. And that’s what’s interesting in animation.

A lot of the time, you’re not even in the same studio or recording at the same time as your co-stars. For the most part, I recorded all of my pieces by myself, and the voice director would read the other characters’ lines, so I knew the kind of inflection and things like that. I’ve done it both ways. I’ve done it where I’ve been in a room with all the actors. Years ago, I did an episode of [Superman: The Animated Series], and it was almost like a radio play. Everybody was in the room recording all their parts, and that’s a lot of fun. And I’m hoping if we do some more episodes, we’ll get to do some of that.

You have some children’s books based on the show coming out this summer. What was it like translating the show into book form?

Al: The great part about it is that, in a sense, it’s almost like an animated book to begin with. As I was mentioning, when we do storyboards, you have individual frames, in a sense, of the entire script. So, we had to distill the script down to a certain number of words and pages, and then finding the best graphic to go along with that. And it was a lot of fun, actually. And it was also very gratifying to see how much the story translated to a book.

What is in store for the future of Weather Hunters? Any possibility for a second season?

Al: We’ve done a fair number of episodes, so we’ve got enough episodes for two years. And because it’s such a long process, labor-intensive process, you have to have some leave time. So, we’re hoping very shortly, thanks to our viewers — as they say on PBS, ‘viewers like you’ — that there’s a groundswell for people who want to see more Weather Hunters for the foreseeable future. And once that happens, we’ll start writing new scripts, and bringing in more guest stars and just expanding the world of Weather Hunters.

What do you hope families enjoy the most about Weather Hunters and take away from the show?

Al: I hope, for example, this episode, the Mother’s Day episode, I hope they recognize themselves in the Hunters, that a gift for mom is something as simple, but yet as beautiful, as a rainbow. And this happens to be one of my favorite episodes, because you don’t see it a lot in kids’ shows, that these are families. The kids aren’t just cracking jokes and stuff like that. Sure, Al Hunter does dad jokes, but everybody loves each other [and] they respect each other. And I think this Mother’s Day episode, I think a lot of families will see themselves in the Hunters, and that’s what I want people to take away from it. That they see themselves in these characters, and that the show fosters a love and appreciation of not just their family, but also of the world around them, when it comes to our environment, our climate, and the weather. That those things are all intertwined, and that the appreciation of what happens outside your window, both good and bad, is very special.

Weather Hunters, New Episode, Monday, May 4, PBS Kids

Today, Weekdays, 7am, NBC