''Big Brother’ without Howie is like a day without sunshine."
Howie Gordon, a fan favorite from the popular CBS reality show “Big Brother,” made this quip 10 years ago. His statement has proven rather prophetic — he’s now forecasting sunshine as a television meteorologist in Joplin.
Gordon participated in back-to-back seasons of “Big Brother.” He was one of 14 people vying for a $500,000 prize during the show’s sixth season, which aired in 2005 from July 7 to Sept. 20. Utilizing his unique sense of humor, he finished in fifth place, evicted from the house on day 68. One year later, he would return for the show’s seventh as an all-star player. He was evicted after 47 days, placing eighth.
“I’ve been out of the house for a decade now,” Gordon said. “It seems like it was two months ago ... but ‘Big Brother’ is like a (family). It really is.”
The friendships he fostered on air have extended into the real world — the tough blonde Janelle Pierzina, the calculated Kaysar Ridha and the undefinable Mike “Boogie” Malin. Even those with whom he had heated confrontations while living inside the house — the infamous Dr. Will Kirby, for example, or April Lewis and her dog, Pepperoni — he’s still in contact with today.
“When you first get there, the producers will tell you that you’re now a part of a lifelong fraternity. I mean, there have been 17 seasons of ‘Big Brother,’ and maybe there’s been 300 of us all time? So yeah, we’re a small, unique (group).”
What’s reality TV?
As a 34-year-old bachelor living just outside Miami, Florida, selling pharmaceutical products, “Big Brother” wasn’t even a blip on his radar in early 2005.
It didn’t help that, at that time, “Big Brother” episodes aired three nights a week: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Gordon admitted he was usually out on the town most Saturday nights, playing with his softball team on Tuesday nights, and Thursday evenings were reserved for the taped viewing of one of his all-time favorite shows, WB’s “Smallville.” So it’s understandable why Gordon had never heard of “Head of Household competitions” or “eating slop for a week” or the show’s catch phrases, such as “assume nothing” and “expect the unexpected.”
A friend and co-worker had pushed and prodded him into auditioning for two reality dating shows: “Blind Date,” in February, 2005, and “Elimidate” the following month. He made appearances in both shows. Based on those two successes, coupled with his Florida-tanned looks and sense of humor, his buddy convinced him to set his sights higher.
“So my buddy says to me, ‘Hey, you’d be great on this ‘Big Brother’ show,” Gordon said. “So I filled out an application, made a two-minute video (which can be viewed on YouTube), and I submitted it.”
Long story short, Gordon made it through the semifinal casting cuts. Within a month, he found himself on a cross-country plane ride to the City of Angels. For 11 days in May, he met with the show’s producers. Gordon said they grilled him with a barrage of tough questions, trying to ruffle his feathers, seeing how he’d react to certain situations. He didn’t just sit there and take it, mute and intimidated.
“I wasn’t having it, I simply threw it right back at them, and they were saying, ‘Whoa,’” he said. “The casting director came up to me and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but keep doing it because you’re a rock star.’ So I pretty much knew after my first meeting with the producers that I was going to be on ‘Big Brother.’”
It was only here, the moment he was named a “house guest” of season 6, did he discover just how popular the reality show truly was. It was one of CBS’s big three reality shows, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.” An average of nearly 9 million viewers tuned in to watch the three weekly episodes.
“They sequester you before you move into the ‘Big Brother’ house, and during the interviews, they told me about the huge fan base, and I remember saying, ‘Fan base? Really? I never even heard of this show.’ But yeah, right after that, ‘Entertainment Tonight’ and Us Weekly is interviewing me, and it opened my eyes. It was pretty cool.
“I found myself on primetime CBS, just like Jennifer Aniston was (with “Friends” on NBC),” Gordon said, adding moments later with a wink, “though I wasn’t making $5 million a year like she was.”
Big Brother experience
If you’ve never seen “Big Brother” before, think of the show as one huge sociological experiment played out right before your eyes.
There are variations and neat twists with each new season, but essentially the premise is the same from year to year: A number of strangers from all walks of life and all points of the compass are tossed into a house for three months. While they have access to food, water and showers as well as a swimming pool and weights outside, there is no television, radio, Internet or access to newspapers, books, magazines or social media. Every move made and every word spoken (or whispered) is recorded by 47 cameras and 76 microphones.
The show — filmed at CBS Studios in Studio City, California — was inspired in part by George Orwell’s classic novel, “1984,” in which the leader, Big Brother, rules his society with an iron fist. Inside the house, house guests are purposely isolated and placed outside their comfort zones, forced to form partnerships with others to avoid eviction at the end of each week. Because only one person can win the $500,000 prize, the house guests are encouraged to lie, scheme and backstab friend and foe alike to claim the money.
Gordon’s first “Big Brother” season is considered by fans one of the best of the 17 aired seasons, mainly because of the visible tension existing between members of two dominant groups that formed inside the house. Gordon was a member of the Sovereign Six alliance that repeatedly clashed with the rival The Friendship alliance, the group Gordon cheekily re-named “The Nerd Herd.” Each week, one group would strategically evict a member from the opposing group. The unpredictability of which alliance would triumph each week kept the game fresh and entertaining.
Gordon used his quick wit and goofy personality to float above the fray — be it his famed alligator story to his light saber-swinging “Jedi judo” exercises. His antics and nicknames — “Hurricane Howie” and “Jedi Howie” — made him popular among both the house guests and the viewing public. He was the only member that season to win “Head of Household” twice.
But his time on air wasn’t always full of laughs. Twice, Gordon admitted he lost his goofy edge.
“When someone tries to cost you a half-million dollars, you can only bite your tongue for so long,” Gordon said about the two infamous clashes he had during the two seasons. “I was in the ‘Big Brother’ house for 115 days over two seasons, and I was pretty calm for 113 of those days. But for two of those days, I lost it.”
The first clash occurred near the end of his run during season six, when he locked horns with April Lewis. Gordon didn’t like how April had been playing the game, calling her “useless” during a rant that has since been named No. 4 of Live Wire’s “Big Brother Top 20 Memories.” In season seven, after being evicted from the house on live television, Gordon tossed aside Mike Malin’s hat and called him a punk. Malin, grinning, repeatedly told Gordon to “get to steppin.’”
Gordon can’t go into detail about the inner workings of the show or how much he was paid while he was living inside the house.
“I don’t want a producer coming here and hunting me down,” he said with a chuckle.
He also thinks, like any good television show or motion picture, the producers want a “Big Brother” season to have a so-called “Hollywood ending.”
“It’s a TV show, first and foremost,” he said. “They want to keep their viewers. If it’s a football game and the score’s 35-3 and you’re (rooting) for the team with three points, you’re probably turning it off. So (Big Brother) wants to keep the excitement in it.
“Now, my season — season six — kinda changed the rules. America loved my alliance, the Sovereign Six. When we didn’t win ‘Big Brother,’ it was kind of a disappointment to the viewers. So after that, the (show’s) producers started having ways for the fans to affect the game, to take (season eight winner Dick “Evel” Donato) to the end or to have (season 13 winner) Rachel Reilly win. So yeah, in later seasons, there were tweaks and twists that allowed them to get their favorites to the end, absolutely.”
After his two stints on “Big Brother,” Gordon stayed in California for a bit, enjoying his celebrity status.
“If you were a Big Brother fan, you will always pretty much know me,” he said.
In 2006, he was chosen third as Reality Blurred’s “Sexist Reality Star.” He rubbed elbows with several Hollywood names that adored the reality show, including Lance Bass, Neil Patrick Harris, Kathy Griffith and Shannon Elizabeth.
“Yeah, I’m watching Shannon Elizabeth in her movies, and Shannon Elizabeth is watching me on ‘Big Brother,’” Gordon said with a laugh.
He appeared on a few other reality shows, including “The Search for the Next Elvira.” He did a few commercials and starred in a some small movie roles. A huge Sasquatch enthusiast, Gordon almost appeared on the reality show, “Bigfoot Bounty” on Spike TV. But even during his “Big Brother” days, there was a reason why the words “meteorology student” appeared below his name.
“I’m proud — very proud — of what I did in (Big Brother). I hear from a lot of people who still come up and tell me, ‘Hey, it was the greatest summer of my life.’ It was a lot of fun. But weather was always in the back of my mind.”
Hurricane Howie
While most people would love to experience even a pinch of Gordon’s overall Hollywood success, he considers that a past chapter of his life. After earning his meteorology degree from Mississippi State University in 2009, he worked various marketing jobs, including selling dental implants in Chicago, before he landed his first professional job at KODE-TV on May 20.
“Hey, I got my thrill. OK, great. It was fun, and I got national and even international exposure. But my passion has always been to become a weather man,” Gordon said. “I have a fascination with the weather.”
Gordon is now doing on-air weather spots during the 10 p.m. weekend news broadcasts. He’s also doing a weekly feature at 6 p.m. on Friday nights called “Big Howie on Campus,” which takes advantage of the humor he so readily flashed on “Big Brother” a decade ago. Despite being born and raised in Chicago and living in Los Angeles and Miami, he digs the small-town feel of Joplin.
“It’s cool and different. I like it a lot. Though,” he added with a smile, “I do miss the Chicago pizza and Chinese food. But I think it’s really cool here. And (Joplin) is a top-five severe weather area in the country.
“I’ve been getting recognized for 10 years for being on ‘Big Brother,’ but now people are coming up to me and saying they saw me doing the weather,” Gordon continued. “And I like that.”
Want to watch?
Howie Gordon can be seen during 10 p.m. weekend newscasts on KODE-TV.
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