Al Roker celebrated a big milestone this week!
On Monday, the beloved meteorologist and Today co-host, 69, marked 45 years with NBC, and his co-hosts insisted on marking the anniversary on air — despite Roker’s sly attempt to escape after announcing the weather forecast.
“Obe, look what time it is, I have to go,” joked Roker to his friends Today co-hosts Craig Melvin, Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Sheinelle Jones, who insisted she stay at his party.
“Al, my friend, you are the beating heart of this show,” Guthrie, 51, said, and Kotb, 59, added, “the heart and soul.”
Al Roker and his ‘Today’ co-hosts are celebrating his 45th anniversary on NBC.
Today’s show/X
Today The hosts of the show recreated the famous photo from 1932 almost 300 feet above New York
The hosts reflected on Roker’s NBC career, which began in 1978 in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked at affiliate station WKYC for five years before returning to his hometown of New York City to work for WNBC-TV .
He joined Today 1996 as a regular meteorologist and has remained around the beloved morning show ever since.
“You know, Roker, you’re like the first person most of us met when we got here,” Kotb told the NBC veteran. “And you always made each new person feel included and loved.”
According to TodayBy his calculations, his NBC career consisted of 7,047 3:45 a.m. wake-ups, as well as 27 Thanksgiving Day parades and 13 Olympics.
As Melvin, 44, said, “He’s been at the Peacock longer than I’ve been alive.”
The hosts also gave a glimpse of Roker’s field days reporting for WKYC, including his footage with penguins at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and his footage on a kite. He joked about the latter: “It took a while for people to pick me up.”
Al Roker says he’s ‘grateful’ to be in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade after missing last year’s due to health issues
Elsewhere in Monday’s episode, Today team put together a short but sweet message that included cameos from NBC staffers like Carson Daly and Jenna Bush Hager, as well as Roker’s two children, Leila, 25, and Nick, 21, and his 28-year-old wife, Deborah Roberts.
“Happy, happy, happy anniversary,” said Roberts, 63. “And here’s to so much more. I’ll pour the champagne, so come home.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(784x126:786x128)/al-roker-121123-2-7b85f73b7316424a9ce949bdae243765.jpg)
Al Roker joined Today in 1996.
Peter Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
After watching the special video, Roker, Melvin and Jones, 45, each enjoyed an Aperol spritz — “Roker’s official drink,” according to Melvin, who shared his own sweet note with Roker.
“Whenever someone says, ‘What’s Al Roker like off camera?’ I tell them, ‘Even better than he is in front of the cameras,’ he said, adding that Roker is a ‘classiest performer’ and ‘our Northerner’.
Al Roker’s most touching photos with his granddaughter, Sky Clara
Last month, Roker appeared on WKYC with his former colleague, anchor Leon Bibb, to reflect on their early careers at the Cleveland station, which he said were “a really special time.”
“This guy brought our funny side here,” Bibb said of Roker — a claim borne out by clips that have resurfaced on Today for its NBC anniversary.
Roker also revealed that his decision to leave Cleveland was a “very difficult choice.”
“And the only reason I really left was because I was at home,” he told WKYC. “I loved it here, and I still love it here.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Today airs weekdays at 7 a.m. ET on NBC.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education