[Bowe]

Bob Villa is no idiot..

Sholy agree - that son is worth 70M!

 

[Bowe]

Norm Abram's retirement from This Old House was announced yesterday.

This Old House® to Air Tribute Special to Master Carpenter and Television Trailblazer, Norm Abram

PBS will air a tribute show to him titled The House that Norm Built. While Norm is 72 and has not appeared on camera for a while, it is sad to see him described as "hanging up his tool belt." I hope he continues woodworking in his retirement, as 72 years old is certainly not too old to do most things with wood. I hope he isn't ill, and I wonder if there's a deeper story to this.

I'm hoping to see him on a YouTube channel, but he doesn't seem to have much of an online presence.

Here's to the legend himself!

I don't think so. Roger Cook retired back in 2019 because of illness but think Norm retired because he's 73 and had been doing TOH and NYW for 43 years! That's a helluva long time flying all over creation under the pressure of producing top quality etv that your viewers have come to depend upon. Beyond, if he's anything like me at 65+, I've clearly found that one's mindset changes in several ways, meaning you really want to avoid airports and all of the associated rush crapola at all cost and you also find that your once stalwart mental energy, volition, and tolerance just isn't as it was when you were in your 40's/50's. You just want to fade away into a quiet small town, not be bothered with the working rigamoroll, and just do your own thing! I think Norm has earned that especially given he's become an unwitting celebrity and the general loss of privacy that comes with it.

 

[Bowe]

Norm is awesome. He single-handedly inspired a generation of woodworkers.

On the other hand, guys like Russ Morash and Bob Vila are parasites sucking at the public broadcasting teat. After all, Morash fired Vila for trying to horn in on his gold mine, so Vila started his own scam. He had a stake in most of the projects on his show-if not all. As I recall the "banana house" belonged to his sister, which he never disclosed on the series.

The New Yankee Workshop existed on Morash's property. Those tools were his. Recall how there was always a prototype for each project? One of them wound up in Morash's house each time.

I'm not faulting profit from productions like those, I fault the use of PBS funding for personal gain.

Welp I don't think they ever made a whole helluva lot off PBS! PBS paid Vila at $250/episode in the beginning and later raised it to $800/episode. Bob mainly agreed to do it because he thought it was good advertising for his then mainline construction company. He later left when he began being the Sears frontman for Craftsman tools and started his own show that he retained all the residuals from. Hs current net worth is close to 70M. And that is what really garners respect and endears Norm to me as a national treasure - god knows what PBS was paying him but he stuck with it for 43 years no less and yet amassed a net worth of only 2.5M - or about 58K/year!

 

[secharles]

worth . . . .

in the end, we're all just dust in the wind

 

[JIMMIEM]

I just remembered something about Bob Vila….As far as I know, he violated his contract with PBS for accepting payments from Sears for promoting Craftsman products. PBS found it unethical for its staff to accept compensation from private businesses.

Another Bob Vila story. I'm from the Boston area and contacted a roofer to replace my roof. In conversation, the roofer told me that his company had done a roof for a TOH show and that afterwards Bob V asked for a kickback because he figured that the roofer had gotten free advertising by working on the show.

 

[mart]

Congratulations Norm. You’ve earned your retirement. And thank you for teaching me woodworking. Your shows gave me the knowledge and fostered enough confidence to delve into the wide world of woodworking.