Sure do ... it was a huge TV event.
The most watched TV movie of all time.
The entire Roots 8-part miniseries had about 140 million viewers total ... verses that one airing of "The Day After" had about 100 million.
The networks set up phone banks with mental health counselors. There were peace vigils following the movie. Fred Rogers dedicated 5 entire episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood to comfort and counsel little children who may have seen the movie.
It was shown around the world and in the Eastern Block, China, North Korea and Cuba. In the Soviet Union it was shown on Soviet State Television. The film was screened privately for President Reagan and also for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The ABC censors took a hatchet to it to reduce body counts and severe burn victims and graphic deaths, but it still sent people into counseling.
It was reported that at the final screening for ABC Network executives that, "After the screening, the executives were sobbing ...".
I thought it was a good suspenseful thriller but the movie really disturbed my girlfriend at the time ... had to provide her with some counseling of my own.
I thought that stuff went away with the end of the cold war. I'm not so sure now.
As far as a favorite nuclear war movie ... for me I'd say it's got to be Doctor Strangelove ... not the same sort of movie, still a classic.
I forgot all about the hullaboo when it came out. But yeah I remember all of it now.
Makes me want to watch it again.
Grognerd said:
along the same lines, remember when there were reports of women fainting during screenings of The Exorcist?
or gang riots at theaters showing The Warriors?
I was just going to mentioned the Warriors.
Do you also remember 4-5 years later when the movie debuted on Television, I think it was ABC? Police across the country went on alert again looking for roving gangs of costumed thugs who may have been up to no good.
How do I know this? A pure coincidence..... I was part of a, I guess today you would call it "LARP'ers" (Live action role playing) group that was sort of like Live Dungeons and Dragons (We called ourselves the VARR, "Various Assorted Riff Raff") and were walking through a subdivision on the way to our favorite Melee area in full nerdy regalia, including a couple of orcs in green makeup, complete with fake weapons (although some of us were pretty proficient and dangerous with wooden quarterstaffs) totally oblivious to the hullabaloo about the movie, when suddenly we were surrounded by 3-4 cop cars, and cops with hands nervously on their weapons.
We were all like Seniors in High School, or Freshman in College, we were all pretty big guys and girls (it was a co-ed nerd group.)
The only thing that saved us was the ridiculousness of our costumes which included a kid in full purple Wizard's robes and peaked hat, and that someone else had live Parrot on their shoulder. And I think one of the cops recognized one of us as a "good kid" in the neighborhood.
But initially it was tense when they rolled up on us on a corner from three different directions, spotlights and all. But once it was all sorted out it was almost humorous, we had no clue about the movie, or that they had gotten several calls from freaked out folks along our route who were shocked as hell to see their worst nightmare, coming right out of the TV set and into suburbia. And the cops were pretty blown away by it too, they told us thee were like national bulletins all about the movie and fear about roving gangs, and they had been briefed about it before starting their shift, and here they were getting 9-11 calls about it.
Weird night...gotta wonder what would have happened if it was today....They might of actually had guns drawn on us, and been more menacing. This was early 80's in suburbia, things were a little more naive than today. Doubtful if something on TV today would cause such a worry among police around the country....
