Great moments in television.

Rather than what we don't like, what are some of those really great moments in television you've witnessed?

With the anniversary recently passing I was thinking about some of the coverage of Mount St. Helens in the early '80s leading up to it's eruption by many Washington state and British Columbia tv stations. We met a lot of people directly involved through the coverage in this area, people like Harry Truman and his cats at the Spirit Lake lodge and geologist David Johnston also killed that day in 1980. Then to see the aftermath from tv helicopter crew footage; acres of trees looking like toothpick art with dust on top...

A more Canadian news event was the Sniffy the rat 'story' that ran over multiple nights on Vancouver news about an artist who was going to squish a rat onto a canvas in front of the public at a certain place and time as 'Art'. In the end a crowd of incensed rat fanciers chased him off down the street and I think maybe not rat's were harmed (nor fed to snakes as had been their fate where Sniffy and his mates were available).

The final M.A.S.H., Cheers and Sopranos episodes were also definitely events people participated in. In England people watched climbers on the Old May Of Hoy rock like later in the U.S. people followed O.J. in the white bronco. I have some early memories of other tv 'events, such as the disappointing Snake River Canyon jump of Evel Knievel or Elvis live in concert by satellite from Hawaii. I wonder if we could find something today that could get as a large a percentage of people watching?

 

I think some of the greatest moments in TV were tragedies. Those of us who were alive when John F. Kennedy was killed in November '63 will recall the horrific 24-hour TV news coverage for three solid days, which was awful and depressing... like nothing nobody had ever seen before. But the next great moment might have been when the Beatles hit The Ed Sullivan Show about 2-1/2 months later, and it was a bombshell for pop culture, just a stunning change in music.

 

That’s one small step for a man…one giant leap for mankind.

Nothing else comes close.

 

Ruby shooting Oswald on live tv was a shocker.

 

OJ's white Ford Bronco

 

johnny carson's last show.

the 911 coverage in class during the school day.

alan shepard first space flight on little TV on the teachers desk, live.

the challenger space shuttle, my class was watching it live.

monday night football when john lennon was shot, howard cosell was right on it.

watching the vietnam war on the nightly news with all the false reporting.

 

If the implication is 'live' tv, this is as live and risky (and enjoyable) as it gets. Especially since those cameras probably needed hydraulic cranes to keep up. (Check out the guy at the lamp post, looks familiar)

 

The OJ verdict was even more bizarre than that 'chase'

 

Apparently I was held toward the tv set as a baby when this was on, zero memory of it myself. I don't remember the first space shuttle launch being a thing for most people to watch like say the coronation of Elizabeth II was in 1950s England when fewer had sets, but perhaps just I or my school simply blew it. That should have been such a moment.

I tried to watch none of that OJ trial, still prefer some brief highlights after the fact if even that much, not into the 'show'. There is a history of trials as public events before tv, from the Scopes Monkey trial to the Lindberg baby kidnappers. I can see following trials via newspapers and magazines as preferable medium. I suppose the McCarthy hearings and Watergate were must see tv in their times, I don't even watch any of these Judge _____ shows, they couldn't equal Judge Wapner for me.

 

The 'world' of sports has provided many shared communal moments... around here the 1994 Stanley Cup in hockey was capped off with a big riot including a guy falling to his death from a pole. I followed that mostly with radio (and a sports talk with Dan Russell program) due to being away from a tv set for work reasons. It was a huge negative that caused me to not follow hockey for quite awhile.

I remember some other championship games less vividly but expect others have theirs. There have been some exciting Euro and World Cups final matches, boxing matches, and baseball 'World' Series (Blue Jays for Torontonians?). Also sports tragedies like that fire at Bradford... apparently sportscasters in England after that stopped referring to events in a game as tragedies any more or saying a side or player was 'on fire'!

 

Pictures or it didn't happen



Winter night at my best friends house. His mom was going to watch Ed Sullivan anyway.

I've never heard the world so quiet as the aftermath of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination.

 

My Dad saw one of the early Elvis appearances, on the Dorsey Brothers show. That was a big moment among he and his friends.

I remember being excited to see The (English) Beat on American Bandstand. It was in support of the Special Beat Service album which I ran out and got the same day I think. Seeing Kiss was a major thing and talked about in school somewhere in the mid '70s... "did you the guy that spit blood and breathed flames? Freaky!"

And there was Live Aid and Farm Aid, but Aloha From Hawaii with Elvis still seems a bigger milestone for me.

 

Was there a similar moment with Lance Loud (The Mumps) on that An American Family show he was on? I wish someone would re-show that program as I've never seen it, but I like The Mumps (Omnivore has something out of theirs).

 

Live Aid - live broadcast July 13, 1985

I was night worker just getting home after my shift. Wasn't aware of the broadcast that had just started. Certainly caught my attention as I ended up staying up through most of the broadcast except for a couple nod-offs on the couch.

 

Howabout a non-tragic moment I'm sure a lot of us saw.
Penguins on the telly...in the U.S!

 

Yes, his being gay was always pretty obvious on the show which aired in 1973. He came out very publicly on Dick Cavett in 1974. Wish the show would get repeated or put on DVD but I think the music clearances (Kinks, Rolling Stones) and clips from a Jackie Curtis play have stopped it.
Kristian Hoffman of the Mumps also featured in An American Family as he and Lance were best friends. That Omnivore comp is a must hear, The Mumps are one of the great lost first generation CBGB bands.

 

Another local(ish) live tv moment I remember everyone talking about at junior high later, happened on an after-school kiddie show out of Seattle-Tacoma (KCPQ 13) named Captain Seatac which had this parrot; everyone wondered if it was real as it moved or made noise so rarely. One day something did happen and the parrot went bonkers and flew around and around the studio. The unflappable and very sedate Captain commented "Gee kids, I didn't know Polly could fly." That became a real catch phrase for years after among those 'in the know'.

J.P. Patches on KIRO had some moments too but more in the line of repeated shticks and were you a Patches Pal or a Boris Buddy (Boris S. Wart being the 2nd meanest man in the world, and you didn't want to know who was the first, poopsie. Boris called J.P. and others poopsie).

 

I think so too.

I watched all the Apollo liftoffs and moon landings with my dad and they were certainly great television moments.

Personally, among the saddest television moments was the local news coverage that followed Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in Los Angeles, after he gave his ‘on to Chicago’ victory speech. How I could clearly still remember the tragedy of that early morning.

 

1987, you're home alone watching Dr. Who on Channel 9/Chicago...then this happens...
Max-ax-imum anar-ch-ch-ch-y!

 

What is amazing is that the live ABC network coverage of RFK's assassination in Los Angeles in June of 1968 is only in black and white. That just tells you that the transition to color took a long time and did not happen overnight. I'm embarrassed to say that I was only dimly aware of Martin Luther King's death several months earlier, but I can remember being shocked that yet another Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet.

I was unfortunately watching CBS (being a Cronkite guy) at the time on November 24th, so I completely missed the live shooting. CBS finally aired film of the shooting (and I think a borrowed videotape) about a half hour later as I recall. Cronkite was visibly pissed-off that they had been scooped by both of the other networks.

 

Allow me to nominate Geraldo Rivera's The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults.

Thirty million viewers tuned in to the two hour long live special even though there were no trophies awarded...and no one fell flaming from a large burning bag of hydrogen. Thirty million viewers watching in breathlessly bored fascination as nothing actually ended up happening.

However as an inadvertent result, afterward too much news took on the aspect of promoting suspected upcoming news rather than actually covering real on-going and noteworthy events.

 

I remember both as if it was yesterday...

 

another one I remember and laughed my ass off when it was a bust.

 

the whole thing was tragic.