# Did you watch "The Day After" when it first aired and what did you think of it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 4, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365 "2012-08-04T00:43:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/21 "2012-08-04T09:58:35Z")
I saw it, and I remember that I expected it to scare the shit out of me, but it didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Nom\_de\_Plume](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85f322/32.png) [@Nom\_de\_Plume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nom_de_Plume)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/22 "2012-08-04T10:20:34Z")
I remember this movie because it aired the night before I left for basic training. A pretty grim send off to join the Cold War military. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/23 "2012-08-04T12:05:07Z")
(If anybody cares) the music was from Virgil Thomson’s [The River](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9zPMg8IL3w&feature=youtube_gdata_player) ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/24 "2012-08-04T12:40:49Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > It was shown at the height of the cold war and fueled fears that a nuclear attack could happen at any moment. I think it was a real eye-opener for most people at the time who didn’t even think about the consequences of what “nuclear war” meant. Looking back, that was the single moment where national opinion turned against the idea of the Cold War and the US started taking real steps to end it. Just to adjust your historical perspective a bit: The height of the Cold War was the 50’s and early 60’s. The Cuban missile crisis was in 1962. Dr Strangelove and Fail Safe came out in 1964. By 1973, Nixon had gone to Moscow and Brezhnev had gone to Washington and detente had been established. The Day After aired at a time when it essentially served as pushback to Reagan’s somewhat belligerent rhetoric and the accompanying jingoism that followed his election. Whether that was actually its intent, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/25 "2012-08-04T13:14:02Z")
It was a big deal. Wasn’t there a panel of “experts” who were also watching it and then were to sit around afterwards and discuss things? Anyway, I remember it was good up until the nuking started then less so during the aftermath until finally, “Let’s see if Diff’rent Strokes is on.” Never did make it to the end. I’m o.k. with spoilers. Did we stick it to those commie bastards? Does Rambo show up in the end and make things right? Seriously I want to know. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/26 "2012-08-04T13:49:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _The Day After_ seemed to think the audience needed to be told that a nuclear war would be a bad thing. It was 1983 - was that really news? Well, yes and no. It is one thing to know something intellectually. It is another to see a reasonable depiction of just how very bad very bad thing will be. Drugs are bad mkay? vs one hour tv special showing the life of a crack addict. I have seen the movie since it came out but overall I don’t recall it being terribly bad (though almost every show has a few oohhh come on! moments). I seem to recall they got what I thought were the important parts more right than wrong (basically everythings gonna get blown the fuck up like you’ve never seen before and its gonna really suck). ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/27 "2012-08-04T13:56:00Z")
I saw it at 15 years old, and it scared the shit out of me, as I recall. Interestingly enough, six years later I served on a deterrent patrol on a ballistic missile submarine (SSBN). ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/28 "2012-08-04T14:32:47Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > I was a little kid (10 years old) when it first aired. It scared the shit out of me. I had nightmares about nuclear war for months afterward. Me too. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/29 "2012-08-04T14:46:15Z")
I was 16 at the time. I thought it didn’t live up to the hype. I did enjoy Special Bulletin. I thought it did a decent job of story telling on a smaller scale. Hated Testiment. Could never sit through the whole thing. Thought it was overwrought and boring. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/30 "2012-08-04T16:19:41Z")
Lawrence, Kansas, where the movie took place(and the surrounding countryside, is only about twenty-five miles from Topeka, where I live. It creeped me out some, because things looked so familiar. I was twenty-nine when it aired. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/31 "2012-08-04T16:52:22Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > Never did make it to the end. I’m o.k. with spoilers. Did we stick it to those commie bastards? Does Rambo show up in the end and make things right? Seriously I want to know. To me, the UK doesn’t have that large of a nuclear deterrent and the close proximity of large cities, especially in the south east, guarantees all sorts of a mess should that deterrent fail to work. Is that why Threads was much grimmer than what (admitted little) I’ve seen of The Day After? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/32 "2012-08-04T17:05:34Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > Never did make it to the end. I’m o.k. with spoilers. Did we stick it to those commie bastards? Does Rambo show up in the end and make things right? Seriously I want to know. Well one of the main characters, the male middle aged doctor?, gets shot and killed for no particularly good reason. And, IIRC if that wasn’t the actual ending of the movie it was pretty darn close to the end. So, the show didn’t exactly end on an upbeat note. Which seems pretty appropriate for a WW3 with nukes! movie. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/33 "2012-08-04T17:27:14Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Well one of the main characters, the male middle aged doctor?, gets shot and killed for no particularly good reason. And, IIRC if that wasn’t the actual ending of the movie it was pretty darn close to the end. > > So, the show didn’t exactly end on an upbeat note. Which seems pretty appropriate for a WW3 with nukes! movie. The middle aged farmer gets shot on his own property while trying to get people to leave. The black soldier and his mute compadre both have signs of radiation poisoning. The middle aged doctor has a breakdown in the ruins of his family home and a man living in the ruins tries to comfort him. Steve Gutenberg and the girl he brought to the hospital are both dying of radiation poisoning or at least the girl is. He shows signs of it too though he’s not as weak as her. He visits her in a gymnasium full of the dying. The blind kid isn’t going to recover his site. There’s actually very little in the film to suggest things are going to improve much anytime soon. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/34 "2012-08-04T17:35:50Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > To me, the UK doesn’t have that large of a nuclear deterrent and the close proximity of large cities, especially in the south east, guarantees all sorts of a mess should that deterrent fail to work. > > Is that why Threads was much grimmer than what (admitted little) I’ve seen of The Day After? Threads is made more in the style of UK social realist, kitchen sink drama whereas The Day After is essentially a family/community melodrama about nuclear war. Those stylistic differences alone account for much of the superiority of Threads in my opinion. Threads also engages more with the people’s pre-war lives and the build up to the war, what they do to survive, and continues to show the horrible effects of the war for years afterward. Although The Day After has many people dying in it, it doesn’t seem quite as bleak for the most part as Threads is. Nobody seems starving in The Day After. The Day After also seems to indicate that some central authority is maintained unbroken throughout the war and aftermath whereas Threads shows an emergency authority unable to save itself let alone help many of the survivors of Sheffield. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/35 "2012-08-04T17:43:14Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > The middle aged farmer gets shot on his own property while trying to get people to leave. > . Ahh, thats who I was thinking of. But IIRC he tries to get them to leave, then he kind of changes his mind (because all they are doing are squating on some barren land of his he can’t use) and tells them something along the lines “what the hell, it doesn’t matter, you can stay” and THEN some dude blows him away with a shotgun. Oh, and I remember when some goverment official comes in to some sorta town hall meeting to tell the farmers how to grow crops so that it minimizes the radioactive material uptake and the farmers are all “WTF, do you know how impossible that is?”. Or something like that. But yeah, you are right. That whole show was NOT filled with a “its gonna better vibe”. Which given the cheesyness of TV back then is a small miracle in itself. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/36 "2012-08-04T17:44:00Z")
I was in high school when it aired and remember it being a big deal, but I’m afraid I don’t remember any details of the plot; even reading some bits of here doesn’t trigger much in the way of memories about the people in the story or what happened to them. The thing I do remember is some scenes of missiles flying up out of their underground silos in the middle of a (corn?) field. That was a chilling sight. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/37 "2012-08-04T21:01:26Z")
I was in college, & the university talked of nothing else the next day. I was disturbed by it. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/38 "2012-08-05T00:43:25Z")
It was a huge deal. I was a freshman in college, but I was home that weekend. We watched it as a family, along with at least one and maybe two family friends. It definitely had a visceral impact on us. In hindsight, I’m not sure it was all that well-done or well-constructed as a movie, but it was certainly an event. The scene near the end with the guy getting shot by the squatters really stuck with me, because I thought the implications of what was going to happen to his family were clear. The squatters were going in the house, and those women and children left inside were at their mercy. Didn’t ABC air the last half of the movie without commercials? While this happens nowadays as a stunt (“presented with limited commercial interruptions, brought to you by Polident!”), I seem to remember advertisers didn’t want their ads running during the bleak, “here come the nukes!” part of the program. > [@Equipoise](#): > > When it aired I thought it was good, though I thought the TV movie [Special Bulletin](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086350/), which aired earlier that year, was much more realistic and much scarier. I thought Special Bulletin was great. Watched that in my dorm room, after convincing my roommate to tune that in. He was glad I talked him into watching - really well-done TV drama, in a realistic “happening right now live” style. > [@JohnT](#): > > Within the past month I read Whitley Strieber’s and James Kunetcka’s [Warday](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday), about the after-effects of a limited nuclear exchange between the US and USSR in 1987. The USSR managed to hit three cities - NYC, DC, and (gulp), my hometown of San Antonio, TX and wiped them off the face of the earth. In addition, they also hit the missile sites in North Dakota, Montana, etc. > > The US did pretty much the same to the USSR (nobody really knows as communications within vast swaths of Russia have ceased to exist), and the only thing that kept the war from going total holocaust was that the EMP effect destroyed most of the missiles and made them useless - only the first part of the first strike occurred. Very compelling, the novel makes _The Day After_ look rather uninformed. Agreed. Warday is a book that sticks with you. I’ve read it three times from various libraries, then had to buy an out-of-print copy online because the library doesn’t have it any more. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/39 "2012-08-05T01:44:19Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Threads also engages more with the people’s pre-war lives and the build up to the war, what they do to survive, and continues to show the horrible effects of the war for years afterward. Although The Day After has many people dying in it, it doesn’t seem quite as bleak for the most part as Threads is. Nobody seems starving in The Day After. To be fair, nobody has time to starve in The Day After. A few weeks/months later, yes, that would have happened. Whenever I think of **Threads** the one scene that sticks with me most is a selfish pregnant girl drinking water. She’s in the fallout shelter with her grandparents and picks up a container of water. You think she’s going to chug for a couple of seconds and put it down, but she keeps on drinking, and drinking and drinking and drinking as if she were in the middle of the desert and hadn’t had water for days. You want to reach through the screen and slap the container out of her hand and scream at her for being such a selfish, oblivious cunt. Considering that she lives and her grandparents don’t, I assume the message was that to survive, you have to be selfish at the expense of others. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2012, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365/40 "2012-08-05T07:44:34Z")
I watched The Day After as a college freshman. Not too bad, but I have very little memory of it. Basically a 1970s disaster movie, taken to the extreme. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-watch-the-day-after-when-it-first-aired-and-what-did-you-think-of-it/630365.md?page=3)