The American Music Awards in 1990 (I believe it aired in January) had Duff and Slash from Guns ‘n’ Roses accepting an award. Duff walked up to the microphone and said, “I’d like to thank fuckin’…oops.”
<announcer> “The American Music Awards will be right back after these messages.” Cut to commercial.
It was even funnier because everyone was waiting for this. I can’t remember why though. Either someone had already dropped an f-bomb earlier in the broadcast, or the guys from GnR had cursed on another program recently. In any event, they were clearly waiting for something like this to happen. The cut to commercial was virtually instantaneous with the swear.
To me, it was even better because this was a Dick Clark production. I imagined Mr. Clark just about having a coronary when it happened.
And before that, he was the Giants play-by-play man, so he was very familiar with the area.
I was watching at the time, but didn’t see any of his work – since I was watching the game in the Bay Area, and all local TV went dead. We didn’t lose power, but we had nothing but static on most stations for hours.
Out here on the West Coast, I didn’t even get out of bed and turn on the TV until the 2nd tower had fallen. It sounds morbid, but I feel I missed something historic by not seeing the coverage unfold from the beginning. I don’t think I’ve even seen a recap of the live coverage (I’ve certainly seen the footage, but not the “here’s what the networks were saying/doing at the time” footage.)
Something similar happened to Dan Rather about 15 years later when somebody from ACT UP suddenly bolted onto the CBS Evening News set.
Also, the Roger Gromsby incident is very much like what happened on a broadcast of Monday Night Football when the camera focused on fan who very clearly did not want to be on TV.
Back in the 70’s, I was watching the end of channel 7 TV news Chicago. John Coleman had just given the weather report and the camera pulled back to a wide shot as they signed off for the evening. Coleman walked toward the anchor desk to speak with one of the anchors and tripped on a cable or something. He fell head first into the side of the desk. He was rolling around on the floor grabbing his head. Stagehands ran out on camera to try and assist. It still makes me laugh when I think about it. It was surreal.
Later on same station a commercial with singing hamburger buns was playing and someone in the control room keyed in the identification caption for news anchor Fagey Flynn.
On local NYC News Channel 4, there was a shootout going on in the Bronx. Chuck Scarborough said “Let’s go to News Chopter 4 over the scene,” then he looked at the monitor and just turned white. He looked up and said “Uh, let’s cut to commercial,” and the rest of the news team looked at him like “WTF?”
Turns out the news chopter had crashed onto the roof of building. Channel 2 was right above the Channel 4 helicopter, and got perfect footage of the crash. Fortunately the three people on board got out alive.
To continue the morbidity, we’re coming up on the five year anniversary. I’m sure there will be some retrospectives.
The A&E (or History Channel?) movie about Flight 93 has some live broadcasts…one of the wives was watching tv when the second plane hit.
If you want unfolding, in your face, no holds barred, what the Fuck is going on coverage, get the CBS documentary on 9/11. It was filmed by two French brothers who were doing a documentary on rookie firefighters. It’s hard to watch, but what gets me at the beginning is the timeline. It’s July, then it’s August, then it’s Sept 10, then it’s 8:30a in the morning…I just want to grab the TV and yell “Stop! No further!”
I actually never watched any of the coverage on the day of or following. I was at work and was waiting by the phone for my brother to call (he worked in World Trade Center 7). The weird part is I saw the footage of the second plane hit in that fictional movie about the guy dying who calls all his friends around. I was completely unprepared to see it and it was a shock.
I thought the inclusion in Farenheit 911 was great in that everyone had seen it so many times that just hearing the audio was enough to recreate the scene in the viewer’s mind.
I didn’t see this one either but heard George Jones recount it. Apparently he had been invited on the CMAs and asked to sing 20 seconds of his song “Choices”. He was insulted by that and declined. Then Alan Jackson was on the show to sing his current hit “Pop a Top”. He sang the opening to that song and then stopped and switched to “Choices”. Very classy guy.
Challenger - I was home and watching it on CNN (the only station broadcasting it live from what I’ve heard in later years).
California World Series quake - had my little BW TV on the local ABC affiliate when the screen went jiggly, dark, and then snowy, the anchors (who were going through a pre-game commentary build up) said something like “what the hell is that” and “is that an earthquake”.
Funny to me - ABC Overnight. That news crew (mid 90s) were crazy fun. They’d use Star-Trek effects to beam anchors on and off screen, they’d say they were filling in for another anchor who was “on assignment” (in heavily sarcastic tones as if it were a euphamism for something really out there), or they’d be anchoring with full-sized photographic cutouts sitting in the opposite anchor chair.
And the second plane hitting the WTC.
Heard about:
McNamara giving a speech on the ‘situation’ in Vietnam, some local guy must have put on background music with the broad cast: “No need to be worried, don’t need to be uptight” some ditty from the era I’ve not been able to find to verify this confluence of events.
Crazy guy with (later revealed as fake) gun forces consumer advocate David Horowitz to read a rambling message.
An aftershock from an earthquake occurs during the early morning news show, so anchor Kent Schocknek does the appropriate thing and dives under the desk, resulting in the way too obvious nickname Kent “After” Schocknek.
Was it 60s or early 70s? There’s a song in “Jesus Christ Superstar” that goes, “Try not to get worried, try not to hold onto problems that upset you, oh…because everything’s all right, yeah, everything’s fine…”
It happened in the late morning or early afternoon. I was in college, and was going to the basement of the library (where I had work study) to hang out before my next class. There were a whole bunch of people huddled around a TV set.
Back in 1999, I was driving to work and listening to NPR on the local public radio station. The boardcast kept cutting in and out. Next thing I hear is the local announcer, in his deep smooth voice, going: “Fuck with me will you? Fuck you you fucking fucker!”
:eek: I starting to wonder, did I fall asleep while driving and dream this? The next day, the announcer apologized for his language. He said he was trying to fix some equipment and didn’t know the mike was on.
Whenever there’s a pledge drive I think of this and wonder how much of the money went to a FCC fine.
Although the Hindenburg “Oh, the humanity” disaster was not on live TV (what with almsot no one having one) I do seem to recall that it started as just routine filming of a Zepplin landing, then it just happened to catch fire. It mgihtalso have been on the radio live. Does anyone have any info on this?