That was the crash of the Hindenberg, I believe, and it was a radio broadcast.
Speaking of radio, the broadcast of War of the Worlds caused a panic, from what I understand. People thought we were really being invaded by aliens.
I was in high school and I had afternoon exams. I was eating a bowl of cereal watching The Price is Right (we lived too far out to have cable) when they broke in to show coverage of the Challenger. It was about 11:45 EST.
I went into school at 1:00 for my exam and told people what I just saw and some didn’t believe me.
The glory days of ABC’s World News Now. “More insomniacs get their news from World News Now then from any other source.” 
I remember seeing an awards show in the early 90s (maybe the American Comedy Awards) where Jon Lovitz presented an award to Jamie Lee Curtis. During her acceptance speech, Jon kept reaching over and grabbing her boob. After about the third time Jamie stopped and reached over and grabbed him in the groin. To which he replied “hehe, you missed”.
It was a serious WTF moment that apparently nobody but me saw or remembers.
IIRC, it was late morning-ish. I was working in a mall and went to get coffee and passed one of those big screen TV stores by the food court. They showed it ready to lift off when I was going, and went I was on my way back, there was a huge crowd of people standing around - it had just exploded.
I remember seeing some of these live.
1986 - I was in my physics class in high school, and we and the other science class next door were all in one classroom to watch the shuttle launch live. Everyone was talking and laughing during liftoff, but then the explosion came and everyone went silent, completely shocked, for what seemed like forever.
1989 - I was alone in my dorm room watching the pre-game show for the World Series game. Al Michaels and the other announcers were talking about the game and suddenly the camera began to shake. There was general hubbub for a few minutes, and then Al explained that there had been, apparently, a major earthquake. I sat glued to my TV for the rest of the evening as he showed us what was going on in the ballpark (there were real concerns that it might collapse) and helicopter footage of the damage and fires around the city.
2001 - I was working from home at the time, and listening to the radio while I brushed my teeth in the morning. At the newsbreak, they said that apparently a small plane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. I actually thought that was kind of darkly amusing - I was picturing a small, single engine plane smashing into the side of a tower like George of the Jungle swinging into a tree. I went into the other room and flipped on the TV - the Today show - and they were just breaking to live coverage of the accident. Then, as Katie and Matt and Al and I watched, a second plane flew into the frame and directly into the second tower. And suddenly everyone had the same thought… Shit… this isn’t an accident.
Something similar happened once on Monday Night Football. The camera was on this solitary man in a section of the bleachers, wearing only underwear and painted in his team colors, appearing to be asleep or something. While the announcers were talking about how loyal this guy was, he gives the camera the finger. Howard Cosell quickly says, “Well, we’re certainly number one with this fan!”
I’ve also read some interesting things on Snopes, including a news anchor who was fed up with the problems that were going on during her newscast and shot herself, and an unfortunate misspelling of African-American activist Niger Innis’s name during a CNN interview. Yes, that misspelling.
The things news anchors do to muddle up the scene are incredible. I never thought about it until I saw it firsthand while volunteering for a food drive in Tucson. We were moving bags of cans from a city bus at which they’d been collected, into a truck where they’d be, well, trucked off to the HQ of the redistribution operation. We were working pretty well when the local NBC affiliate (I think–Could’ve been another station) showed up a couple of hours late and realigned the whole operation (“move the bus over here, the truck over here, OK, and you students, form a line and pass the box from this end to this end, chanting such-and-such lameass inspirational line over and over again…”) so that it was monumentally slower but (and this is the important part) looked more streamlined and motivational on camera.
Sidenote: What on earth could that news reporter have been flipping the bird at? They say it was inadvertent but it looked incredibly intentional. Was she doing some weird twitch?
There’s a statement about modern American culture there if I’ve ever seen one.
It was only a few months ago, but people seem to have forgotten, “Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney”.
Hmmm … try this link.
I may have missed it, but has no one mentioned a certain White Ford Bronco?
Pissed me off! I am a Houstonian and they interupted the Rockets/Knicks in the Finals to show it.
Then, of course, the verdict was also one of those “Where were you?” moments.
Speaking of interrupting your football game, I was working at a CBS affiliate when Tianenmen (sp?) Square happened. They interrupted Dallas (I think it was the season finale) to show it and you would not BELIEVE the number of irate phone calls we got. The system was designed to roll over the phone calls to empty lines, and we got so many calls the phone in the employee break room was ringing off the hook. We were trying to get the 11pm new broadcast together, and the producers could not make a phone call out to the reporters. On top of this, the callers thought we were the ones interrupting Dallas, and could not understand that um, no, this is being handled out of New York. Call CBS up there.
Knicks…that’s basketball, not football, right? :smack:
I remember that too. It was Renee Poussant. Coincidentally, she was the commencement speaker at my High school graduation. The way I remember it was that the camera came on from commercial to reveal Renee hurridly applying makeup at her desk. This was one of those “From the news room” teasers for the 11:00 news. As she is patting her face and looking into a compact, she is speaking to someone off -camera, “No, that camera had better NOT be on.” She stops and lowers her hands to say, “What? Well turn it off!” Cut to commercial.
The sign actually was “Gays protest CBS bigotry”. It was Mark Siegel, who was with an activist group called “The Gay Raiders”. They were upset that CBS wasn’t covering gay/lesbian news stories.
Yes, and that show started with Roker outside the studio, interviewing a bunch of schoolchildren. He had to break off suddenly when the word came down, I guess through his headset. And I wonder what it must have been like for those kids. Yay, we’re going to New York! Yay, we’re gonna be on TV (I think it was a scheduled appearance)! And then face to face with that.
And as far as the second plane hitting, one broadcast I saw on the net had two anchors, one male, one female, discussing what was then the one tower that had been hit. Female anchor is saying, “Well, this could very well be a terrorist attack, although of course we can’t rule out the possibility of pilot error…yadda yadda yadda…” Meanwhile, the second plane approaches, banks, and buries itself in the south tower. Without turning a hair, she continues, “Well, I guess now we can rule out the possibility of pilot error; what do you think, Co-Anchor?” Male anchor: :eek:
And speaking of news choppers, one thing that I did see live was a shot of the by-then-two burning towers from one helicopter, in front of which was another heli, hanging in the air like a dragonfly. Somehow, that more than anything brought home to me the surrealism of the day’s events.
fetus, it looked to me as though the reporter was flipping off a crew member who was out of camera range. Before her finger goes up, she appears to be mouthing something and glaring.
middleman, good call on the white Bronco! I saw that live, although I don’t recall seeing the people who were allegedly standing on overpasses holding “Go O.J.! We’re with you!” signs. Everyone in the room with me was saying, “Go back, man; you’re just making it worse for yourself!”
Once in the early '80s, my parents were watching Monday Night Football when two players got into a fight that went to the ground and ended with them rolling towards a miked-up sideline reporter or camera operator. Growling and cursing, then abrupt silence. Later in the same game, one of the booth broadcasters signed off for a commercial, then was heard to say, “Hey, can we get some water over here?”
And I remember an early-90s Emmy Awards at which Kirstie Alley was clearly high or drunk (or both). Stumbled up to accept her award and thanked her husband for giving her “the big one”. The phrase threatened to become part of the vernacular, but thankfully never caught on.
And the Oscars a few years ago, when Steve Martin was hosting. No, not “Shame on you, Mr. Bush!” although that was memorable too, but at one point when Martin was alone on the stage, a small object fell right at his feet. He paused a second, presumably to determine that it was not a bomb, then carried on. Turns out it was the walkie belonging to a crew member who was up in the perms. I’d love to know what happened to him. :eek: :eek:
I remember watching a hockey game where one of the players got ejected for fighting. As he’s leaving the ice, the director cut to the rinkside camera. This put the ejected player about two feet from a live mike as he yelled, “FUCKIN’ FAGGOT!” at the ref. Cut to commercial.
Mark Evanier explained this on his blog shorty after it occured. Steve Martin was doing a joke on the supposed “gay mafia” that controls Hollywood at the time, and when the walkie-talkie fell, he ad-libbed that the gay mafia was trying to rub him out. In actuality, I’m sure that Mr. Martin knew what was going on- there were men up there trying to repair a golden sphere that was supposed to rotate. (They never got it to work.)
I realize this is thread is old by now, but as it is not quite a zombie thread, I’d like to mention one I have never seen discussed anywhere, ever.
I was watching a Vikings football game on Fox, many years ago, during the regular season. Madden was announcing. Well, on one play, Culpepper (might be Ross, but I’m pretty sure it was Culpepper) was tackled at the legs, bringing down his pants with it - his ass was clearly visible for several seconds on tv. Madden just says, in a surreal like quality, “in my day, we’d call that a good pantsing!”
And it was never mentioned again.
Not quite relevant, but it was live and I think I’ll remember it forever. My favorite Vikings-on-Fox moment was during the 1999 playoffs. I think they were playing the Rams, but I can’t remember. Anyway, on one return play or rushing play or somesuch there was a big circle of blockers and defensemen blocking and defensing each other, as it were. A big huddled standing pile of NFL men in logjam, if you will. Well, one Vikings linebacker decides to join in on the fray and leaps towards the pile…and the pile moves while he’s in midair and he eats dirt in hilarious fashion. They showed a couple of replays but I don’t remember it being talked about much or showed on SportsCenter. I thought it was hilarious at the time.