It’s been a while since I was present for it but I’d say the vast majority of people stood to attention and sang.
I remember the TV broadcast day starting with the “Indian test pattern” about 5 minutes before the broadcast day, a really short sermon (about 2 minutes) and a shot of a flag flying in the wind and the National Anthem. At the end of the broadcast day was another really short sermon and one of two different ladies singing “God Bless America”. Then the test pattern again for like 3 minutes.
My favorite was one of Pittsburgh’s local PBS associated channels; in the 80s they ended their broadcast day with “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life” while showing a space ship slowly destroy the city of Pittsburgh. I LOVED THAT BIT!
They did not show the Indian where I grew up, and I too just now got that old Cheech and Chong joke.
I remember only the color bars, but what I can’t figure out–even with the explanation–is how that’s supposed to be a joke.
I live not too far from the Canadian border at Detroit/Windsor and I recall CBC doing the same with O Canada back in the not-on-the-air-for-24-hours era, sometimes doing so to a film someone put together with government film board sponsorship. WUOM, the University of Michigan radio station, signed off with Hail To The Victors.
I remember that scene. I thought it was a little wierd, because I grew up in the 1980s, and I don’t remember hearing the national anthem before a TV station signed off for the night. Also, I think by then most stations didn’t go off the air at night any more, and instead just played old movies, repeats of primetime shows, and other such filler.
The BBC still does it: when Radio 4 closes at 1am they play the national anthem before handing over to the World Service.
That is so weird. I’d only ever seen the bars and tone, too.
I was born in 1972, and I recall them doing it when the stations came on in the mornings (sometime around 5 or 6 am, IIRC), and they’d usually play the national anthem on the audio track, and some sort of patriotic video portion- as a kid, they were almost always NASA related- primarily Apollo footage, but every now and then, I’d get lucky and they’d have Gemini footage. Sometimes it would be USAF/USN footage of fighters and bombers in formation too.
As time went on, they got more peaceful, and we’d get sunsets over the Rockies, and pastoral Midwest farm vistas, and shit like that.
I assume they did the same thing when they shut the stations off as well, but I wasn’t up that late nearly as often as I was up early enough (used to go fishing with my grandfather a lot as a kid).
Sometime in the late 80s, even the UHF stations went to a 24/7 format- the big 3 networks had been 24 hours since the early part of the decade.
And they are SUPER SERIOUS about it. My husband is a contractor on our local base and we caught the second Captain America movie on post - I’d never been to the theater there and got a very stern elbow from him when I snickered. Because they do not snicker. At all. I got a look from some very large man that I’m pretty sure was because I don’t put my hand over my heart for that sort of thing. I do stand; it’s polite.
As a kid in the '60s, I would often stay up watching TV until stations signed off the air, and I found it incredibly creepy to be sitting in the dark with snow on the screen and that loud static hiss in the air immediately after the national anthem. I kept expecting something to reach out and grab me or some alien voice to come over the airwaves at any moment. (I occasionally did hear something, like on those weird Internet channels where Russian code signals are transmitted at irregular intervals.)
I sometimes wondered if I was the only one who felt that way, and that scene in Poltergeist indicates I wasn’t.
I’m 53, just old enough to remember when the last show would finish around 1 or 2 AM, and the station would shut down after playing the National Anthem.
Billy Joel’s “Sleeping With the Television On” starts with a snippet of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for that very reason.
I can’t remember the last time I saw that, however. Nowadays, if you turn on even obscure TV stations at 3:30 AM, they’ll probbaly be showing an infomercial or an old re-run rather than dead air.
Because he’s so unbelievably stoned that he thinks the test pattern (showing a static image of a Native American) is “a movie about Indians.”
I got the joke as a little kid listening to my parents’ C&C records/Dr. Demento even though I’d only seen that test pattern randomly on TV shows or movies.
I don’t know about TV, but my father went to college in Indiana in the late 1940s, and he used to listen to WOWO as he studied late at night. He told me that every night they would play a Fort Pitt Beer commercial, the announcer would say “That’s it: Fort Pitt!”, they played “Back Home Again in Indiana,” and then they played the Anthem and signed off. Then he went to bed.
Do you mean that a national anthem is a manifestation of insanity?
I’ve never seen the national anthem played in American movie theaters before, and I would resent something like that shoved down my throat; I payed to see a movie, not be brainwashed with jingoism.
The first time I visited the Philippines I was confused as hell why everyone was standing for some song I had never heard before being played in the theater…I had never heard of the national anthem (of any country) being played in the movie theater.
I take it you’re not a fan of professional sports.
I don’t recall that. I grew up in Toronto, Ontario. All we got was the movie, and maybe some trailers. Where did this occur?
I agree.
I remember when a Canadian, at a Canadian sporting event, wasn’t required to remove his or her hat, and did not have to hold his or her hand over the heart and face the flag. Now, thanks to the inundation of American sporting events on TV, it seems that is de rigeur for Canadians.
Hell, I’ve seen it at the local pro wrestling events. Right down to fans saying to each other, “You have to take off your hat” and “Put your hand over your heart.” But that’s not what Canadians traditionally do.
Not me. I certainly respect my country, but I’ll keep my hat on my head, one hand on my beer, and belt out “O Canada” better than any of them.
Jingoism is part of the baseball experience. 