The big ones have been mentioned several times over, so here are my trivial ones:
When the Muppets (on The Muppet Show) performed Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. It took place on a train, and the Gambler muppet faded out at the point in the song where he dies. A very solemn, wonderful performance, and done when the song was still new.
Stupid Pet Tricks on David Letterman: A guy has his dachshund walk into a pillow case, then chase a ball. The little dog’s tail was poking out of the open end of the pillow case, and he would do the two-paw pounce after the ball and bite the ball through the case. I about died laughing. By far my favorite trick.
-Late Night with Conan O Brian. Of course, anything with Andy Richter (the man is a GOD). But my two favorites
-The skit where Conan convinced Andy they had a NBC sauna. Andy comes walking out with Conan down a hall clad only in a towel. He suddenly pulls open a door, flings Andy in, and yanks the towel off him. Cut to Matt Lauer doing a broadcast on the Today Show set as Andy goes strolling by him in the nude, muttering. Lauer stops and looks at Andy and Andy says hello and nervously starts to take a seat in the co-anchor chair. The kill for me was Lauer stopping Andy mid-sit and putting a piece of paper under his ass before he sat down.
-Andy at Woodstock 2 (the one that started up the Mud people). Andy doing a full face slide down the mud hill in a 3 piece suit then cut away him doing in-depth interviews with several band guys COVERED head to toe in mud and muck but still wearing the ruined suit and acting like nothing is wrong.
I was a small kid when they landed on the moon and was at a friends’ house …my friends’ parents and siblings were all watching this with us and I KNEW there was NO way NO how MY family(not a single one) was watching this…it was the day I knew deep in my bones I was very different from my own parents
-The OJ Simpson Bronco chase.
-Many classic Seinfeld episodes, including The Contst and The Finale.
-David Cross playing “Slow Donnie” on Just Shoot Me. “Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot piiieeee!”
-Many moments of The Simpsons including the premiere of Sipsons Roasting on an Open Fire in December 1989.
Not for that. When I was 9 my mother woke me and told me that the Russians had beaten us into space, and I was upset. I was waiting for Apollo 11 a long time - and I’ve still got the NY times from that day.
Triumphs and tragedies of the space program always stick in my mind. My first was Alan Sheppard’s space shot. I was in first grade, and our school had one TV. All classes gathered in the auditorium to watch it together - in B&W. (Damn, I’m old!)
Remember during Princess Diana’s funeral when Elton John sang his new version of “Candle in the Wind”? That’s when I crumbled.
I saw a Saturday Night Live skit with Sissy Spacek and John Belushi where they played a young, poor, married couple. Anyone remember that one? I’ve never caught it in a rerun. The skit was about things young married couples quarrel about. A big item was the fact that the wife never made “fruit slaw,” while the husband’s mother did. It was not funny but poignant, which you didn’t see much of on SNL.
Was that the one where she talks about how she knew she should marry him when she saw his initial formed in asphalt on her knee? If not, there was a similar one then, and very funny.
I have a good SNL one…remember when Belushi was playing an old John Belushi with a cane and was walking though a cemetary looking at the gravestones of the other cast members and saying how everyone thought HE would be the first to go but he wasn’t because…
He was a dancer
It was even MORE memorable seeing it on repeats AFTER he had passed away
Most of my memories seem to revolve around my misapprehensions and general stupidity.
When I was a very little kid, the British children’s program Blue Peter showed how to make a model of a transporter bracelet from the sci-fi show Blake’s Seven (used for something similar to Star Trek’s transporter), and I remember being really obsessed with this because when they made it, the presenter used television trickery to dematerialise and rematerialise on the other side of the studio, and I was obsessed with making one because I didn’t know it was a trick and I thought it would let me transport like that.
From real life, the SAS breaking the siege of the Iranian embassy in London. What I really remember is that I was watching some kind of awful film and they cut into it, and I didn’t have any idea what was going on with this embassy.
The first Space Shuttle launch is something I remember vividly because I was visiting my grandmother at the time and I was playing outside and my dad practically had to drag me in to watch it.
Back in 1967 when The Beatles played All You Need is Love for the very first time live on an early international tv hookup. I remembered it as being in colour, but I saw the footage again fairly recently and it was only in b&w - and thinking back, we only had a b&w set at the time!!
Watching The Prisoner a few years later - the scene in the last episode where Patrick McGooghan is escaping down a tunnel lined with jukeboxes and they all start playing the same song…
Another NASA one - the re-entry of Apollo 13, when they didn’t know if the heat shield had been damaged and it would break up on re-entry. We sat for about 5 minutes while they went through the blackout period, just not knowing if they would come out of it or if they might be dying right that minute.
The BBC had covered it in full with a studio full of experts - they too all sat in total silence while the camera just went from one tense face to another. I never before that had the sense of being in a great community of people all focusing on the one thing and all, surely, praying together for one outcome.
Thanks for mentioning the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I saw it; can’t believe I didn’t list it.
SNL memories and John Belushi – Joe Cocker was performing as the musical guest, and Belushi came out dressed like him, and did his impression of him side-by-side as a duet. Incredibly funny.
I remember the first TV broadcast of Hitchcock’s Psycho, around 1967 or so. It had been delayed several months, because US Senator Charles Percy’s daughter had been murdered just before the first scheduled premiere, and the network thought it would be in bad taste to show it so soon. (Doubtful if such sensitivity would be shown now.) I watched it all by myself, pretty much scared s***less.
About Apollo 13 – I was in my late teens at the time, and had grown up with the space program. I was well aware that the astronauts were in danger, but I never for a moment doubted that they would be brought back safely. We were Americans, by God–we’ve got the know-how, and bad stuff like that just doesn’t happen to us. Times (and I) have changed.
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I don’t think there has been a more riotous premier since. Everybody in the whole country was bizonkers. You had to watch to see what the fuss was about if nothing else. Many conservative/traditionalist folks (I dare say the majority) rued their emergence. THEIR HAIR WAS CONSIDERED TO BE DISGRACEFULLY LONG!!! We sang ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ on the playground at recess. BANG!! The Beatles and the 60s were upon us.
The Ruby/Oswald shooting. Saw all the news coverage of the day from the assasination of JFK through the funeral but the moment that sticks out the most was when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. We had just gotten home from church and turned the TV on to see what was happening and here comes Oswald. Saw the whole thing as it happened. Still in my Sunday suit, while Mom was getting the roast out of the oven.
‘All In the Family’ on color TV. Yes, there was a time when color television was considered ‘high tech.’ Only the priviledged had color television sets. Black and white was the standard. By the time ‘All In the Familty’ came along black & white production had fazed out and more and more families were upgrading to color sets. Our first color set, a beautiful, brand spanking new, Motorola console, delivered and set up (by Sears, I think), with rooftop aerial, was an event at our house. ‘All In the Family’ was the show that christened it and our early 70s-ish family was never the same again.
Dad actually grew sideburns!!!
Fast forward to the Gulf War on CNN. I had just moved to Florida, on the road the day the war started, and was staying with friends. The first two weeks I was there we were headquartered in front of the TV watching Wolf and the gang and the scuds, etc. First time war was ever brought to you live like that, IIRC.
The very first night we ever, ever had a color TV. I remember a special came on called “In Search of Ancient Astronauts.” It proved how our planet had been visited many times in the past by UFOnauts. Scared the hell out of me to realize that they’d been here in the past–and they’re probably still watching us.
From that moment until I was out of high school, I read everything I could find on ancient astronauts, UFOs, Bigfoot, etc.
A scene that I’ll never forget was from an episode of ER. Towards the end of the episode “Be Still My Heart”, Carter gets stabbed while trying to find Lucy. He drops to the floor, and sees her lying on the other side of the room, bleeding profusely. There is a party going on, with loud music, so no one can here him calling for help. It was shocking, but I never realized what an impact the scene had, until weeks later the song “Battleflag” by Lo-Fidelity All Stars came on the radio. When I heard the song, it sent chills down my spine, and then I realized that it was the song playing at the party.
On a much lighter note, I still remember the funiest Conan O’Brian show I’ve ever seen, I even tell people about it. Norm MacDonald and Courtney Thorne Smith were the guests, and Norm was in rare form. I managed to find a transcript of the show, it is definately worth a read, especially the last 25% of it.
Well a few other moments I will always vividly recall:
St. Elsewhere: On Ed Flanders’ last episode as a regular. His character Dr. Westphall was fired after protesting the new administrator’s decision to refuse to admit an AIDS-infected baby to the hospital. In the final scene, he was told he could keep his job if he would “simply modify his position on some issues.” Dr. Westphall’s response was to drop his trousers (full frontal shots of front & back!) and tell the new administrator to “kiss my ass!” (This was loooong before “NYPD Blue” mind you, and was considered incredibly audacious at the time.)
David Letterman: Early on, he did a regular segment called “fun with velcro.” It culminated in a final segment in which he wore a full-bodyvelcro suit. After a couple of minutes of silliness (Paul threw velcro nerfballs at him, which stuck to him), Dave jumped off a springboard face-first onto a velcro-lined wall. Seeing Dave simply stick to it was the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen on his show.
Susan Smith: for about a week, she’d been in the news begging for the safe return of her babies. I’ll never forget the day I saw a news update in which it was reported she had killed her own kids!
The news report about Phil Hartman being killed by his own wife, who then shot herself. That sticks out in my mind as particularly bizarre & out of left field.
The jury decisions in two highly publicized court cases: the O.J. Simpson trial (natch!), and the Exxon Valdez trial. I will always remain appalled at the smug, gloating look on the face of Capt. William Murphy after he got off scott-free of drunkenly causing one of the worst environmental disasters ever.
Lastly, footage of the rioting that occurred in L.A. after the Rodney King beating trial.
Jim Ignatowski wanders into the cabbie stand:
Elaine: “Jim! Where have you been? We’ve been worried to death!”
Jim: “I went away for the weekend…”
Elaine: “But you’ve been gone for ten days!”
Jim: “I thought we switched to the metric system…”