Airdate: Television Event
More than 100 million viewers tuned into The Day After in 1983. This is the story of how that film changed history.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Programming, Video
2020 documentary Television Event, which looks to the terrifying broadcast of nuclear disaster film The Day After will screen this week on SBS VICELAND.
The 1983 film, which starred Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow, gripped the US, and various parts of the world when it screened to over 100m people.
This doco is produced & directed by Jeff Daniels (not to be confused with the actor of the same name).
On November 20, 1983, ABC-TV broadcast The Day After, a chilling fictional account of the aftermath of a nuclear war on a small Kansas town. More than 100 million viewers turned in, making it the highest-rated made-for-TV film in history. This came after weeks of buildup and, behind-the-scenes, intense controversy extending all the way to a White House in the midst of a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
With impressive access to the principals involved with the project and a trove of archival footage, Jeff Daniels revisits the improbable story of this anti-nuclear major television event and the impact it left on the Reagan era and beyond.
Thursday, 14 November at 10.10pm on SBS VICELAND.
- Tagged with Television Event, The Day After
One Response
Watch this on Yutube last night , I remember it when I watched it in the 80,s still hits home :(