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On the evening of that day in 1967 I was a nine year old space junkie watching Batman -- a phenomenally popular TV show in my demographic -- when ABC interrupte
by 19670127 10y ago
On the evening of that day in 1967 I was a nine year old space junkie watching Batman -- a phenomenally popular TV show in my demographic -- when ABC interrupted the show with a bulletin that "one astronaut had died on the pad" at Cape Kennedy. No other explanation was provided. I was mystified. I knew there was no launch that day. Our astronauts just didn't die on the pad, and why only one? Before I could figure it out ABC interrupted again and said three astronauts had died.
It's flashbulb memory... I can remember where in the house I was sitting, I can remember the rabbit-ears black-and-white TV, and I can remember the black-circle dominated graphic that ABC put on the screen. And I remember the horrible picture of the burned spacecraft on the front page of the Washington Post two days later as my father held the paper up to read an inside page.
Apparently ABC got a lot of angry calls for interrupting Batman.
Weirdly, years later I was working at a very high profile Silicon Valley start-up, when our cock-sure management dramatically announced a huge new project that they had named "Apollo." I realized immediately that it was, to the day, the 30th anniversary of the fire. I confess that I am a small man, and did enjoy pointing out the anniversary to others. At least no one died when our Apollo failed. RIP Roger, Ed, and Gus.
- 19670127 10y agoHmm, Wikipedia says there was no Batman episode broadcast that night [0]. I don't believe it! [edit:] Well, maybe it was "Time Tunnel" -- my other favorite show of that era. It was on that night [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Batman_(TV_series)_episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Batman_(TV_series)_epi... [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0723777/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0723777/
- gambiting 10y agoIt's fascinating that you can just look up what was on TV 50 years ago, without having to go into ancient archives of a TV station somewhere.
- kmm 10y agoIt's something I envy the US a lot for. I'm assuming it has to do with the population of the state I live in being only 6 million, but there is so comparatively little archived about things like TV shows, and other kinds of trivial (yet important in its own way) history. You can look up what was on TV 50 years ago, and I couldn't even figure out if "Hey Arnold!" was dubbed or subtitled.
- jharger 10y agoUnless I'm missing something... it says "Penguin Is a Girl's Best Friend" aired on January 26th, 1967, which is the date of the accident according to the article.
- 19670127 10y agoThe article is unclear. Walt Cunningham's test was on the 26th, but the fire was the next day: the 27th.
- acqq 10y agoThe event happened 23:31:19 UTC, Jan 27 1967. Please calculate when it was for the place you lived, then compare, maybe the interruption you remember happened before prime-time, that is, before 7:30?
- 19670127 10y agoEastern time zone -- same as the Cape. Of course, an indeterminate positive amount of time would have elapsed after the event until the time ABC interrupted.