What you can’t see on TH-cam is how the original broadcast looked on CRT TVs. Since the movie was shot on tape, it looked PRECISELY like the newscasts of the day, and the realism was even more intense than meets the eye.
I didn't see this when it originally aired, but I vividly remember watching Without Warning in 1994(?). Totally agree with what you said. There was something almost magical about broadcast TV and suspension of disbelief back then. It was my sophomore year of highschool and it's all anybody, students and teachers alike, could talk about the next day.
I had watched the original movie that night and I do remember how it seemed like a real news event ,..... except for the fact that disclaimers were run I was very familiar with the lead anchor who was in an episode of Hawaii 50, playing the part of a BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXPERT who was now the TERRORIST,... actually he wanted to stop the GOVT from continuing it's Bio-weapons programs and had a vial of deadly material about to be released on Hawaii if the Govt didn't comply ! It was the forerunner story to Special Bulletin !
As someone who was born in the 80s, yeah I can see how the formatting would have had an impact. Imagine missing the warnings that it's not real and catching this on your TV back then.
I remember the night this was on. I was watching on the living room television. My boyfriend was doing laundry, walking back and forth taking clean clothes upstairs from the basement. He’d stop for a second, looking at the screen, then continue on. After about 5 trips he stopped, looked at me, then the television. He finally asked “what the hell is going on” it was that realistic back then.
@@lylarose2696 Yeah because the show is more convincing than the disclaimer! If you're 70% sure that this could be legitimate, are you going to trust a bland 5-second disclaimer saying it's fake?
A few years ago when North Korea was in the news a lot, I was living in California and it was all over the news that Hawaii was being attacked. It was said that people were panicking. I didn't hear about it until it had been announced that someone had hacked into the Emergency Broadcast System and it was all a hoax. About a year later, I was living in Florida and nobody had even heard of it.
I too remember seeing the original airing of this in 1983. Rewatching it now, I can't help but notice the irony that the backdrop of the RBS studio shows the World Trade Towers.
Whats interesting about this movie is that the ending almost flows perfectly into "Countdown to Looking Glass" with civil unrest in Poland and the banks about to default on their loans which are two of the things that happen at the beginning of Looking Glass before it escalates into Nuclear War.
Still remember watching this in 1983, before the era of spoilers, and being impressed. Here I am, thirty-five years later, watching it again and being even more impressed.
It really is accurate. Its almost impossible to tell the difference between this fiction and modern news stories. Newsflash ; North Korea poised to invade Europe but hasnt actually said or done anything. Officials say that Iran is also showing support for Kim il sung by also doing nothing. Pentagon officials said "nothing can very easily turn into a smoking gun, and a smoking gun can turn into a mushroom cloud." The President said that "evil prevails when good men do nothing"
Think of what life was like in 1983… Take a look around, now Nuclear bombs ended up being the LEAST of the United States problem Our country, our world… it’s all unrecognizable
I saw the original broadcast, and it is hard to express to younger modern viewers just how realistic this film is. They nailed the mannerisms and pacing of the newscast, the then-new use of the animated graphic, what were then realistic limitations on the video and broadcasting technology. There was no internet so broadcast news was all we ever knew of the world beyond our immediate circle of acquaintances. And I was astonished in the day at how terrifyingly realistic the actual blast tape was, given that we saw it through the eye of a 1983 video system; it overwhelms the vidicon tube, which is exactly what would have happened with that technology, so what we see of the blast is its aftermath and the shock wave which were well done. Even the "bad acting" is really an accurate depiction of how most newscasters carried themselves and acted on-air. Remember this was just a year after Don Henley recorded "Dirty Laundry" and it was partly meant as a warning of what the news was becoming. The makers must be alternating howls of laughter and tears of despair if they are still around.
@@foobarmaximus3506 Well TV as it is portrayed in Special Bulletin hasn't existed since 2000 or so, so if you're younger than 20 or so no you probably have no idea what it was like in 1983 when most people didn't even have cable TV and the internet wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye.
@@localroger I think the broadcast should of been preserved in better quality given the content. Why not make a film grade copy back then? This Ihave not heard or watched just skipped around visually. Present day reactions are compelling and I wanted post about WSJ reporting on IRan enrichment today. It's very scary they will have a bomb so soon and it will be Trumps work.
@@jims6498 The broadcast is state of the art for its day. It would be over 20 years after this was made before it became an expectation that you could see a real-time broadcast in better quality than NTSC. That would require both screen technology that didn't exist until after 2000 for higher resolution displays and digital delivery technology to get more than 3 megahertz bandwidth. It was not until 2010 or so until what we now call HD was practical and this was made in 1983. In that day it was actually a technical reach to film on video instead of film, and they were trying to create a kind of cinema verite thing where the fictional product was made on the same equipment with the same technology that the real thing would have been.
Fun story: I have a friend who works in a newspaper editorial room and they pipe in the sounds of teletype and landline ringers because it makes the place sound "busier".
It was a crazy year to work in Missile Warning in the USAF too. Much scarier things were happening in real life in the late 70s and early 80s than anything on TV or in the movies.
There was also "The Day After" later in 1983, and in 1984, there was the British TV drama "Threads" and the Canadian/HBO drama "Countdown to Looking Glass": th-cam.com/video/GQzgHBjQzf4/w-d-xo.html
1980's media was hell bent on terrifying us. I remember watching "after school specials" about teen pregnancy, AIDS, drunk driving, and drug use. Then, these made-for-tv movies were especially terrifying, because they felt very real and very possible. In addition to this movie, I remember, The Day After, Testament, and V -- all which terrified me. My brother went to the movies to see War Games and I remember crying when he was trying to tell me about it.
Nothing will ever top the sheer horror of Threads. If there was one movie that has left a scar on my psyche, and made me paranoid of nuclear warfare, it's that one.
Threads was as raw as it could get, nothing glamorous in the whole movie. The true horror was in the stupidity of authorities right up to the end. Great movie.
The Russians,the British and the Americans each made a movie showing the horrors of nuclear war.All three were shown in the USA and England and Russia broadcasted their own at the same time.
Never saw the Russian version but it might be interesting. As for the USA version, if you mean The Day After, somehow it felt too much like an average action movie with over the top effects.
Threads made The Day After look like a bakery. I only saw it for the first time here on TH-cam--still scares me now, especially with things as they are.
I was a year old in 1983. I've heard of this movie off and on and finally decided to watch it. Holy crap this was a ride. Amazing acting, writting, and the end scenes.... Jesus.
I remember seeing this YEARS ago when I worked in the stereo/TV department of the American forces PX in West Berlin, West Germany (pre-reunification). Everyone one in the store, employees and customers who missed the disclaimer at the beginning thought it was a real news broadcast. I did too for a couple of minutes till I saw the one guy who played a doctor on "St. Elsewhere". When I pointed that out to everyone, they gave a sigh of extreme relief and went about their normal business.
The RBS News anchor was played by Ed Flanders, who played Dr. Westphall, the director of medicine at St. Elegius Hospital in St. Elsewhere. The terrorist leader was played by David Clennon, who played the advertising executive Miles Drentell onThirtysomething.
I remember watching the original broadcast of this as a teenager growing up in the 80’s. The ending sticks with me to this day. Well done for a TV movie, back in the days when there was just the 3 major networks.
@@richardfannin9652 I remember vividly the original broadcast being on a Sunday night on the NBC network in 1983. It was the evening before my 15th birthday, so that would put the broadcast on March 20th.
I somehow get the feeling people listening to Orson Wells went thru something similar, but I also remember NBC putting up alerts that this was just a television show after every commercial.
One of the most suspenseful scenes ever in any film or video is when they are trying to disarm the bomb. I've seen it many times yet even now, I still can't watch it without getting stressed.
the single NEST team member giving up and trying to run away up the steps right before the bomb goes off is just incredible. what an amazingly written scene
I was 13, and even with the notifications that this wasn't real, this TRAUMATIZED me. I watched this for the first time again today, 40 years later, and I was shocked how much I remembered of this show I saw ONCE. It still leaves me shaking tonight. They talk about people in the 50s and 60s being afraid of nuclear war... but in the 1980s, this had me fighting panic, knowing it didn't have to be Russia... it could be my neighbor. I don't know how today's audiences would react to it... maybe they would laugh... but this made it real for me... it was my "War Of The Worlds."
Same here. It was nothing like I had seen before. It felt so believable. Even though I knew it wasn't real, the way it was produced made it feel real. And not knowing the ending when it aired made it all the more terrifying.
I think the possibility of a nuclear war is higher, given the current state of things, that a lot of people would think. The USSR in 1983 was very paranoid, but compared to Iran and DPRK, the Soviets seem quite sane in comparison.
"The Day After" had the same effect on me. I had nightmares for years after that. I was worried about my mom and brother getting to a fallout shelter in time and was so scared for our pets. I didn't want to lose them (still don't).
The last 15 minutes of the movie give me chills, even though I've seen it before. The woman crawling about, saying: "Is the radiation coming now? Are we going to die?" And the matter-of-fact report: "One child of nine apparently committed suicide". I get goose bumps.
@raphael: I have to thank you for making your comment. Usually I get upset at folks comments that give away the ending. But if you hadn't said that something impactful happened within the last 15 minutes, I don't think I'd have been able to suffer through the rest of the film. While it was interesting watching '80s broadcasting styles and learning about how the government handled a disaster (which honestly hasn't changed in the intervening years; poorly at best, then last minute intervention that's too late because they didn't take it seriously soon enough), and while I was able to watch it in the background while painting.... It was like watching news for an hour....waiting for paint to dry. I didn't read your entire comment until just now after the movie finished. I just saw the note about the 15 minutes. And I have to agree with all the quotes you picked. At the 9 yr old one I began to cry.
@@jeremiahgabriel5709 Sorry about that - didn't really think I was giving away the ending! But yeah, you're right. It was extremely well done. There are a couple of others - there's one done in a mock-documentary style from the BBC, but I can't remember the name. It was about Russia and the east of Europe - quite topical right here in 2022. Another is Countdown to Looking Glass, and if you like this one, you'll probably like that too.
SPECIAL BULLETIN is one of the most effective doomsday films this side of ON THE BEACH (1959). I caught it on Lifetime during the early 1990s, and it still scared the pee-wadding out of this viewer. It still deserves to be seen today.
"This program is a realistic depiction of fictional events. None of what you are seeing is actually happening". Roughly translated as We don't want another War of the worlds type panic.
Actually that disclaimer was required by federal regulations which were established in direct response to Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” October 1938 broadcast.
Though it ended up being one as people who didn't see the start of the program only saw news about terrorism and nukes. from what i gathered Edit: or the start after commercial breaks.
I believe one central american country triec to copy the War of the Worlds panic broadcast. The station was burned down and at least one of the employees was killed. Who wouldn't put up a disclaimer??
I remember watching this when it was broadcast. I knew it was fictional but my mom walked in in the middle of the show and I had quite the time convincing her that it wasn’t real. I finally got her to change to other channels and see that nobody else was “covering” the situation.
I remember watching this for the first time. I was in the military at the time and this movie scared the hell out of me. 35 years later it's still scary as hell.
My dad was a Navy Sailor stationed in Charleston when they aired this movie. He was in a bar at the time and was wondering as the movie went on why alarms were not going off nor why MP's were not there to haul him to a ship or chopper for evac. When the bomb went off, he looked out a window and realized that it was a hoax.
I was stationed at NAS Millington when this aired and one of the guys in the barracks was from Charleston, he kept missing the disclaimers during the commercial breaks because he was trying to contact his family. It was so realistic that he was panicking even though we were telling him it was a movie.
If I were in the military it would scare the shit out of me -- especially if I dealt with nuclear war anyway. Also, as we say in Michigan, thank you for your service.
When we went to see NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, we told friends it was a satire on TV - that TV was 'living dead' world. "Low End" was always considered to be the home of TV and TV viewing.
One of a series around that time that did this. A movie about the cold war escalating to WWIII was done in this manner called "Countdown to Looking Glass" which is also on TH-cam. It was one of Scott Glenns first roles after doing The Right Stuff.
I haven't seen anyone mention the very end... "And in other news" - in some ways that part haunted me more than any other. A "one-two punch" - not only savaging how quickly the media's attention shifts, but also implies that mere "labor riots in Poland" might be the start of something far bigger...
@finalascent That’s the part that has haunted me most all these years since I first saw this show. That and the footage of Charleston “as it was before.” Special Bulletin was one of the absolute best things I’ve ever seen on TV.
I know I'm 2 years late, but "might be the start of something far bigger..." I've got news for you. It's called: World War 3. And you might be wigged out at how close your speculation about Special Bulletin's ending is to the beginning of this film. th-cam.com/video/q1m7opOGSmQ/w-d-xo.html
I wish movies like this were made nowadays. Feels like it was recorded off a vcr, very realistic and almost historical in sense. Kudos to efficient production values and direction. Recommend "Without Warning" if you're interested in this, but you probably already seen it if you're reading this 😆
Despite the onscreen disclaimers, when WITHOUT WARNING was aired, tv stations were still inundated with phone call from anxious viewers thinking it was real; it was Orson Welles' WAR OF THE WORLDS all over again... which is why those disclaimers were on so prominent in the first place! And for another irony? Both Welles' radio program and WITHOUT WARNING were broadcast on Halloween.
What i like about it is that it is completely unpredictable, we're used to movies like these where they have a happy ending, everyone cheers and celebrates, etc. Instead, we got what looked like a happy ending, changing in the span of a few seconds, to something darker and more realistic.
Late Night with the Devil out last year tries to do something similar with a possession but it mucks it up in the last half, but yeah filmmakers are too scared for realism
Like this "Fictionalized BBC Special Report of NATO-Russia conflict" ending in global thermonuclear war, from 2018? It looks a lot more likely today than it did then. th-cam.com/video/VWqWAi_H_9o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=g4iuNLVe8MBPo9jK
Charleston would've had a hurricane evacuation plan to draw on. Maybe the authorities could've managed the panic by just saying, "let's use this occasion for an impromptu hurricane evacuation drill."
@@sherryanne2287 It IS a good movie if you look past more science errors than Carter has Pills. Ignoring the multiple INACCURACIES, the emotional impact something like this would have on the American people cannot be overstated. To be blunt, I am personally very surprised that something like this has NOT happened!
@Michael Muldowney - I wonder - in the post-9/11 perspective, when younger people have no clue how close to home and frightening the Cold War was at times, would this be seen as a simple yet pretentious disaster movie with only 2000 dead? In its day it was horrifying, but since then we've seen worse. Chernobyl was a far worse nuclear catastrophe (concerning radiation and contamination), and 9/11 was an act of terrorism that killed half again as many people, and who knows how many firefighters are yet to die from respiratory illness. @@sherryanne2287 - When this film was made, we didn't call them period quality news cams. We just called them news cams. This was not made to look like something from the past. It was made in the past to look like something current, which it did. What has never been current in any period is all the drama and emotionality of the reporters. We didn't see that on 9/11. Occasional pauses, surprise, speechlessness, yes, but not angry outbursts and crying.
I actually took part in Able Archer.. 1983(Reforger 83) in Europe, had no idea this exercise created tensions between USSR/USA as there was ALREADY the possibility of Nuclear War. We were being trained in Nuclear protection, Atropine Injections were supplied to us and of course what we called NBC gear. Our Tanks were specially coated with NBC paint, we were going through rigorous NBC training/containment/survival procedure. maneuvers and training to survive even just to fight for an hour longer.
This movie aired in March of ‘83. Look what happened after: -A week later, President Reagan gave his famous “Evil Empire” speech. -September 1 was the shoot down of KAL 007 by the Soviets. -Three weeks after the shoot down, Colonel Petrov of the Soviet Rocket Forces literally saved the world by not calling for a missile launch after Soviet radar mistakenly showed a US first strike. -October/November…Able Archer…terrified the Soviets who were ready to launch at the first sign of trouble.
Able Archer, was a field signals and command communications exercise, the 1983 exercise did not involve soldiers other than the signals units, or tanks, Operation Reforger, was later , lf you watched the film, they explained it all in the film,
In WWII, the Germans started dropping a new type of bomb, a landmine that didn't go off immediately, but was still live. Eleven times British bomb disposal teams tried to disarm these bombs, and they went off, killing everyone nearby. The twelfth time it was done, coincidentally, at night - and it worked. The Nazis had come up with an early photovoltaic cell as an anti-tamper device, so when it was exposed to light - boom. The British bomb squads had no idea such a thing existed, and it was pure chance they finally succeeded. Ultimate respect for any bomb squad, anywhere in the world - damn, they've got guts.
So true haha I also love the bit just after that when the guy on the boat calls out the network on their real motivation by telling them to cut the feed- it's all about the ratings. They don't give 2 hoots about anything else.
@Patrick Ancona Uhhh, things suck just as much today as they did back then. The Doomsday Clock was 2 minutes to midnight in 1983 and it is back there at this time. But now you can play Fortnite and cry about how much things suck today and pretend it was better in the past.
Nothing to pretend. The 80s were better than today. I've heard from Millennials and younger people who aren't even old enough to remember the 80s who say they wish they could've lived in the 80s. It was better than most people remember, as were the 90s. The 21st century has sucked so far.
@@44excalibur Yes, everything sucks for millennial people now. The 21st century just sucks. Between the video games and the smart devices and affordable health care for low income people,total suckage. Suck it. I'd rather be poor in 1983 with no school lunches, social security roll backs and no affordable health care. I'd rather play Pac-Man than Fortnite or any of those shitty games, and who needs a smart phone? Gimme a fucking Walk-Man with four AA batteries and cassette tapes, fuck it. I'll sell crack on the corner to save up for one of those new Compact Disc players (whatever those are) Hopefully Reagan and Andropov work things out before they blow it all to hell. YES! Somebody build me a hot tub time machine, 1980's best decade HERE I COME!
Years ago Leonard Maltin included TV movies in his review books. He rated them as either below average, average or above average. He rated this movie as being "way way above average".
Fantastic movie. Plot, pacing, the building up of the tension, acting, editing. And the climax was unbelievable. Absolutely unexpected. The reactions of the anchors and victims were so realistic. I'm 51 and just watched this in India and I am in tears. This must be the most realistic movie I've seen in years. It's going to take me some time to get over it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, hOllOwm9n.
I stumbled upon this completely by accident, thinking it was a recording of a news event from 1983. Watched the whole thing, glued to my seat. The tension was very well designed, though I was intensly relieved when the bomb finally went off. I can't stand anticipation, but I can deal with any pay off I guess.
The funny Thing: I was 13 Years old - and for me it only was a bright, hot Summer. The Butterflies were big this Year... Ignorance truly is Bliss, it seems.
I just got it too. LOL "Our B.S. News" Brilliant. Gotta think, this was back when the news media was still able to take a step back and look at themselves objectively. I think they stopped asking THOSE sort of questions 20 years ago or more. They've simply accepted they are no better than Gun Smoke or General Hospital.
When this was shown in 1983,NBC received many calls despite several disclaimers shown throughout the show.With the Idiocracy we have today,who knows what the reaction would be.I still have my VHS tape from the original broadcast.
@DM RR Indeed ... From what I can gather, the most dangerous bomb makers where/are those whom set up so many anti-tamper mechanisms, that in the process of disarming the bomb, the result is detonation ... Interestingly enough, the two scientists that built the implosion type bomb, aka equal to the one dropped on Nagasaki, actually created one with a higher blast yeild; 23KT atomic bomb is not nearly as big as the 1MT, thermonuclear, warheads, commonly placed on missiles, but, nevertheless, still big enough to vaporise anything within a 1 mile radius, and extensive damage upto - if I'm correct - 5 miles ... My only gripe is that the EMP caused by the detonation, would fry any electrical, and electronic, devices. That VHS camera, used by news channels at the time, and were pretty bulky, wouldn't have been able to record the explosion, as it's doubtful that it was 'hardened' against EMP ... It would've been better to have used non-lethal measures against the man, down near the engine compartment, whom stated that he was the one that wired it; taking him alive to get him to disarm it, on the basis that he would get life without parole, rather than the death sentence ... As for the woman captured, chances are she will be convicted for numerous murders, especially over those whom were able to be recovered, and positively ID'd. For her, it would likely be that she would receive multiple life sentences, for each individual found, and identified, consecutively ... she would've died in prison ...
For this being a TV movie, the acting is spot on and totally believable that you don't doubt the emotions that these characters would be going through if it actually happened. I know its what actors are trained to do everyday, but even with the most hard hitting dramas, you can tell those on screen are acting even when emotional, but here you have actors showing 100% genuine emotions as though they didn't know it wasn't real.
I dunno, the anchors acted like they cared more about the situation at hand than one actually would. And the technical errors got in the way of being immersed in the story. You can be as theatrical and dead-on as anybody could, but if you're using that performance to say red is blue but also the number 5 it's not really a good performance.
You are kidding aren't you? The overacting is palpable and that scene at the beginning with the reporter at the docks is surely meant meant to be comedic.
There's also a TV movie from '94 that is even more a direct homage to WotW, called "Without Warning". About an alien invasion disguised as meteors. It s a bit better then this one.
I watched this on TV with my parents when I was 12. Everything is so much like TV news then that people who tuned in between the disclaimers had a hard time telling whether it was real or not. TV news wasn't as slick and packaged then as it is now. Even the trouble with live feeds depicted here were typical of those days. It's hard to convey the spirit of the times to people who weren't there. Every day, you knew that extinction was one button push away.
I was around then but don’t remember this one. We talked about the threat of nuclear a bit, but was not a major worry or memory where I was. I was 10 in 1983
You hit the nail right on the head because the arms race and the cold war were in full swing at the time and there was always this nervousness in the air
You're so right, Adam. I was 11 when this was iriginally aired, and I remember being acared out of my mind at what was going on. To be fair, since it was 40 years ago, I don't remember being aware of the disclaimer, or perhaps I was just too young to really understand or pay attention to it. Either way this movie was disturbing to me back then.
@@arnoldjack7956 It didn't fully end, the bombs are still here, more of the detection duties are given to technology which could possibly fail, and nations are starting to go against treaties and build their arsenals again.
I recorded this onto VHS when first broadcast, cutting out the disclaimers but leaving in the TV commercials to add authenticity. A couple of years later I slipped the tape in during a party and within a few minutes had people sucked in thinking it was the real deal! And when after about half an hour and I told them what was really going on, they all got very angry and threatened to leave...
Hard to imagine 18 years later CNN and the like would be covering 9/11 much the same way. Thanks for putting this up, as it still stands as a great movie. Not quite as panic causing as Welles interpretation of War Of The World's over the radio. But I remember days after this originally aired, some people here in Toronto (including my grandma) thought it actually happened. I regretfully laughed at the believers thinking such devestation of an American city would even be closely possible. My laughing ended a fateful day in September of 2001.
I recall, back in the mid eighties, I was watching television with a friend, late one night, when a very realistic "News Flash" came on during a commercial break stating that Russian tanks had rolled into Israel. Well, we both nearly shat ourselves and our hearts sank. I recall thinking, "Well, this is it." Turns out it was just the intro to a church program, you know, one of those "The end is all kinds of nigh, get ready !" fire breathers. My knees were weak for half an hour after that. Bastards.
@@hoarbaby. Definitely. The unending “global war on terror “. Regime change vis military intervention in 2 countries the patriot act, having to accept surveillance “to keep us safe “. 10s of 1000s mentally and physically maimed service members. Rampant profiteering in the military industrial complex
One thing I do like about this movie is the end, where they report on the aftermath of Charleston and then go on to other news stories (yup, that is probably what would happen if this occurred in RL)...
I mean, what were they supposed to do at that point? They reported as much as they could that day but life elsewhere goes on. Were they just supposed to stop broadcasting when they ran out of things to say that day?
Good observation. Sort of like the movie "The Truman Show," after the secret behind the premise of the show is dramatically exposed, the two guards watching the television set look at each other and ask: "what else is on?"
The last 20 minutes had me on edge and emotional once the bomb went off. We're never going to have something this impactful again. This movie,Threads and the Day After will forever leave a impact on 20th century culture.
Our baseball team was staying at a hotel. I couldn't sleep so turned the tv on and this was playing. I knew it was a movie because I like this sort of stuff, but I remember the room-mate who was half asleep, waking up in terror, because if you didn't know any better it seems so real, I pretended to be asleep, but was funny just to hear him shit his pants for a few seconds, then decided to reveal it was a movie.
Im watching this with my girlfriend right now. Whenever we have a date night we switch off who gets to pick the movie. Last week I picked Dawn Of The Dead (1978 version) and we loved it. This is a very amazing pick, i love havimg a girlfriend with such badass taste in movies.
Yes, on several occasions over the last 37 years, I have thought about the sequence where the one bomb tech runs away and then BOOM. This is one of those movies that stuck in my brain. That is why I looked it up tonight and watched it. At the time it was so creepy. Now we know that the UFOs have been watching over us for decades to prevent us from actually destroying the planet. I have seen some of the strangest videos on the internet that show ufos flying around missles and shooting them with some kind of energy beam and disarming them. See this video. th-cam.com/video/o7CPLQvd5Rk/w-d-xo.html
This show scared me shitless as a young teen. I'm legitimately frightened to watch it again, even as an old fart. Still wearing a concert tee and Chucks, what's missing is a can of Jolt Cola and a bag of taco flavor Doritos.
Masterful. Watched it as a kid in '83 but forgot most of it. People actually cared about nuclear weapons back then. Now everyone is oblivious that we can still destroy 5000 years of civilization in 30 minutes.
All the familiar faces in this production. A who's who of 1980s character actors anchored by St. Elsewhere's passionate and compassionate stalwart. Ed Flanders remains one of my favorite actors -- I'm still sad to know he died as he did.
I was in New York when the 1977 Blackout happened. I was teaching in Spain when (in September 26, 1983) the Kremlin in the Soviet Union nearly started WW 3! I was living in Denmark in April 26, 1986 when the Chernobyl incident happened! I have more that I experienced while in Europe. WOW!!!!! Apart of history.
I remember seeing it on TV in 1983. It was the second time it was aired so I knew what I was going to watch. Yet, after it started it took me a good 3 minutes before realizing this was the movie I wanted to see and not an actual Special Bulletin ! One of my co-worker, the next morning started the conversation by : "I freaked out a bit yeasterday night about something I saw on TV..." I knew what he was talking about. This show is to TV what Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" was to radio...
So was "Without Warning", which was another mockumentary, in 1994. That one caused quite a bit of panic when it aired on Halloween night that year--even with all the disclaimers saying none of the events being depicted was actually happening.
I was 11 years old when this aired. My mom called me into the living room about half way through the program and tells me, "Cal you've got to watch the news with me, something terrible is happening." I don't recall now just how far through the show we got before full panic attack and crying set in at which my mom tells me that she fooled me and that it was just a tv show, not real. Ooooh man, I was so stinking mad at her. Of course, she apologized as she recognized that her joke was not as funny as she had thought it would be. And if you're curious, my mom has always been and still is my best friend.
I remember watching this as a teenager, scared the living hell out of me, the way this was produced to make it seem like an actual news broadcast was ahead of its time in my opinion. I came in on it after the the beginning, my dad told me that it wasn't real, still, at the time it seemed like it.
Dan, back in the Spring and Summer of 1978, there was a parody of late-night talk shows, titled, "America 2 Night", which supposedly aired on the United Broadcasting System. Whereas the CBS logo is the CBS eye, the UBS logo was an ear. I can still recall the UBS jingle: "UBS, we're the best because we put you before the bs!"
I remember seeing this when it first aired, hadn't seen it again until now, THANKS for posting this! Ironically, it hadn't been long since we'd visited the area and stood on that aircraft carrier museum, so it was easy to imagine for us. I liked that it ended badly and I never forgot the people realizing they weren't going to stop the countdown and starting to run a split second before it went off
An interesting note: when this movie premiered, despite the Charleston, SC NBC affiliate saying that this was only a movie, people STILL called them because they thought it was real...
Unknown 1081 The same thing happened with the WKBW version of the War Of The Worlds radio show and the 1994 TV-movie Without Warning; they made sure people knew it was just a gag, but some people still freaked out.
@@MrPeterpiper1969 No, _The Day After_ did not look like a sugary Disney production. _Threads_ showed a full-scale war whereas the other showed a limited military exchange.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver In comparison to threads it does and where on earth did you get the idea it was about a 'limited military' exchange? The Day After was about a full nuclear war just as threads was. Don't get me wrong, The Day After is a really good film but Threads is far more visceral and much closer to what the unacceptable reality would be.
@@MrPeterpiper1969 In _The Day After,_ we see silos and Kansas City for its airport both getting hit. There's no mention that it was a total genocidal war. There's also no mention of which side struck first.
I mean, if you work in a bank and some guy comes in there with a gun one day, assuming you still work there the next day, it's still a bank right? You're still a teller, or whatever, except that once in awhile you might say something like "remember that guy with the gun?" Life must go on.
Somehow, I missed this program. As a high-schooler, I watched both parts of "V" when it originally aired, but didn't even know that this existed until last week. This was VERY well done and is a dead-accurate representation of news gathering and reporting in the early 1980s. The raw emotions from the anchors played by Ed Flanders & Kathryn Walker toward the end were just gut-wrenching. 2 things to note: - Charleston was significantly damaged by Category 4 Hurricane Hugo in 1989 - Reporting on 9/11 was just as visceral, but in real life
I slept through the morning of 9/11 but I woke up at about 12:30pm and saw what happened on the television, it was surreal to watch. Even HBO pre-empted regularly scheduled programming in lieu of news reporting. I was also glad my sister wasn't in NYC at the time (yes, I did call her after seeing the WTC footage), she used to go to a restaurant on the top floor of the World Trade Center to eat dinner when she was there.
A few interesting observations : 1. Biggest Irony: The World Trade Center Twin Towers in NYC can clearly be scene in the Newsroom Background !!! (BTW - since it's on the right hand side of the frame -that means the newsroom was in NJ - like in Jersey City or Hoboken.) 2. Biggest Cameo: Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs - Ear cutting fame) appears as one of the bystanders early on. 3. Ed Flanders - doing a great Walter Cronkite-type Anchorman - yells at his crew to get him information - which is what Frank Reynolds did on ABC News when Regan what shot (I recall watching that on TV too- yes I'm old). 4. When I saw this back in 1983 - when Meg replays the video of the explosion from the ship - towards the end (1:32) - It scared the living shit out of me. There's something about the way this was filmed - taped - in the early 80's - with that low-end special effects world of the late-70's/early 80's that amazes me. I saw this when it came out back in 1983 - sitting on my girlfriends's couch - and it captivated me then - and still does. It's still effective and pertinent. A real classic.
It was intentionally made to look like broadcast-quality video (which people might not be able to identify definitely but are aware of) - in fact, i suspect that the image quality may have been intentionally slightly degraded. The producers of this film were primarily news people, so they knew how a news operation would handle it.
The entire thing was shot on videotape rather than film. That's why the resolution will never be better than the copy you are seeing on TH-cam. It was a made for TV movie, so there was no reason to shoot it on film. I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast on NBC. There were a lot of comparisons at the time to the original War of the Worlds broadcast. NBC went to great lengths to avoid comparison by adding disclaimers during every single commercial break. Not all of them are shown in this copy.
I love McKeeson's comments about the media because they ring true today, especially with the advent of cable news. After Turner merged his properties with Time Warner, that is all she wrote. Everyone else followed suit. It has become more about entertainment, unbalanced opinions, sensationalist stories, personalities and ratings. That is why I have not watched U.S. cable news channels in 7 years.
0:28. The "Four Square" game board is actually the "Jeopardy" prop board from "Airplane II: The Sequel." You can even see the gag category "Air Shuttle Disasters."
"Do you have any information on Steve Leavitt?" "Well, I know he's a Taurus and likes long walks on the beach. His favorite color is Forest Gr-" "No, his *CONDITION* you nimrod!!"
HA! Johnny (Stephen Stucker in AIRPLANE!) is alive and well. Whoa, brainstorm! AIRPLANE! was basically a remake of a serious disaster on an airplane movie... why not do the same with SPECIAL BULLETIN?
I love that they keep going back to commercial in these movies. As if they would ever break away from live coverage of something like this. Anybody remember coverage on 9/11? Not a single commercial.
Thanks for posting this movie. I’ve been looking for it for many years…powerful movie. For those of you who think this movie has a great and powerful message, check two other movies like this. The movie “The Day After” was a movie made for TV and was seen by 66 million people, including politicians around the world. The other movie is called “Testament”. It is a gut wrencher for sure.
I saw this movie and the Day After. I was 16 in '83. My older brother was the one who found out about these movies, so that's why we watched it. It was really well done for the time and special effects available for that time. I've never seen Testament though, will have to look for that.
@@duraniegal79 Please check out Testament, extremely powerful. Having to live with the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. It is shown on cable every so often. 👍🏻
FOUND IT! Couldn't remember the name of the show for years, but it came to me and found it here on YT! I was maybe 10-11 when I saw this, but I wasn't supposed to. I was sent to bed, but snuck back out and hid behind the couch as my parents watched. I didn't know it was fictional. When the bomb went off, my whole was crushed. I saw everything differently. I don't remember how i went to bed, but i was scared. I think at that moment I truly understood empathy and pain as adults understand it. A very powerful broadcast indeed.
Dad(Wallace of beloved memory); who had good reason to know this stuff cold, both as a military officer and later in the private sector, really liked the show. Mostly. But he did complain that the Liberty May was riding too high in the water for the size of the device. As a Cold War kid of the 60's, 70's and 80's, we were both scared shitless and strangely fascinated by the end of the world. On the fiction side, Charleston always seemed like a great place to face down the Apocalypse. Hell I even used it in a zombie story, a decade ago. This is good stuff, thanks for uploading it. :)
+wayne zimmerman I also experienced a number of "get under your desk" drills - in K/1st grade, at least - and vaguely remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. The scariest part about it, for me, was seeing so many *adults* who were obviously scared.
NEGATIVE ! Nukes of the 20 to 30 KT. range shrank so rapidly that the claimed size was in the movie was of a realistic size ! 1953, the test of the 15 KT. atomic shell fired from the Atomic Cannon could be carried by 3 men. Back pack nukes were soon developed and miniaturization continued on.
Oh; before I forget, nice info drop, but not relevant to the plot of the movie. The only items stolen by the two renegade scientists; over several months, were the isotopes needed to create the fission reaction. From containment to the elaborate trigger and anti-tamper systems, all else was built by them with whatever materials they could easily obtain. Thanks for participating though. 👍
I literally had a panic watching the camera go static when the bomb went off, seriously, this shot some fright right into me. But to be honest, takes alot of effort to get that effect on a film's viewers. Amazing job creators!
The scene right before it is responsible for all that. It does a brilliant job of building tension. When the picture cuts, you get all that released at once. That NEST feed though... easily the fakest thing in this movie, that would never happen. Only exists to get you to that feeling you're raving about.
1:27:08 I finally understood! the NEST team spent 45 minutes through the anti-tamper devices, And when they were disconnecting and separating the setting (the temporizer) a new anti-tamper device with a feedback from an unknown source appeared frying the circuits (McKeeson knew a lot about computers). That anti-tamper device connected the circuit and caused the implosion.
I figured that if the guy knows how to make that bomb, then he knows how someone would attempt to disarm that bomb. So it's then easier for him to layer anti-tampering countermeasures. The NEST guys one and only hope is that whoever makes a bomb like that doesn't know much, just enough to put together a primitive nuke. That would give them the best chance to do something. If they run into a bomb assembled by an expert then they are screwed, which is what happened in the movie.
I sometimes wonder why didn't NEST try to destroy this improvised bomb with a very low-yield nuclear device of its own? An atomic artillery shell can have a yield dialed down as low as 0.1 KT and that would have been enough to destroy the improvised atomic bomb--and it's a lot easier to clean up from a 0.1 KT explosion than a 23 KT explosion.
Considering what we don't know was going on, that option may have not even been on the table to begin with. I can see where you're coming from and given how the film ends, it would have been a better option. But it isn't known if the NEST team even had such an option on the table to begin with.
You guys forget how fragile nukes really are. Well, that type anyway. You hardly need another nuke to destroy one of them. Any powerful explosive placed next to the nuke would destroy the nuke, regardless of how it was booby-trapped. The Fat Man type plutonium bombs require near absolute perfection in the implosion shape & timing in order to work. If you dent the surrounding shell or render the implosive charges asymmetrical, it's toast. All you will get is a big, very dirty, conventional explosion. But the real problem with that solution is the massive amount of plutonium that would have been released. I don't remember the number, but a few micrograms of plutonium will kill a person, and that bomb had 5,200,000,000 micrograms of the stuff that would have been liquefied and sprayed everywhere by the implosion material alone. (That's like the bomb's primer.) If they had a way to contain that kind of explosion and all the plutonium vapor, that might have been a good solution.
I totally remember this!!! It was so realistic that i completely forgot about the network warning beforehand that it was just a dramatization. The Day After movie and this has stuck with me since a teenager. The Cold War was something crazy. You just had to be there to understand man
That show was FAB! I never heard of it before and, unlike many such movies/shows of its kind, it kept me riveted for every second. Brilliant, thank you. x
The acting was pretty decent in this movie, especially after the nuclear detonation. The news anchors looked really upset. Their anger, and the horror and reaction of them is really vivid.
Great movie. What worries myself and others is that it's possible for people with sufficient knowledge and money to buy materials and make such a device. Thus, this could happen someday.
I remember seeing this when it aired. I was 16. Back then, I wasn't really moved. But now, 38 years later, and seeing the events that have transpired since then, it could happen. In the end, nobody wins.
I’m going to age myself but I was 16 years old when this was broadcast. The part the upset me the most was when “Meg’s” cameraman showed the tape of what happened.
Threads (with an s) was released the following year, 1984. If you think Threads was horrifying, check out this one: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game
Good to see this available on YT. I recorded it in '83 when it was broadcast. When the Rainbow Warrior (Greenpeace Flagship) was in Honolulu in '85 preparing to evacuate people from the nuclear testing contaminated residents of Rongelap, and then on to protest the French nuke testing at Mururoa, there was a crew photographer for the mission who was living at our place, Fernando Periera. Good guy. I sent the tapes in with him to be screened below decks for the crew, and they were greatly affected by it. Mission director Steve Sawyer asked me afterwards "What the F... was THAT?". That was the crew who were bombed shortly afterwards in Auckland harbor by a French assassination team. Fernando was killed in the bombing, which prevented the ship from going to Mururoa. I associate this excellent production with that in my mind, and the surreality of having Fernando's groceries still in our fridge while he was dead of a terrorism attack.
Was 11 years old living in Auckland in 1985 when the French blew up the Rainbow Warrior. Half the country joined Greenpeace after that. NZ tv showed Threads and The Day After which terrified us. I lived in Devonport which is where the main naval base is with several military bases all over the suburb, at school we had a lesson where we drew nuclear blast zones on a map centred on the naval wharves and where I lived was on the cusp of the instant death zone, we were better off being killed instantly. Nuclear Armaggedon was a very real thing back then. NZ went anti-nuclear after a left wing govt was elected in 1984, but we knew the Soviets would nuke us anyway to deny the port to the Americans. Horrifying scenarios. Shamefully the NZ govt turned over the French sabouteurs after a short prison sentence because the French threatened NZ exports to Europe. RIP Fernando.
The acting of everyone involved was right on the mark. On the second day, I felt just as scared as those anchors appeared to be on the screen. Top notch.
Just watched it for the first time since I was 13 in 1983. They really pulled it off. Starting at 1:27:00, I can't imagine there is a "better" climax of a made-for-TV movie that decade. The performances, editing, special effects... really amazing.
You were or you are being paid for your comment! Are you seriously expecting anyone to believe that you were or are SO STUPID that you fell for this CRAP! OMG! You must be Mildly Retarded 🎉😢🎉
What you can’t see on TH-cam is how the original broadcast looked on CRT TVs. Since the movie was shot on tape, it looked PRECISELY like the newscasts of the day, and the realism was even more intense than meets the eye.
I didn't see this when it originally aired, but I vividly remember watching Without Warning in 1994(?). Totally agree with what you said. There was something almost magical about broadcast TV and suspension of disbelief back then. It was my sophomore year of highschool and it's all anybody, students and teachers alike, could talk about the next day.
It scared a LOT of people, especially in the Charleston, SC area.
I had watched the original movie that night and I do remember how it seemed like a real news event ,..... except for the fact that disclaimers were run I was very familiar with the lead anchor who was in an episode of Hawaii 50, playing the part of a BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXPERT who was now the TERRORIST,... actually he wanted to stop the GOVT from continuing it's Bio-weapons programs and had a vial of deadly material about to be released on Hawaii if the Govt didn't comply ! It was the forerunner story to Special Bulletin !
As someone who was born in the 80s, yeah I can see how the formatting would have had an impact. Imagine missing the warnings that it's not real and catching this on your TV back then.
LOL @2:56
I remember the night this was on. I was watching on the living room television. My boyfriend was doing laundry, walking back and forth taking clean clothes upstairs from the basement. He’d stop for a second, looking at the screen, then continue on. After about 5 trips he stopped, looked at me, then the television. He finally asked “what the hell is going on” it was that realistic back then.
They also had a crawl saying this wasn’t real, and this show still caused a panic across America.
@@lylarose2696 Yeah because the show is more convincing than the disclaimer! If you're 70% sure that this could be legitimate, are you going to trust a bland 5-second disclaimer saying it's fake?
@@lylarose2696There are that many people who will read a Closed sign, and still have to ask someone nearby if the store is closed.
@@lylarose2696I saw the show and remember no panic at all. I was 24 at the time. People tend to exaggerate as the years go by.
A few years ago when North Korea was in the news a lot, I was living in California and it was all over the news that Hawaii was being attacked. It was said that people were panicking. I didn't hear about it until it had been announced that someone had hacked into the Emergency Broadcast System and it was all a hoax. About a year later, I was living in Florida and nobody had even heard of it.
I too remember seeing the original airing of this in 1983. Rewatching it now, I can't help but notice the irony that the backdrop of the RBS studio shows the World Trade Towers.
Wow! I haven't seen this. I'll be watching it later. But that's truly ironic!
Oh I remember those!! The ones the Saudis took down and you used as an excuse to kill millions everywhere but Saudi Arabia
Things you definitely don't want to hear: somebody yelling "WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!!" when they're trying to "unplug" a nuclear bomb.
Or the other scientists screaming and running away.
I'm surprised they would even broadcast what the NEST team was saying.
Amen, THAT!!!
The other three words you don't want to hear are "we're losing it"
@@elessartelcontar9415 Three hours of walking should do it. Take it easy man, have a jam sandwich.. 😎
Whats interesting about this movie is that the ending almost flows perfectly into "Countdown to Looking Glass" with civil unrest in Poland and the banks about to default on their loans which are two of the things that happen at the beginning of Looking Glass before it escalates into Nuclear War.
In a way, you can see these films as connecting. The Charleston detonation was the first domino.
Still remember watching this in 1983, before the era of spoilers, and being impressed. Here I am, thirty-five years later, watching it again and being even more impressed.
i like this film tons more than The Day After
It really is accurate.
Its almost impossible to tell the difference between this fiction and modern news stories.
Newsflash ; North Korea poised to invade Europe but hasnt actually said or done anything.
Officials say that Iran is also showing support for Kim il sung by also doing nothing.
Pentagon officials said "nothing can very easily turn into a smoking gun, and a smoking gun can turn into a mushroom cloud."
The President said that "evil prevails when good men do nothing"
It really was quite well-done. But then given the era in which it was filmed, so was "The Day After".
Think of what life was like in 1983… Take a look around, now
Nuclear bombs ended up being the LEAST of the United States problem
Our country, our world… it’s all unrecognizable
@@Sacrosanct5910 It might not even really exist now.
I saw the original broadcast, and it is hard to express to younger modern viewers just how realistic this film is. They nailed the mannerisms and pacing of the newscast, the then-new use of the animated graphic, what were then realistic limitations on the video and broadcasting technology. There was no internet so broadcast news was all we ever knew of the world beyond our immediate circle of acquaintances. And I was astonished in the day at how terrifyingly realistic the actual blast tape was, given that we saw it through the eye of a 1983 video system; it overwhelms the vidicon tube, which is exactly what would have happened with that technology, so what we see of the blast is its aftermath and the shock wave which were well done. Even the "bad acting" is really an accurate depiction of how most newscasters carried themselves and acted on-air. Remember this was just a year after Don Henley recorded "Dirty Laundry" and it was partly meant as a warning of what the news was becoming. The makers must be alternating howls of laughter and tears of despair if they are still around.
You think young people don't understand TV? lol What?
@@foobarmaximus3506 Well TV as it is portrayed in Special Bulletin hasn't existed since 2000 or so, so if you're younger than 20 or so no you probably have no idea what it was like in 1983 when most people didn't even have cable TV and the internet wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye.
@@localroger I think the broadcast should of been preserved in better quality given the content. Why not make a film grade copy back then? This Ihave not heard or watched just skipped around visually. Present day reactions are compelling and I wanted post about WSJ reporting on IRan enrichment today. It's very scary they will have a bomb so soon and it will be Trumps work.
@@jims6498 The broadcast is state of the art for its day. It would be over 20 years after this was made before it became an expectation that you could see a real-time broadcast in better quality than NTSC. That would require both screen technology that didn't exist until after 2000 for higher resolution displays and digital delivery technology to get more than 3 megahertz bandwidth. It was not until 2010 or so until what we now call HD was practical and this was made in 1983. In that day it was actually a technical reach to film on video instead of film, and they were trying to create a kind of cinema verite thing where the fictional product was made on the same equipment with the same technology that the real thing would have been.
@@jims6498 My understanding is that much of this was shot on VHS and Beta, which makes preservation/upscaling difficult, but not impossible.
Listen to the sound of those teletypes clacking away in the background of the newsroom... Man, the nostalgia.
Fun story: I have a friend who works in a newspaper editorial room and they pipe in the sounds of teletype and landline ringers because it makes the place sound "busier".
All The President’s Men has that sound, too.
What is a teletype?
@@deepfriedohiogravy4756 A printer connected to landline and receiving news stories--Reuters, Associated Press etc.
@@deepfriedohiogravy4756 A printer connected to landline and receiving news stories--Reuters, Associated Press, etc.
1983 was a crazy year to live through as a U.S. TV viewer
Special bulletin day after testament 90s without warning
It was a crazy year to work in Missile Warning in the USAF too. Much scarier things were happening in real life in the late 70s and early 80s than anything on TV or in the movies.
In November 1982, real TV network ABC broadcast "The Day After." A movie about nuclear warfare in Kansas.
@@MsJamiewoodsAnd we got Without Warning in I believe 1994
There was also "The Day After" later in 1983, and in 1984, there was the British TV drama "Threads" and the Canadian/HBO drama "Countdown to Looking Glass": th-cam.com/video/GQzgHBjQzf4/w-d-xo.html
1980's media was hell bent on terrifying us. I remember watching "after school specials" about teen pregnancy, AIDS, drunk driving, and drug use. Then, these made-for-tv movies were especially terrifying, because they felt very real and very possible. In addition to this movie, I remember, The Day After, Testament, and V -- all which terrified me. My brother went to the movies to see War Games and I remember crying when he was trying to tell me about it.
I know... truth was more important back then. And folks had more backbone too... not like today...
The sequel to War Games is really good
It was suprisingly@@curtisberard7831
Nothing will ever top the sheer horror of Threads. If there was one movie that has left a scar on my psyche, and made me paranoid of nuclear warfare, it's that one.
I was about 13 and as the movie continued the hope for anything left me. The dead and bloody baby was what made it a classic.
Threads was as raw as it could get, nothing glamorous in the whole movie.
The true horror was in the stupidity of authorities right up to the end.
Great movie.
The Russians,the British and the Americans each made a movie showing the horrors of nuclear war.All three were shown in the USA and England and Russia broadcasted their own at the same time.
Never saw the Russian version but it might be interesting.
As for the USA version, if you mean The Day After, somehow it felt too much like an average action movie with over the top effects.
Threads made The Day After look like a bakery. I only saw it for the first time here on TH-cam--still scares me now, especially with things as they are.
Still chilling 40 years later. Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
I was a year old in 1983. I've heard of this movie off and on and finally decided to watch it. Holy crap this was a ride. Amazing acting, writting, and the end scenes.... Jesus.
I was 15, boy it was wild to watch.
I remember seeing this YEARS ago when I worked in the stereo/TV department of the American forces PX in West Berlin, West Germany (pre-reunification). Everyone one in the store, employees and customers who missed the disclaimer at the beginning thought it was a real news broadcast. I did too for a couple of minutes till I saw the one guy who played a doctor on "St. Elsewhere". When I pointed that out to everyone, they gave a sigh of extreme relief and went about their normal business.
Lol that's funny! 😊
The guy who played Bruce Lyman, David McClennon, had recently played the character of Palmer in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).
The RBS News anchor was played by Ed Flanders, who played Dr. Westphall, the director of medicine at St. Elegius Hospital in St. Elsewhere.
The terrorist leader was played by David Clennon, who played the advertising executive Miles Drentell onThirtysomething.
Dr. David McKesson was played by David Rasche who was on that crazy show in ABC in the 80's called Sledge Hammer. 😂
I remember watching the original broadcast of this as a teenager growing up in the 80’s. The ending sticks with me to this day. Well done for a TV movie, back in the days when there was just the 3 major networks.
And that was 3 too many.
actually, I think this was on HBO (same for Countdown to Looking Glass).
same here
@@richardfannin9652 I remember vividly the original broadcast being on a Sunday night on the NBC network in 1983. It was the evening before my 15th birthday, so that would put the broadcast on March 20th.
I somehow get the feeling people listening to Orson Wells went thru something similar, but I also remember NBC putting up alerts that this was just a television show after every commercial.
One of the most suspenseful scenes ever in any film or video is when they are trying to disarm the bomb. I've seen it many times yet even now, I still can't watch it without getting stressed.
the single NEST team member giving up and trying to run away up the steps right before the bomb goes off is just incredible. what an amazingly written scene
Did anyone notice Rasche slip in the anti semitic ad lib at 50:40? “John Woodley, sounds like a good Anglo Saxon name, I hope it’s your own.” Lmao
I was 13, and even with the notifications that this wasn't real, this TRAUMATIZED me. I watched this for the first time again today, 40 years later, and I was shocked how much I remembered of this show I saw ONCE. It still leaves me shaking tonight. They talk about people in the 50s and 60s being afraid of nuclear war... but in the 1980s, this had me fighting panic, knowing it didn't have to be Russia... it could be my neighbor.
I don't know how today's audiences would react to it... maybe they would laugh... but this made it real for me... it was my "War Of The Worlds."
Same here. It was nothing like I had seen before. It felt so believable. Even though I knew it wasn't real, the way it was produced made it feel real. And not knowing the ending when it aired made it all the more terrifying.
I think the possibility of a nuclear war is higher, given the current state of things, that a lot of people would think. The USSR in 1983 was very paranoid, but compared to Iran and DPRK, the Soviets seem quite sane in comparison.
Total bullshit. The only culprit is Israel .....wake up , the Cold War is over !!!!@@FunkyDPL
"The Day After" had the same effect on me. I had nightmares for years after that. I was worried about my mom and brother getting to a fallout shelter in time and was so scared for our pets. I didn't want to lose them (still don't).
@@FunkyDPLyou can say that again! Especially North Korea! Their "leader" is crazy and very unpredictable.
That intro for RBS programming is easily the most 80's thing since the 80's.😊
The last 15 minutes of the movie give me chills, even though I've seen it before. The woman crawling about, saying: "Is the radiation coming now? Are we going to die?" And the matter-of-fact report: "One child of nine apparently committed suicide". I get goose bumps.
That line hit me like a punch to the gut. It might be the most gut-wrenching line I've ever heard in any medium and it's delivered so stoically.
@@hotelmario510 What that one about "one child in nine"?
@raphael: I have to thank you for making your comment. Usually I get upset at folks comments that give away the ending. But if you hadn't said that something impactful happened within the last 15 minutes, I don't think I'd have been able to suffer through the rest of the film.
While it was interesting watching '80s broadcasting styles and learning about how the government handled a disaster (which honestly hasn't changed in the intervening years; poorly at best, then last minute intervention that's too late because they didn't take it seriously soon enough), and while I was able to watch it in the background while painting.... It was like watching news for an hour....waiting for paint to dry. I didn't read your entire comment until just now after the movie finished. I just saw the note about the 15 minutes. And I have to agree with all the quotes you picked. At the 9 yr old one I began to cry.
@@jeremiahgabriel5709 Sorry about that - didn't really think I was giving away the ending! But yeah, you're right. It was extremely well done. There are a couple of others - there's one done in a mock-documentary style from the BBC, but I can't remember the name. It was about Russia and the east of Europe - quite topical right here in 2022. Another is Countdown to Looking Glass, and if you like this one, you'll probably like that too.
@@jeremiahgabriel5709 Yeah - it's this one - I've watched it a couple of times.
th-cam.com/video/exY6l4j12Ng/w-d-xo.html
SPECIAL BULLETIN is one of the most effective doomsday films this side of ON THE BEACH (1959). I caught it on Lifetime during the early 1990s, and it still scared the pee-wadding out of this viewer. It still deserves to be seen today.
On the Beach crew
"This program is a realistic depiction of fictional events. None of what you are seeing is actually happening". Roughly translated as We don't want another War of the worlds type panic.
Alan7997 yup
Actually that disclaimer was required by federal regulations which were established in direct response to Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” October 1938 broadcast.
Though it ended up being one as people who didn't see the start of the program only saw news about terrorism and nukes. from what i gathered Edit: or the start after commercial breaks.
I believe one central american country triec to copy the War of the Worlds panic broadcast. The station was burned down and at least one of the employees was killed.
Who wouldn't put up a disclaimer??
Saw this when it first was shown on tv. Gave me the heebie jeebies even though i knew it wasn't real
I remember watching this when it was broadcast. I knew it was fictional but my mom walked in in the middle of the show and I had quite the time convincing her that it wasn’t real. I finally got her to change to other channels and see that nobody else was “covering” the situation.
I remember watching this for the first time. I was in the military at the time and this movie scared the hell out of me. 35 years later it's still scary as hell.
My dad was a Navy Sailor stationed in Charleston when they aired this movie. He was in a bar at the time and was wondering as the movie went on why alarms were not going off nor why MP's were not there to haul him to a ship or chopper for evac. When the bomb went off, he looked out a window and realized that it was a hoax.
I was stationed at NAS Millington when this aired and one of the guys in the barracks was from Charleston, he kept missing the disclaimers during the commercial breaks because he was trying to contact his family. It was so realistic that he was panicking even though we were telling him it was a movie.
If I were in the military it would scare the shit out of me -- especially if I dealt with nuclear war anyway. Also, as we say in Michigan, thank you for your service.
One of the most inventive, original and thought provoking pieces of television ever made. Much better than the brain dead TV we get these days.
What we get now isn’t brain dead tv, it’s designed to make the viewers brain dead. It’s cleverly designed to do this to the public.
When we went to see NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, we told friends it was a satire on TV - that TV was 'living dead' world. "Low End" was always considered to be the home of TV and TV viewing.
Rose colored glasses.
One of a series around that time that did this. A movie about the cold war escalating to WWIII was done in this manner called "Countdown to Looking Glass" which is also on TH-cam. It was one of Scott Glenns first roles after doing The Right Stuff.
I haven't seen anyone mention the very end... "And in other news" - in some ways that part haunted me more than any other. A "one-two punch" - not only savaging how quickly the media's attention shifts, but also implies that mere "labor riots in Poland" might be the start of something far bigger...
This movie and countdown to looking glass both end/begin with news reports of a banking crisis in South America.
@finalascent That’s the part that has haunted me most all these years since I first saw this show. That and the footage of Charleston “as it was before.” Special Bulletin was one of the absolute best things I’ve ever seen on TV.
I think in this timeline the Cold War got hot
I know I'm 2 years late, but "might be the start of something far bigger..."
I've got news for you. It's called: World War 3. And you might be wigged out at how close your speculation about Special Bulletin's ending is to the beginning of this film.
th-cam.com/video/q1m7opOGSmQ/w-d-xo.html
I wish movies like this were made nowadays. Feels like it was recorded off a vcr, very realistic and almost historical in sense. Kudos to efficient production values and direction. Recommend "Without Warning" if you're interested in this, but you probably already seen it if you're reading this 😆
Despite the onscreen disclaimers, when WITHOUT WARNING was aired, tv stations were still inundated with phone call from anxious viewers thinking it was real; it was Orson Welles' WAR OF THE WORLDS all over again... which is why those disclaimers were on so prominent in the first place! And for another irony? Both Welles' radio program and WITHOUT WARNING were broadcast on Halloween.
And possibly "Ghostwatch" if you think you can handle it.
What i like about it is that it is completely unpredictable, we're used to movies like these where they have a happy ending, everyone cheers and celebrates, etc.
Instead, we got what looked like a happy ending, changing in the span of a few seconds, to something darker and more realistic.
Late Night with the Devil out last year tries to do something similar with a possession but it mucks it up in the last half, but yeah filmmakers are too scared for realism
Like this "Fictionalized BBC Special Report of NATO-Russia conflict" ending in global thermonuclear war, from 2018? It looks a lot more likely today than it did then.
th-cam.com/video/VWqWAi_H_9o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=g4iuNLVe8MBPo9jK
To this day Charleston has a still not recovered.
Why is that???
Oh Lord! Is it as bad as Texas and Florida?
Charleston would've had a hurricane evacuation plan to draw on. Maybe the authorities could've managed the panic by just saying, "let's use this occasion for an impromptu hurricane evacuation drill."
Stunning piece of film making. 34 years old but still packs a punch. Fantastic quality as well - many thanks for sharing.
(a year later comment xD)
Its fantastic quality because they used period news quality cameras. This is how you do found footage.
@@sherryanne2287 It IS a good movie if you look past more science errors than Carter has Pills. Ignoring the multiple INACCURACIES, the emotional impact something like this would have on the American people cannot be overstated. To be blunt, I am personally very surprised that something like this has NOT happened!
@Peter Michalski I completely agree with you. MOST of those casualties will be because people have COMPLETELY forgotten the old ways of doing things.
@Michael Muldowney - I wonder - in the post-9/11 perspective, when younger people have no clue how close to home and frightening the Cold War was at times, would this be seen as a simple yet pretentious disaster movie with only 2000 dead? In its day it was horrifying, but since then we've seen worse. Chernobyl was a far worse nuclear catastrophe (concerning radiation and contamination), and 9/11 was an act of terrorism that killed half again as many people, and who knows how many firefighters are yet to die from respiratory illness.
@@sherryanne2287 - When this film was made, we didn't call them period quality news cams. We just called them news cams. This was not made to look like something from the past. It was made in the past to look like something current, which it did.
What has never been current in any period is all the drama and emotionality of the reporters. We didn't see that on 9/11. Occasional pauses, surprise, speechlessness, yes, but not angry outbursts and crying.
Michael, this movie still scares me to Hell and back - it is truly stunning! Thanks, friend!
I actually took part in Able Archer.. 1983(Reforger 83) in Europe, had no idea this exercise created tensions between USSR/USA as there was ALREADY the possibility of Nuclear War. We were being trained in Nuclear protection, Atropine Injections were supplied to us and of course what we called NBC gear. Our Tanks were specially coated with NBC paint, we were going through rigorous NBC training/containment/survival procedure.
maneuvers and training to survive even just to fight for an hour longer.
An hour longer…
This movie aired in March of ‘83. Look what happened after:
-A week later, President Reagan gave his famous “Evil Empire” speech.
-September 1 was the shoot down of KAL 007 by the Soviets.
-Three weeks after the shoot down, Colonel Petrov of the Soviet Rocket Forces literally saved the world by not calling for a missile launch after Soviet radar mistakenly showed a US first strike.
-October/November…Able Archer…terrified the Soviets who were ready to launch at the first sign of trouble.
Able Archer, was a field signals and command communications exercise, the 1983 exercise did not involve soldiers other than the signals units, or tanks, Operation Reforger, was later , lf you watched the film, they explained it all in the film,
In WWII, the Germans started dropping a new type of bomb, a landmine that didn't go off immediately, but was still live. Eleven times British bomb disposal teams tried to disarm these bombs, and they went off, killing everyone nearby. The twelfth time it was done, coincidentally, at night - and it worked. The Nazis had come up with an early photovoltaic cell as an anti-tamper device, so when it was exposed to light - boom. The British bomb squads had no idea such a thing existed, and it was pure chance they finally succeeded.
Ultimate respect for any bomb squad, anywhere in the world - damn, they've got guts.
Insane guts.
@@MARKCRASTO Many times, nothing is left *but* guts, in the literal sense, for these types of professionals
47:17 The reporters statement is amazing.
This was 1983.
And what he says is so prophetic and profound
That sort of commentary was very common by then. People probably said the same thing about radio broadcasts and newsreel cameras.
The terrorists reply at 48:40 is far better and more prophetic.
So true haha
I also love the bit just after that when the guy on the boat calls out the network on their real motivation by telling them to cut the feed- it's all about the ratings. They don't give 2 hoots about anything else.
Yeah, it was a tv show. lol
@@chandlerwhite8302The media was already notorious for lying in the 1980s.
Welcome to growing up in the 1980's!
I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis. Nothin' new in the 80s except better special effects.
@Patrick Ancona Uhhh, things suck just as much today as they did back then. The Doomsday Clock was 2 minutes to midnight in 1983 and it is back there at this time. But now you can play Fortnite and cry about how much things suck today and pretend it was better in the past.
Nothing to pretend. The 80s were better than today. I've heard from Millennials and younger people who aren't even old enough to remember the 80s who say they wish they could've lived in the 80s. It was better than most people remember, as were the 90s. The 21st century has sucked so far.
@@44excalibur Yes, everything sucks for millennial people now. The 21st century just sucks. Between the video games and the smart devices and affordable health care for low income people,total suckage. Suck it. I'd rather be poor in 1983 with no school lunches, social security roll backs and no affordable health care. I'd rather play Pac-Man than Fortnite or any of those shitty games, and who needs a smart phone? Gimme a fucking Walk-Man with four AA batteries and cassette tapes, fuck it. I'll sell crack on the corner to save up for one of those new Compact Disc players (whatever those are) Hopefully Reagan and Andropov work things out before they blow it all to hell. YES! Somebody build me a hot tub time machine, 1980's best decade HERE I COME!
1983 was the year I left school
Years ago Leonard Maltin included TV movies in his review books. He rated them as either below average, average or above average. He rated this movie as being "way way above average".
Real reports 😮
Fantastic movie. Plot, pacing, the building up of the tension, acting, editing. And the climax was unbelievable. Absolutely unexpected. The reactions of the anchors and victims were so realistic.
I'm 51 and just watched this in India and I am in tears. This must be the most realistic movie I've seen in years. It's going to take me some time to get over it.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, hOllOwm9n.
I stumbled upon this completely by accident, thinking it was a recording of a news event from 1983. Watched the whole thing, glued to my seat. The tension was very well designed, though I was intensly relieved when the bomb finally went off. I can't stand anticipation, but I can deal with any pay off I guess.
The funny Thing: I was 13 Years old - and for me it only was a bright, hot Summer. The Butterflies were big this Year... Ignorance truly is Bliss, it seems.
People have forgotten 😢
Gotta love the name of their news channel. RBS "OurB.S."
Random Boner Syndrome
Rabid Butt Syndrome. No cure.
Sly, isn't it?
Not as funny as BBC but real close.
I just got it too. LOL "Our B.S. News" Brilliant. Gotta think, this was back when the news media was still able to take a step back and look at themselves objectively. I think they stopped asking THOSE sort of questions 20 years ago or more. They've simply accepted they are no better than Gun Smoke or General Hospital.
When this was shown in 1983,NBC received many calls despite several disclaimers shown throughout the show.With the Idiocracy we have today,who knows what the reaction would be.I still have my VHS tape from the original broadcast.
There was a similar film made in the early 90s, featuring an asteroid impact. I remember my mom’s elderly friend frantically calling about it.
I tuned into this couple minutes after it started and missed the first disclaimer. I was completely sucked in until first commercial break.
Kokopilau77 that one is called “without warning”, that one is pretty scary and also a social commentary on our destructive forces.
It’s also on TH-cam
If something like this happened now, no matter how many disclaimers people are going to turn it into a conspiracy.
Orson Welles radio production “War of the Worlds”, 1938, Caused a lot of panic. People thought it was really happening.
Wow, my heart pounded so hard and fast while the team attempted to disarm the bomb. The fear and panic was palpable. Well-done movie!
Lmao. It's just a movie bro. You don't have to worry about nukes. If one ever hits us you'll be dead before you know what happened.
Andrew Herman same here dude
Andrew Herman Yes, that was really well done- perfect portrayal of that slow-motion realization that things are incredibly fucked.
I was eating my moon pie and lollipops. 🌕🌕🌕🌛🌙🌙🚀🚀🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍇
@DM RR
Indeed ...
From what I can gather, the most dangerous bomb makers where/are those whom set up so many anti-tamper mechanisms, that in the process of disarming the bomb, the result is detonation ...
Interestingly enough, the two scientists that built the implosion type bomb, aka equal to the one dropped on Nagasaki, actually created one with a higher blast yeild; 23KT atomic bomb is not nearly as big as the 1MT, thermonuclear, warheads, commonly placed on missiles, but, nevertheless, still big enough to vaporise anything within a 1 mile radius, and extensive damage upto - if I'm correct - 5 miles ...
My only gripe is that the EMP caused by the detonation, would fry any electrical, and electronic, devices. That VHS camera, used by news channels at the time, and were pretty bulky, wouldn't have been able to record the explosion, as it's doubtful that it was 'hardened' against EMP ...
It would've been better to have used non-lethal measures against the man, down near the engine compartment, whom stated that he was the one that wired it; taking him alive to get him to disarm it, on the basis that he would get life without parole, rather than the death sentence ...
As for the woman captured, chances are she will be convicted for numerous murders, especially over those whom were able to be recovered, and positively ID'd. For her, it would likely be that she would receive multiple life sentences, for each individual found, and identified, consecutively ... she would've died in prison ...
For this being a TV movie, the acting is spot on and totally believable that you don't doubt the emotions that these characters would be going through if it actually happened.
I know its what actors are trained to do everyday, but even with the most hard hitting dramas, you can tell those on screen are acting even when emotional, but here you have actors showing 100% genuine emotions as though they didn't know it wasn't real.
I dunno, the anchors acted like they cared more about the situation at hand than one actually would. And the technical errors got in the way of being immersed in the story. You can be as theatrical and dead-on as anybody could, but if you're using that performance to say red is blue but also the number 5 it's not really a good performance.
I feel like at times it was good acting, at times, not so good
This isn't realistic at all. Real reporters on a story wouldn't get all weepy like this.
You are kidding aren't you? The overacting is palpable and that scene at the beginning with the reporter at the docks is surely meant meant to be comedic.
indeed...lets run CLOSER to the shooting. LOL
Wow. I love TH-cam. I watched this live when I was in high school. I’ve thought about it from time to time. Great to see it again. It really holds up.
Hey man, when's RBS going back to its regular programming? I'm gonna miss all my fuckin shows.
Jane Doe hahahahahaha
Hey, did they come back yet
Wonderful!
To heck with your shows, this is a national tragedy!
This is a fictional TV movie everyone should have,
.
Six years after this movie was made, the people of Charleston would see those evacuation scenes for real when Hurricane Hugo made landfall...
Joe Riley wasn't prepared for a Nuclear holocaust.
In a funny way, this is a tribute to the late Orson Welles, producer and star of the world's first drama-as-news-report War of the Worlds..
There's also a TV movie from '94 that is even more a direct homage to WotW, called "Without Warning". About an alien invasion disguised as meteors. It s a bit better then this one.
Toad of Toad Hall is a tribute to Winston Churchill.. 🍭🍭🍭🌙😬🌕🌕🚀🚀🐸🐸🐸🐴
@@brom00 it wasn't really an alien invasion. It was first contact
I watched this on TV with my parents when I was 12. Everything is so much like TV news then that people who tuned in between the disclaimers had a hard time telling whether it was real or not. TV news wasn't as slick and packaged then as it is now. Even the trouble with live feeds depicted here were typical of those days. It's hard to convey the spirit of the times to people who weren't there. Every day, you knew that extinction was one button push away.
I was around then but don’t remember this one. We talked about the threat of nuclear a bit, but was not a major worry or memory where I was. I was 10 in 1983
You hit the nail right on the head because the arms race and the cold war were in full swing at the time and there was always this nervousness in the air
You're so right, Adam. I was 11 when this was iriginally aired, and I remember being acared out of my mind at what was going on. To be fair, since it was 40 years ago, I don't remember being aware of the disclaimer, or perhaps I was just too young to really understand or pay attention to it. Either way this movie was disturbing to me back then.
@@arnoldjack7956 It didn't fully end, the bombs are still here, more of the detection duties are given to technology which could possibly fail, and nations are starting to go against treaties and build their arsenals again.
I recorded this onto VHS when first broadcast, cutting out the disclaimers but leaving in the TV commercials to add authenticity. A couple of years later I slipped the tape in during a party and within a few minutes had people sucked in thinking it was the real deal! And when after about half an hour and I told them what was really going on, they all got very angry and threatened to leave...
Jajajaja hilarious
Hard to imagine 18 years later CNN and the like would be covering 9/11 much the same way. Thanks for putting this up, as it still stands as a great movie. Not quite as panic causing as Welles interpretation of War Of The World's over the radio. But I remember days after this originally aired, some people here in Toronto (including my grandma) thought it actually happened. I regretfully laughed at the believers thinking such devestation of an American city would even be closely possible. My laughing ended a fateful day in September of 2001.
I recall, back in the mid eighties, I was watching television with a friend, late one night, when a very realistic "News Flash" came on during a commercial break stating that Russian tanks had rolled into Israel. Well, we both nearly shat ourselves and our hearts sank. I recall thinking, "Well, this is it." Turns out it was just the intro to a church program, you know, one of those "The end is all kinds of nigh, get ready !" fire breathers. My knees were weak for half an hour after that. Bastards.
I guess there’s some terrified viewers called to the tv station affiliates to ask that if this mocked newscast movie is real
Way better than CNN rubbish
9/11/2001, when everything started getting infinitely worse.
@@hoarbaby. Definitely. The unending “global war on terror “. Regime change vis military intervention in 2 countries the patriot act, having to accept surveillance “to keep us safe “. 10s of 1000s mentally and physically maimed service members. Rampant profiteering in the military industrial complex
I do remember watching this back in 1983. That was about the same time as The Day After.
Yes, NBC hurried Special Bulletin in March to beat out ABC who released theirs in the fall of '83.
One thing I do like about this movie is the end, where they report on the aftermath of Charleston and then go on to other news stories (yup, that is probably what would happen if this occurred in RL)...
What I found most chilling is that one of those last news reports is an event that is the backplot to Countdown to Looking Glass.
I mean, what were they supposed to do at that point? They reported as much as they could that day but life elsewhere goes on. Were they just supposed to stop broadcasting when they ran out of things to say that day?
Except not really. If you remember September 2001, it was four days of non-stop coverage before a network even aired a TV ad.
Good observation. Sort of like the movie "The Truman Show," after the secret behind the premise of the show is dramatically exposed, the two guards watching the television set look at each other and ask: "what else is on?"
The last 20 minutes had me on edge and emotional once the bomb went off. We're never going to have something this impactful again. This movie,Threads and the Day After will forever leave a impact on 20th century culture.
And the War Game... And other films
Nothing will be as impactful as when it happens in real life. Not if, when.
@@RT-qd8ylwhy so sure
Our baseball team was staying at a hotel. I couldn't sleep so turned the tv on and this was playing. I knew it was a movie because I like this sort of stuff, but I remember the room-mate who was half asleep, waking up in terror, because if you didn't know any better it seems so real, I pretended to be asleep, but was funny just to hear him shit his pants for a few seconds, then decided to reveal it was a movie.
Im watching this with my girlfriend right now. Whenever we have a date night we switch off who gets to pick the movie. Last week I picked Dawn Of The Dead (1978 version) and we loved it. This is a very amazing pick, i love havimg a girlfriend with such badass taste in movies.
Awesome😁👍
Relationship goals
The last five (ten?) minutes of this have stuck with me my entire life.
Pretty empty uneventful life.
I agree even after years later it's sticks with you this show well made indeed
Yes, on several occasions over the last 37 years, I have thought about the sequence where the one bomb tech runs away and then BOOM. This is one of those movies that stuck in my brain. That is why I looked it up tonight and watched it. At the time it was so creepy. Now we know that the UFOs have been watching over us for decades to prevent us from actually destroying the planet. I have seen some of the strangest videos on the internet that show ufos flying around missles and shooting them with some kind of energy beam and disarming them. See this video. th-cam.com/video/o7CPLQvd5Rk/w-d-xo.html
@@_.Leo_. you seem nice
@@johnathanrush4666 Welcome to the internet, yo
This show scared me shitless as a young teen. I'm legitimately frightened to watch it again, even as an old fart. Still wearing a concert tee and Chucks, what's missing is a can of Jolt Cola and a bag of taco flavor Doritos.
You need some Bazooka Joe bubble gum to help you..🎅🎅⛄⛄🌕🌛👸👸💮🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬🍭🍭🍬🍬🍬🍫
Jolt Cola is back. It's only available at Dollar General.
Taco Doritos 😍
"ALL the sugar and TWICE the caffeine!"
You can still buy those off the information superhighway. I dint know how. But rumor is some people do.
I can't believe it's the 40th anniversary of this movie next year. 😲
Masterful. Watched it as a kid in '83 but forgot most of it. People actually cared about nuclear weapons back then. Now everyone is oblivious that we can still destroy 5000 years of civilization in 30 minutes.
All the familiar faces in this production. A who's who of 1980s character actors anchored by St. Elsewhere's passionate and compassionate stalwart. Ed Flanders remains one of my favorite actors -- I'm still sad to know he died as he did.
I was in New York when the 1977 Blackout happened. I was teaching in Spain when (in September 26, 1983) the Kremlin in the Soviet Union nearly started WW 3! I was living in Denmark in April 26, 1986 when the Chernobyl incident happened! I have more that I experienced while in Europe. WOW!!!!! Apart of history.
Threads is the only movie I've seen that exceeds the utter horror of the end of this one.
I remember seeing it on TV in 1983. It was the second time it was aired so I knew what I was going to watch. Yet, after it started it took me a good 3 minutes before realizing this was the movie I wanted to see and not an actual Special Bulletin ! One of my co-worker, the next morning started the conversation by : "I freaked out a bit yeasterday night about something I saw on TV..." I knew what he was talking about. This show is to TV what Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" was to radio...
So was "Without Warning", which was another mockumentary, in 1994. That one caused quite a bit of panic when it aired on Halloween night that year--even with all the disclaimers saying none of the events being depicted was actually happening.
I was 11 years old when this aired. My mom called me into the living room about half way through the program and tells me, "Cal you've got to watch the news with me, something terrible is happening." I don't recall now just how far through the show we got before full panic attack and crying set in at which my mom tells me that she fooled me and that it was just a tv show, not real. Ooooh man, I was so stinking mad at her. Of course, she apologized as she recognized that her joke was not as funny as she had thought it would be. And if you're curious, my mom has always been and still is my best friend.
One of the most disturbing moments is when Meg is told to run the tape, and she just. Stares. Into. The. Camera. So creepy.
Very unnerving, indeed.
And then seeing the flash from the nuclear explosion, then the shockwave hitting
I remember watching this as a teenager, scared the living hell out of me, the way this was produced to make it seem like an actual news broadcast was ahead of its time in my opinion. I came in on it after the the beginning, my dad told me that it wasn't real, still, at the time it seemed like it.
Even as a kid I read "RBS Network" as "Our BS Network". At the same time, I always loved this
Somewhere in the comments someone said that RBS could stand for “real bulls**t.” LOL!
Dan, back in the Spring and Summer of 1978, there was a parody of late-night talk shows, titled, "America 2 Night", which supposedly aired on the United Broadcasting System. Whereas the CBS logo is the CBS eye, the UBS logo was an ear.
I can still recall the UBS jingle: "UBS, we're the best because we put you before the bs!"
I remember seeing this when it first aired, hadn't seen it again until now, THANKS for posting this! Ironically, it hadn't been long since we'd visited the area and stood on that aircraft carrier museum, so it was easy to imagine for us. I liked that it ended badly and I never forgot the people realizing they weren't going to stop the countdown and starting to run a split second before it went off
An interesting note: when this movie premiered, despite the Charleston, SC NBC affiliate saying that this was only a movie, people STILL called them because they thought it was real...
Unknown 1081
The same thing happened with the WKBW version of the War Of The Worlds radio show and the 1994 TV-movie Without Warning; they made sure people knew it was just a gag, but some people still freaked out.
1983, the year TV scared us to death. There was this, the Day After and Testament.
Ever see 'Threads'? It's a BBC docudrama from 1984 that makes 'The Day After' look like a Disney animation.
@@MrPeterpiper1969 Oh yea, that was a good one.
@@MrPeterpiper1969 No, _The Day After_ did not look like a sugary Disney production. _Threads_ showed a full-scale war whereas the other showed a limited military exchange.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver In comparison to threads it does and where on earth did you get the idea it was about a 'limited military' exchange? The Day After was about a full nuclear war just as threads was.
Don't get me wrong, The Day After is a really good film but Threads is far more visceral and much closer to what the unacceptable reality would be.
@@MrPeterpiper1969 In _The Day After,_ we see silos and Kansas City for its airport both getting hit. There's no mention that it was a total genocidal war. There's also no mention of which side struck first.
I can't remember the last time my heart raced this much in a movie. Powerful stuff.
Demetrius LaShawn It’s very well made for the time. If you had grown up in that era you might get it instead of being the dumb bitch in this thread.
Love how the end shows it's back to business as usual at the news desk. Pretty much how it would be in real life, I imagine.
Probably a few resignations, political upheaval and the death of the reporters left behind in Charlotte so yeah, business as usual.
I mean, if you work in a bank and some guy comes in there with a gun one day, assuming you still work there the next day, it's still a bank right? You're still a teller, or whatever, except that once in awhile you might say something like "remember that guy with the gun?" Life must go on.
That's how it was after 9/11, more or less. Life goes on...
Somehow, I missed this program. As a high-schooler, I watched both parts of "V" when it originally aired, but didn't even know that this existed until last week. This was VERY well done and is a dead-accurate representation of news gathering and reporting in the early 1980s. The raw emotions from the anchors played by Ed Flanders & Kathryn Walker toward the end were just gut-wrenching. 2 things to note:
- Charleston was significantly damaged by Category 4 Hurricane Hugo in 1989
- Reporting on 9/11 was just as visceral, but in real life
I slept through the morning of 9/11 but I woke up at about 12:30pm and saw what happened on the television, it was surreal to watch. Even HBO pre-empted regularly scheduled programming in lieu of news reporting. I was also glad my sister wasn't in NYC at the time (yes, I did call her after seeing the WTC footage), she used to go to a restaurant on the top floor of the World Trade Center to eat dinner when she was there.
A few interesting observations :
1. Biggest Irony: The World Trade Center Twin Towers in NYC can clearly be scene in the Newsroom Background !!! (BTW - since it's on the right hand side of the frame -that means the newsroom was in NJ - like in Jersey City or Hoboken.)
2. Biggest Cameo: Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs - Ear cutting fame) appears as one of the bystanders early on.
3. Ed Flanders - doing a great Walter Cronkite-type Anchorman - yells at his crew to get him information - which is what Frank Reynolds did on ABC News when Regan what shot (I recall watching that on TV too- yes I'm old).
4. When I saw this back in 1983 - when Meg replays the video of the explosion from the ship - towards the end (1:32) - It scared the living shit out of me.
There's something about the way this was filmed - taped - in the early 80's - with that low-end special effects world of the late-70's/early 80's that amazes me. I saw this when it came out back in 1983 - sitting on my girlfriends's couch - and it captivated me then - and still does.
It's still effective and pertinent. A real classic.
It was intentionally made to look like broadcast-quality video (which people might not be able to identify definitely but are aware of) - in fact, i suspect that the image quality may have been intentionally slightly degraded.
The producers of this film were primarily news people, so they knew how a news operation would handle it.
BabyBoomerChannel q
The entire thing was shot on videotape rather than film. That's why the resolution will never be better than the copy you are seeing on TH-cam. It was a made for TV movie, so there was no reason to shoot it on film. I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast on NBC. There were a lot of comparisons at the time to the original War of the Worlds broadcast. NBC went to great lengths to avoid comparison by adding disclaimers during every single commercial break. Not all of them are shown in this copy.
Not Only as a bystander but also giving an interwiev at 59:05
@@B9zm3g he was the cell mate of the dude that shot down the helicopter.
"The late unpleasantness with the North" is such a bizarre yet entirely contextually realistic way to refer to the US Civil War LMAO
@Bernard de Fontaines They very much were. Only the reactionaries' insults have changed.
My people call the American Civil War, The War of Northern Aggression
I love McKeeson's comments about the media because they ring true today, especially with the advent of cable news. After Turner merged his properties with Time Warner, that is all she wrote. Everyone else followed suit. It has become more about entertainment, unbalanced opinions, sensationalist stories, personalities and ratings. That is why I have not watched U.S. cable news channels in 7 years.
Now you just watch Internet echo chambers.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Nope. Don't do that either. Nice try.
@@paddydoublems What else is there?
0:28. The "Four Square" game board is actually the "Jeopardy" prop board from "Airplane II: The Sequel." You can even see the gag category "Air Shuttle Disasters."
"Do you have any information on Steve Leavitt?"
"Well, I know he's a Taurus and likes long walks on the beach. His favorite color is Forest Gr-"
"No, his *CONDITION* you nimrod!!"
He's single likes dogs and long walks on the beach. Oh yeah, he has a Porsche and makes lots of Chaching💰💰💰.
I saw him first...😜
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Scribe Light 🍿
HA! Johnny (Stephen Stucker in AIRPLANE!) is alive and well.
Whoa, brainstorm! AIRPLANE! was basically a remake of a serious disaster on an airplane movie... why not do the same with SPECIAL BULLETIN?
Oh my God, now I want an "Airplane!" send-up of this!
I love that they keep going back to commercial in these movies. As if they would ever break away from live coverage of something like this. Anybody remember coverage on 9/11? Not a single commercial.
The end where everyone is crying for ten minutes makes it all worthwhile, love it bravo!
I'm crying 😢
Superb movie; I can't imagine why it was never transferred to DVD or VHS. I looked everywhere for it. No luck.
Thanks for posting this movie. I’ve been looking for it for many years…powerful movie. For those of you who think this movie has a great and powerful message, check two other movies like this. The movie “The Day After” was a movie made for TV and was seen by 66 million people, including politicians around the world. The other movie is called “Testament”. It is a gut wrencher for sure.
Same. Had seen it when I was a child and wanted to re-watch it, now that obviously I'd understand it a lot better.
I saw this movie and the Day After. I was 16 in '83. My older brother was the one who found out about these movies, so that's why we watched it. It was really well done for the time and special effects available for that time. I've never seen Testament though, will have to look for that.
@@duraniegal79 Please check out Testament, extremely powerful. Having to live with the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. It is shown on cable every so often. 👍🏻
This has been a favorite film. When it finally arrived on home-video, it was such a hoot to see so many TV-stars back in their starting years.
Yeah, I didn’t even recognize the younger, bearded version of David Rasche until I read his name in the credits.
This was post- _WKRP,_ so two guest actors turned up here.
Back then, having Roger Grimsby of ABC News New York in the movie made it all the more authentic ( and scary) for those who knew him.
FOUND IT! Couldn't remember the name of the show for years, but it came to me and found it here on YT!
I was maybe 10-11 when I saw this, but I wasn't supposed to. I was sent to bed, but snuck back out and hid behind the couch as my parents watched. I didn't know it was fictional. When the bomb went off, my whole was crushed. I saw everything differently. I don't remember how i went to bed, but i was scared. I think at that moment I truly understood empathy and pain as adults understand it. A very powerful broadcast indeed.
Bet you didn't do that again, did you?
The Problem is: We have this Technology now. And we have Lots of Dumbasses floating around. So... It's only a Matter of Time...
Dad(Wallace of beloved memory); who had good reason to know this stuff cold, both as a military officer and later in the private sector, really liked the show. Mostly. But he did complain that the Liberty May was riding too high in the water for the size of the device. As a Cold War kid of the 60's, 70's and 80's, we were both scared shitless and strangely fascinated by the end of the world. On the fiction side, Charleston always seemed like a great place to face down the Apocalypse. Hell I even used it in a zombie story, a decade ago. This is good stuff, thanks for uploading it. :)
+wayne zimmerman I also experienced a number of "get under your desk" drills - in K/1st grade, at least - and vaguely remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. The scariest part about it, for me, was seeing so many *adults* who were obviously scared.
Salice McCool I started school in the early 80's and remember the under your desk drills we used to run
NEGATIVE ! Nukes of the 20 to 30 KT. range shrank so rapidly that the claimed size was in the movie was of a realistic size ! 1953, the test of the 15 KT. atomic shell fired from the Atomic Cannon could be carried by 3 men. Back pack nukes were soon developed and miniaturization continued on.
And so the joke about the nuclear hand grenade was born: as who would you get to throw it? 😮
Oh; before I forget, nice info drop, but not relevant to the plot of the movie. The only items stolen by the two renegade scientists; over several months, were the isotopes needed to create the fission reaction. From containment to the elaborate trigger and anti-tamper systems, all else was built by them with whatever materials they could easily obtain. Thanks for participating though. 👍
Edward Zwick is a visionary, love his work, this is no exception
I literally had a panic watching the camera go static when the bomb went off, seriously, this shot some fright right into me. But to be honest, takes alot of effort to get that effect on a film's viewers. Amazing job creators!
The scene right before it is responsible for all that. It does a brilliant job of building tension. When the picture cuts, you get all that released at once. That NEST feed though... easily the fakest thing in this movie, that would never happen. Only exists to get you to that feeling you're raving about.
1:27:08 I finally understood! the NEST team spent 45 minutes through the anti-tamper devices, And when they were disconnecting and separating the setting (the temporizer) a new anti-tamper device with a feedback from an unknown source appeared frying the circuits (McKeeson knew a lot about computers). That anti-tamper device connected the circuit and caused the implosion.
I figured that if the guy knows how to make that bomb, then he knows how someone would attempt to disarm that bomb. So it's then easier for him to layer anti-tampering countermeasures. The NEST guys one and only hope is that whoever makes a bomb like that doesn't know much, just enough to put together a primitive nuke. That would give them the best chance to do something. If they run into a bomb assembled by an expert then they are screwed, which is what happened in the movie.
I sometimes wonder why didn't NEST try to destroy this improvised bomb with a very low-yield nuclear device of its own? An atomic artillery shell can have a yield dialed down as low as 0.1 KT and that would have been enough to destroy the improvised atomic bomb--and it's a lot easier to clean up from a 0.1 KT explosion than a 23 KT explosion.
makes the most sense, they would have destroyed the bomb in that fashion.
Considering what we don't know was going on, that option may have not even been on the table to begin with. I can see where you're coming from and given how the film ends, it would have been a better option.
But it isn't known if the NEST team even had such an option on the table to begin with.
You guys forget how fragile nukes really are. Well, that type anyway. You hardly need another nuke to destroy one of them. Any powerful explosive placed next to the nuke would destroy the nuke, regardless of how it was booby-trapped. The Fat Man type plutonium bombs require near absolute perfection in the implosion shape & timing in order to work. If you dent the surrounding shell or render the implosive charges asymmetrical, it's toast. All you will get is a big, very dirty, conventional explosion.
But the real problem with that solution is the massive amount of plutonium that would have been released. I don't remember the number, but a few micrograms of plutonium will kill a person, and that bomb had 5,200,000,000 micrograms of the stuff that would have been liquefied and sprayed everywhere by the implosion material alone. (That's like the bomb's primer.) If they had a way to contain that kind of explosion and all the plutonium vapor, that might have been a good solution.
Believe it or not, this movie still scares me to Hell and back.
I still love it - thanks for posting, friend!
Me too!
When I watch this, I imagine I'm watching a network report from a parallel universe.
I totally remember this!!! It was so realistic that i completely forgot about the network warning beforehand that it was just a dramatization. The Day After movie and this has stuck with me since a teenager. The Cold War was something crazy. You just had to be there to understand man
That show was FAB! I never heard of it before and, unlike many such movies/shows of its kind, it kept me riveted for every second. Brilliant, thank you. x
The acting was pretty decent in this movie, especially after the nuclear detonation. The news anchors looked really upset. Their anger, and the horror and reaction of them is really vivid.
Yeah thanks for the spoiler...
Great movie. What worries myself and others is that it's possible for people with sufficient knowledge and money to buy materials and make such a device.
Thus, this could happen someday.
School books had how to build an atomic bomb as a chapter. My older brother showed it to me. Parents hit the roof when that was found out.
I remember seeing this as a kid in 1983. I never forgot about it.
I remember seeing this when it aired. I was 16. Back then, I wasn't really moved. But now, 38 years later, and seeing the events that have transpired since then, it could happen. In the end, nobody wins.
I was also 16 when it aired. What upset me was the devastation that followed when “Meg’s” cameraman showed the tape of what happened.
the climate activists of today are dangerous, yet they get a pass from the media and the police.
Only just came across this by chance last week.
Except for the disclaimer, you really couldn't tell if this was really happening. Truly incredible
Try....
Countdown to Looking Glass
I’m going to age myself but I was 16 years old when this was broadcast. The part the upset me the most was when “Meg’s” cameraman showed the tape of what happened.
1983 seems to have been a banner year for nuclear holocaust movies: this one as well as "The Day After" and "War Games".
Threads (with an s) was released the following year, 1984. If you think Threads was horrifying, check out this one: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game
TOXICFLOWZSHOW
Countdown to Looking Glass came out in 1984, as well. More like this than Threads or The Day After, still good.
THREADS was OK ... but I think TESTAMENT was better.
Threads made The Day After look like The Sound of Music.
Good to see this available on YT.
I recorded it in '83 when it was broadcast. When the Rainbow Warrior (Greenpeace Flagship) was in Honolulu in '85 preparing to evacuate people from the nuclear testing contaminated residents of Rongelap, and then on to protest the French nuke testing at Mururoa, there was a crew photographer for the mission who was living at our place, Fernando Periera. Good guy. I sent the tapes in with him to be screened below decks for the crew, and they were greatly affected by it. Mission director Steve Sawyer asked me afterwards "What the F... was THAT?". That was the crew who were bombed shortly afterwards in Auckland harbor by a French assassination team. Fernando was killed in the bombing, which prevented the ship from going to Mururoa. I associate this excellent production with that in my mind, and the surreality of having Fernando's groceries still in our fridge while he was dead of a terrorism attack.
Was 11 years old living in Auckland in 1985 when the French blew up the Rainbow Warrior. Half the country joined Greenpeace after that. NZ tv showed Threads and The Day After which terrified us. I lived in Devonport which is where the main naval base is with several military bases all over the suburb, at school we had a lesson where we drew nuclear blast zones on a map centred on the naval wharves and where I lived was on the cusp of the instant death zone, we were better off being killed instantly. Nuclear Armaggedon was a very real thing back then. NZ went anti-nuclear after a left wing govt was elected in 1984, but we knew the Soviets would nuke us anyway to deny the port to the Americans. Horrifying scenarios. Shamefully the NZ govt turned over the French sabouteurs after a short prison sentence because the French threatened NZ exports to Europe. RIP Fernando.
The acting of everyone involved was right on the mark. On the second day, I felt just as scared as those anchors appeared to be on the screen. Top notch.
Just watched it for the first time since I was 13 in 1983. They really pulled it off. Starting at 1:27:00, I can't imagine there is a "better" climax of a made-for-TV movie that decade. The performances, editing, special effects... really amazing.
You were or you are being paid for your comment!
Are you seriously expecting anyone to believe that you were or are SO STUPID that you fell for this CRAP!
OMG!
You must be Mildly Retarded 🎉😢🎉
Incredible scriptwriting and acting. I've never seen anything like it. You keep waiting for something phony. Love it.
I saw Edward Zwick's name in the credits as writer and producer. Wasn't he the director for "Glory"?