If John Lennon and Yoko Ono turned their 1969 honeymoon into a “Bed-In for Peace” to protest Vietnam, three years later, as the war continued, they took over America’s airwaves to spread their message on a hugely-watched TV show. Erik Nelson’s “Daytime Revolution” is a 108-minute documentary about when the ex-Beatle and Yoko co-hosted the daily “Mike Douglas Show” and had carte blanche to invite guests. The Lennons booked major New Left and counterculture figures plus avant-garde artists.
Why does Daytime Revolution start with John Lennon performing “Attica State”?
ERIK NELSON: It orients you instantly into where John and Yoko’s mindset was. The difficulty in a film like this that doesn’t have narrators, it seemed like an elegant way of getting in.What are some of Lennon’s other political songs?
This was the highwater mark of his political – it was the “Some Time in New York City” album, which was in progress when he did The Mike Douglas Show. That was very much almost a newspaper of what was on his mind. He’d done “Working Class Hero,” then songs he did with Yoko, “Woman is the N-word of the World.” Lennon was highly political at that moment.Who was Mike Douglas?
Mike [had] the most popular talk show in the US. It reached 40 million viewers daily; one of five Americans watched the syndicated The Mike Douglas Show.John was 31. There was an age gap, but what we found extraordinary was just how openminded, comfortable and enabling 51-year-old Mike Douglas was of all his guests.Why did Mike want John and Yoko to co-host his program for a week in February 1972?
It wasn’t strictly after ratings. He had Yoko on the show before when she promoted her book “Grapefruit.” He knew Lennon could command an audience. His show was always open to strange people. A couple years later Frank Zappa did The Mike Douglas Show.Why did John and Yoko agree to co-host The Mike Douglas Show? Guest David Rosenboom says they were “pushing a Utopian agenda”?
Rosenboom also says, “They wanted to make the world better.” That’s why they were going on. They wanted to get their vision across and Yoko, I think, conceived of this idea where they’d present this five-episode narrative arc featuring the very best of the counterculture and try to inject the counterculture into the culture. She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. They got it done so much so that Nixon completely freaked out and went into overdrive on deporting Lennon.
Were John and Yoko given complete freedom to select guests?
Yes. They were certainly encouraged to book who they wanted. Jerry Rubin, noted Yippie, Chicago 7 defendant. Bobby Seale, chairman of the Black Panther Party. Ralph Nader, public enemy number 1 to many American manufacturers … Some very interesting people, all pushing the best of the counterculture forward in this very mainstream venue. John told Nader: “You should run for president. Yoko will be Minister of Peace. I’ll be Minister of Music.”Works for me. Given the choice of George W. Bush or Al Gore or Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, the Nader-Yoko-John ticket would have gotten my vote.Who was Lennon most excited to have on the show?
John met Chuck Berry for the very first time in the green room a half hour before they rolled tape. John worshipped Chuck Berry, and they got to play together for the one and only time. It’s an epic performance.Tell us about comedian George Carlin?
Carlin was smoking marijuana, turning from being a Vegas-guy-in-a-suit act to the longhaired Levi’s-jacketed guy … the “Hippie-Dippie Weatherman.”Which Lennon post-Beatles songs does he perform on The Mike Douglas Show?
“It’s So Hard” and “Imagine,” and a couple of songs with Yoko. All this went down around the time of Sunday, Bloody Sunday [a 1972 British massacre in Derry, Northern Ireland] and he wrote “The Luck of the Irish.”Daytime Revolution points out a rightwing Mike Douglas Show producer.
Roger Ailes, evil genius behind Nixon’s election in 1968 and FOX News, was in the studio. In 1968 he was working with Mike Douglas, had talk show experience and was a rabid conservative … Essentially, Ailes gave us President Richard Nixon, because Nixon used television brilliantly. He stayed on at The Mike Douglas Show after the campaign and was lurking in the background during the [Lennons’] shows.“Daytime Revolution” documents an exceptional moment in corporate, broadcast television’s history. Nixon went to China. The Lennons appeared during a presidential election year. The Panthers were known for militancy, but in 1972, Bobby Seale ran for Oakland mayor. Anti-Vietnam War Democratic Senator George McGovern ran for president. Yippies such as Abbie Hoffman and Rubin supported him against Republican incumbent Nixon. In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered citizens’ voting age to 18. Do you think inviting John and Yoko onto such a prominent mainstream platform was trying to woo young Americans and others away from the bullet to the ballot box, away from radical revolution to reformist politics?
Yes. At this point in time there was tremendous optimism we could change the world. The highwater mark of the ’60s wasn’t Woodstock in August ’69, it was this week of Mike Douglas Shows, with the finest minds of the counterculture having this platform… Nixon was scared of losing, which is why he broke into the DNC in the Watergate Building. So, if Richard Nixon was nervous about winning in 1972, what do you think John and Yoko thought, with the wind at their backs, with a counterculture at its apex? A very conscious choice we made on this film was to distill this week down to its most optimistic, hopeful, entertaining message and deliver it into theaters one month before the 2024 election. That was absolutely planned. In the 50 theaters we opened Oct. 9, we try to recapture the flag; this happened and could still happen again.Did you interact with Yoko for “Daytime Revolution?”
Yes. I respect Yoko, and had a great experience working with her for 2006’s “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” and this was a work of conceptual art she’d conceived. We reached out to Yoko, said we want to make this movie, spoke with Sean Lennon via Zoom…“Daytime Revolution” premiered on John’s 84th birthday. To paraphrase the Beatles: “Will we still need him, will we still feed him, when John’s 84?”
I like that. I’m going to steal that immediately. Of course, we still need Lennon, a genius, avatar of culture, he did his level best to always tell the truth. His message still endures. The Lennon we see on these Mike Douglas shows was lightning in a bottle. John never looked better, was never more comfortable. He was totally in love with Yoko. This was a very content John – and he got to rock out with Chuck Berry, his idol! To see John so happy and at peace with himself … You’ll never see John Lennon better.“Daytime Revolution” was theatrically-released Oct. 9 in more than 50 cities nationwide. See https://kinolorber.com/film/ daytime-revolution for more information.Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition.
A longer version of this interview was published at Truthdig.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024
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