Daytime Revolution

It is my pleasure and privilege

at this very, very solemn moment

to introduce a young man and his wife,

who saw fit

to put down in music

and lyrics

so that it will never be forgotten in our country

by anyone...

the tragedy of Attica State.

There is no more than I say, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to introduce to you,

John and Yoko Lennon.

One, two, three, four.

You have to understand

where the Mike Douglas Show sat in culture in 1972.

It was the most popular show in daytime television,

seen by about 40 million people a week.

Quite often 60% of the audience in New York

was watching the Mike Douglas Show.

The booking of John and Yoko was a really unusual story,

because we were both told that they had contacted us

and we contacted them.

We heard that on February 4th,

just 10 days before these shows were about to air,

Senator Strom Thurmond went to John Mitchell

and wanted to warn the Nixon administration

that John and Yoko were about to take sides.

President Nixon leaves for Peking on Thursday

he will travel on his specially equipped

Boeing 707 Air Force One.

The government of the People's

Republic of China

and the government of the United States

can have differences without being enemies in war.

Attorney John Mitchell resigned today

to run the Presidents campaign for reelection.

A Federal court order

which calls for large scale busing

went into effect today in Augusta, Georgia.

Although there were several false

bomb threats yesterday,

no incidents were reported today.

George Wallace appears no longer worried

that he might need to soft pedal busing

for fear it would conjure up the old one issue image.

Well, I happen to believe

that the death penalty is a deterrent

and I think the majority of people

believe the same thing.

Everybody knows that food prices are going up.

The question is how much will consumers stand for

in this election year.

The Nixon administration announced

that American ground troops in Vietnam

would no longer be used offensively in combat,

but they would fight only on the defense.

We're here to fight dinks and that's why we're here.

We're gonna go out and fight them.

Attack bombers

bristling with their deadly cargo

are screaming skyward

from the deck of the aircraft carrier, Constellation.

You read in the newspaper

that the war is over.

I don't know if it's Congress, Senate,

but the war is not over.

We'll be right back.

The idea of John Lennon

being a mediator.

Yeah, that's sort of funny, isn't it?

Okay. B's rolling only.

Why don't you go up to Wes. What lens do you have now?

28 to 135.

Marker. Marker.

Marker.

This is funny. I haven't seen this whole thing

in all these years.

How on earth did you get on this?

Out of the blue, uh, one day

I-I'm in my apartment, in New York City,

and I get a phone call,

and I answer it and it said, "Hello, this is Yoko."

And Yoko's a Japanese name,

so I said, Yoko who?

And of course I thought it was a scam.

I thought it couldn't be real.

But, um, I called this person back.

And much to my amazement, it really was Yoko Ono.

George Carlin has a question.

I Was going to ask whether or not biofeedback could help you remember

the question you were going to ask before the commercial.

Some food isn't even food. It's just all chemicals.

The voice said, Hi. This is John and Yoko.

And I'm thinking, "Okay, this is a prank phone call,

but I'll listen."

John, rock and roll, rock and roll.

There you go. Into the cabbage!

Yoko said we're doing this show on Mike Douglas,

you know, this a-- afternoon show

and we're bringing on people like in the movement

to talk about the movement.

And on the show that we're having you on,

we're having Bobby Seale and Jerry Rubin.

And I'm like, what?

We're Mike's co-hosts this week

and with us on today's show will be my hero,

Chuck Berry.

David Rosenboom.

As I recall, they did have an agenda

and they did discuss the agenda, uh, with me

and the agenda had to do with making the world better.

The booking was terrific for the show

because it got us great ratings,

but it also fit their agenda

which was to get their message to middle America.

Here is Ralph Nader.

Okay.

...running for president?

No.

Well, the Mike Douglas week of shows was memorable

in a 50-year span.

It was memorable because it couldn't happen today

on network or cable,

daytime television shows.

But it was also memorable then.

It was a real breakthrough then.

Ooh. Look at that dress! Hmm.

And we not gonna talk about that hair.

When I got to the studio,

I got a glimpse of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

I said, "Oh, my goodness. This is exciting!"

Hanoi charged that American jets today

bombed and strafed populated areas of North Vietnam.

It happened on a Sunday morning.

They said about 9:35 a.m.,

planes dove through the cloud--

the cloud cover at that time, and attacked the hospital,

dropping eight demolition bombs

and four anti-personnel bombs.

Welcome to the Mike Douglas Show.

- This is John Lennon. - And Yoko Ono.

Now, here's Mike.

Hey, I'm really excited about this week.

I was in Boston last night

and, uh, I had what they call a press conference.

And when I mentioned the fact

that I was about to begin a week

with the two people I'm going to introduce,

pencils were dropping.

And--and it turned into about an hour session

on just talking about these people.

They're not only superstars,

but they're really two very warm human beings.

And I know that you're going to enjoy meeting them

and getting to know them a little bit better.

So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome with us--

ah, by the way, the song I just sang

is--is written by this gentleman

who's coming out right now.

I wanted to tell you that.

Here is John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Good afternoon. You sang it very well.

Thank you.

I wrote the middle eight actually.

- Did you? - Yeah.

At least you didn't sing, uh-- Normally they sing "Yesterday"

which is Paul's song, and then saying, "Here, he wrote it."

But I wrote the middle eight of "Michelle" so we're okay.

You wrote the middle eight?

Yeah, but sometimes you write different bits, you know?

That's usually the toughest part of a song, actually,

what they call the release, the middle eight.

Well, yeah, 'cause once you get the first inspiration,