Remembering The Day After: Nuclear Hotseat

The 1983 ABC-TV Movie of the Week, The Day After, shocked audiences deeply at the time and changed the world by showing the horrific truth of what a nuclear bomb explosion would actually do. More than 100 million viewers turned in, making it the highest-rated made-for-TV film in history.  This week, Nuclear Hotseat host, Libbe HaLevy, talks with Jeff Daniels, director of the documentary Television Event, which tells the story of The Day After –what it took to make it, the pushback, the political consequences. Television Event will be screened as part of the International Uranium Film Festival, May 19-29, 2022.

On November 20, 1983, ABC-TV broadcast The Day After, a chilling fictional account of the aftermath of a nuclear war on a small Kansas town. This came after weeks of buildup and, behind-the-scenes, intense controversy extending all the way to a White House in the midst of a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. With impressive access to the principals involved with the project and a trove of archival footage, Jeff Daniels revisits the improbable story of this anti-nuclear major television event and the impact it left on the Reagan era and beyond. Listen here.