Tonight in 1983, more than 100 million Americans saw multiple thermonuclear weapons destroy Lawrence, Kansas, in "The Day After" on ABC. A.C. Nielsen Co. reported that 62% of television sets that night were tuned in the film. I watched in my college dorm lounge. Where were you?

Nothing can re-create the feeling of collectively watching that night—during rapidly escalating tensions with the Soviet Union while the Reagan administration openly advocated fighting and winning a nuclear war—but you can stream “The Day After” here:

Here is the parental advisory ABC ran before the film began regarding its depiction of a nuclear war: "The emotional impacts of these scenes may be unusually disturbing, and we are therefore recommending that very young children not be permitted to watch."

The scenes aboard the “Looking Glass“ airborne command post that open the film—and the subsequent scenes of B-52 bombers, Minuteman missile silos and alert facilities, etc.—were taken from the semi-official 1979 nuclear war dramatization “First Strike”:

“First Strike,” which advocates for a US nuclear buildup, also features a young @SecDef19 discussing ICBM and SSBN vulnerability and outfitting B-52s to carry the then-new ALCM, beginning at 3:29 here . (Also notable, not a single woman was interviewed.)

An outstanding, enlightening, and highly-entertaining new documentary about the making of "The Day After" and its impact (on the cast/crew and society) just finished screening at @DOCNYCfest. Hopefully it will become available elsewhere in the near future. https://www.docnyc.net/film/television-event/