Mike Douglas was a big band singer turned daytime talk show host, and “The Mike Douglas Show” was constructed to include a celebrity co-host each week. Most were smack in the middle of the mainstream – Robert Goulet, Norm Crosby, Dom DeLuise, Paul Anka – but every so often Douglas would get edgier, even political, by booking a Jane Fonda or Billie Jean King.
Still, you wouldn’t think this was a guy looking to foment cultural change. But on a week in 1972 – one where Douglas butchered a rendition of The Beatles’ “Michelle” – he was steering his show into uncharted territory: His co-hosts were John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who used the spotlight to bring the counterculture to millions at home watching the show. (Not content with his awful performance, Douglas also mistakenly credited Lennon for writing the Paul McCartney song; the ex-Beatle politely allowed that he’d helped with the middle eight section.)
Lennon and Ono invited guests like political radicals Bobby Seale and Jerry Rubin, advocates like Ralph Nader and macrobiotic chef Hilary Redleaf. While Lennon performed hits like “Imagine” and duetted with his idol, Chuck Berry, they also gave time to musicians Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto and Chris Kando Iijima whose song, “We are the Children,” centered the Asian American experience in a way most viewers had never experienced. (“We are the children of the migrant worker/We are the offspring of the concentration camp”)
That captivating week is now the subject of Erik Nelson’s documentary “Daytime Revolution,” which will play on October 9th, Lennon’s birthday, in numerous Laemmle theaters throughout the Los Angeles area. The film features contemporary interviews with many of those who are still alive, including Nader and Myamoto.
Nelson, a Lennon fan who remembers watching the episodes in 1972, spoke recently by video about the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Why is this week of daytime TV worthy of a documentary?
I believe these shows, not Woodstock, was the high-water mark of the counterculture. John and Yoko brought the finest minds of the counterculture, both politically and culturally, to 40 million mainstream Americans over five days. That was a pretty bold assault.
Q. To that point, I thought “We Are the Children” was a showstopper, perhaps even more than “Imagine” or the Lennon-Berry pairing.
That’s fantastic. I was encountering a fair number of people telling me “That’s a little long” and I said, “This is going to get an applause in the theater.” So I’ll invite you to our opening screening and at least you and I will be applauding.
Q. Did making this film change your perception of Douglas?
I was astonished by just how good he was and how he got more and more comfortable with John and Yoko and vice versa. He talked policy with Ralph Nader and asked Bobby Seale about his standup comedy career. He also cracked Jerry Rubin’s façade; Rubin came on ready to be this outrageous Yippie but Douglas asked about his father and Rubin almost starts crying and was disarmed and open. And he talked to George Carlin about tracking his entire career and the way he had changed his comedy. I didn’t expect he was going to be that good.
He was able to enjoy all of Yoko’s wacky experiments and do this biometric feedback thing with and there was no condescension. He really met these people in this experience more than halfway. He let these radical, insane people into his living room and did it with utter grace. He threw an incredible party.
But yes, that’s one of the lamest versions of Michelle ever done. I don’t disagree with that.
Q. What about your impressions of John and Yoko?
This week captured lightning in a bottle. I don’t think John Lennon ever looked more comfortable in front of cameras or was more open, funny and musically creative. He just looked at peace with himself. And that was not something that often happened to John Lennon.
Yoko was quiet, but everything she says is very precise, and dare I say, brilliant. I also just like watching John and Yoko together as a couple, kind of hanging out. You feel like you’re part of it. There’s a real intimacy to this.
Q. You had Yoko and Sean Lennon’s blessings on this project. Were they involved?
Their notes were fantastic, mostly just about wanting to see more of Nobuko’s and Ralph Nader’s interviews and how during one segment they wanted less B-roll and more of them on camera.
Q. It felt like there could have been more Rubin. Did you feel bad cutting that down?
I would have liked Rubin to have a more satisfying segment and we could have definitely gone longer but then we would have had to cut, say, some of “We Are the Children.” And Rubin always struck me as a bit of a lightweight while Bobby Seale was the real deal and has more cultural weight and resonance.
Ralph Nader was and is also the real deal. I hope this film does two things – rehabilitates Mike Douglas and rehabilitates Ralph Nader. There’s this idiocy that Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election in Florida. No, Gore ran one of the worst presidential campaigns in modern history; he didn’t even carry his home state of Tennessee. So don’t blame Nader.
Q. Did immersing yourself in this make you more idealistic about how events like this lay the groundwork for gradual change or depressed by how little change there has been in 50 years?
A combination of both. I mean, the timing of the release a month before election is entirely intentional. This is not a music film about John Lennon. This is a film about culture, and it’s a political film.
It’s hard to imagine a more partisan, toxic political situation than 1972 with the Nixon White House but here we are. I wanted this messages of communication, openness and love that John and Yoko and their guests had. I think we need it more than ever.
I think I was able to take and distill the essence of this great experiment, this great conceptual art piece and give it relevance for people today who have had no idea that happened.
Related Articles
John Amos, ‘Good Times’ and Emmy-nominated ‘Roots’ star, dies at 84
DirecTV buys rival Dish as it fights onslaught of streaming services
Saturday Night Live is celebrating its 50th season
The one where the iconic ‘Friends’ couch sells for $29,250
True crime TV star Joe Kenda based ‘First Do No Harm’ on his own experiences