Some people may remember when "The Disney Channel" used to air programs, documentaries, and movies that appealed to adults specifically. There was still programming aimed at children, teens, and the bulk was meant to be entertainment for the whole family. But the point is, that there was a reason why adults would watch The Disney Channel even if they didn't have kids, or were particularly interested in Disney (ultimately they got nostalgic Disney programming with the commercials and stuff between these programs, which often turned them onto The Disney Channel during those 'family' oriented programming times).
Anyway, I was flipping through some old "Disney Channel Magazines" looking at programming line-ups and stuff and I found it interesting that in August/September 1994 "The Disney Channel" aired a series of programs called "The Nixon Interviews With David Frost: 1994 Special Edition". The description was as follows:
"In 1977, Davie Frost conducted sweeping interviews with former President Richard Nixon on foreign policy, the China gambit, Vietnam, the anti-war movement - and Watergate. Following each episode [of this series] in this 1994 special edition, David Frost introduces previously unseen footage from the 1977 sessions."
This series of programs aired throughout the month of August on Tuesday nights. ALSO, during the month of August the film "Final Days" (made in 1989 and 2 and 1/2 hour long) chronicling Woodward and Bernstein's account of the final days of the Nixon administration aired 3 seperate times!
There were a ton of documentaries that aired on The Disney Channel (some of which have found DVD release elsewhere) including documentaries on "My Fair Lady", Steve McQueen, Laurel and Hardy, Martin & Lewis, Ray Harryhausen, and literally at least 50 more documentary programs!!!!!
There used to be a time when The Disney Channel actually had QUALITYprogramming.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I was wanted to post this whole David Frost/Nixon stuff on here so that anyone who wanted to learn more about the whole Frost/Nixon stuff could look for Disney's take on helping to entertain and get people curious about checking out some history.
"It's Kind Of Fun To Do The Impossible"
- Walt Disney
I also found a 2 page article in "The Disney Channel Magazine" from August/September 1994. I thought I'd transcribe it here for anyone who has seen the film Frost/Nixon. I thought it was pretty interesting.
Remember this article was written in 1994 for "The Disney Channel Magazine".
"David Frost & The Enigmatic Mr. Nixon"
David Frost recalls his celebrated interviews with Richard Milhous Nixon, which air on The Disney Channel in August and include footage that has never been seen before
By David Callaway
"If Nixon had known how the interviews would proceed, he would never have agreed to participate," says Sir david Frost of The Nixon Interviews with David Frost. First broadcast in May 1977, Frost's encounters with former President Richard Nixon occurred almost three years after Nixon had become the first American President to resign his office.
"The interviews became, in effect, the 'Trial of Richard Nixon,' the trial that America never had," Frost continues, "and they brought about a tremendous catharsis." This in turn allowed for a most astonishing comeback: Richard Nixon, having reached a political nadir, was to be elevated in a few years to the role of elder statesman, the wise man consulted and praised by later Presidents, including President Clinton, for his advice on foreign affairs.
"The irony," Frost explains, "is that on the one hand Nixon admitted far more than he ever planned to admit; on the other hand the fact that he did admit it was later his ticket back."
When Frost recalls the interviews now, the scale and risk of the whole enterprise stagger him. Negotiations were protracted; many people pronounced the project impossible: Nixon would never agree to surrender control of the interviews to Frost. When looking for advertising sponsors, Frost was continually rebuffed. "Half of the companies approached wouldn't have anything to do with Nixon, " he recalls, "and the other half were trying to make people forget they ever did."
When Frost finally did sit down with Nixon - after both men had assembled teams of aides, advisers, and researchers - the first session ran two and a quarter hours, "far longer than I've ever talked conitnuously with anyone in front of the camera. And this was only one-twelfth of the proceedings. Mind boggling." The resulting interviews were a condensation of 28 hours of face-to-face talk.
The two men were not strangers: Frost had interviewed Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign and had hosted a Christmas program at the White House in 1970. Frost acknowledges that, in his bid to interview Nixon, his Englishness gave him an advantage, "A sense of independence and fair play." Unlike his American colleagues, he had not appeared nightly on the news, plumbing the deepening crisis facing the Nixon administration: the illegal wire taps; the burglaries; the enemies list; the doomed coverup of Watergate that would lead to the administration's unraveling.
"Nixon probably thought it would be a talk show," says Frost. "He underestimated the amount of research I would do." The two clashed during many sessions. On the subject of Watergate Frost assumed the role of prosecutor - the "Grand Inquisitor" Nixon called hiim - while Nixon staunchly defended his record.
On the subject of Watergate Frost scored heavily when he quoted the statute on obstruction of justice, following a challenge by the former President, who, though a lawyer himself, did not know the statute. Then when Frost read line by line from the conversation with John Dean, in which the former President appears to be involved in a plan to buy the silence of the Watergate burglars, Nixon reacted phsyically - recoiling as if from body blows.
"Nixon realized it had gone completely wrong," Frost says. "And he came prepared to volunteer the next day. It was a question of listening to him and being prepared to push him, rather than attacking him," Frost found his role of Grand Inquisitor changed to that of Father Confessor. Eventually, near tears, Nixon made his own extraordinary admission: "I let down my friends, I let down my country, I let down our system of government."
Not all the sessions were so highly or so fiercely charged. When the conversation turned to areas of justified triumph for Nixon - the rapprochement with China, the SALT talks, the Middle East - Frost had no need other than to provide the setting for Nixon to tell his own story. Frost was particularly impressed at the "hilariously skilled" way Nixon took credit for foreign policy success by portraying himself as the fatherly leader to a rather neurotic Henry Kissinger.
"One of the reasons for our abiding interest in Richard Nixon is the degree to which he is an enigma," Frost says. For example, most interview subjects grow tense on camera - Frost chats with them beforehand to keep them relaxed. With Nixon, the problem was reversed: "In an interview, when he was interested in a question, he was totally absorbed: there was no shyness, no lack of talk." It was off-camera that Frost wondered how to get him to unwind, since Nixon proved almost incapable of small talk. On one occasion, grasping at straws, Frost brought up Brazhnev, whose name had been in the paper that day. Without the shadow of a wink or a smirk Nixon declared - quite seriously - "Oh, I wouldn't want to be a Russian leader. They never know when they are being taped."
But perhaps the greatest surprise for Frost came at the very end, when the two men, who had spent so many close, tense, emotional hours together - at times combative, at times cordial, but always standoffish - came to say their good-byes. This former president had stiffly called his adversary "Mr. Frost." Now Nixon took Frost's hand and addressed him with genuine affection as "David."
"It's Kind Of Fun To Do The Impossible"
- Walt Disney
Oh. I thought this was going to be a casting session with Disney characters, in which case I would suggest Scrooge McDuck as Richard Nixon and Jiminy Cricket as David Frost.
"Ta ta ta taaaa! Look at me... I'm a snowman! I'm gonna go stand on someone's lawn if I don't get something to do around here pretty soon!"
SpringHeelJack wrote:Oh. I thought this was going to be a casting session with Disney characters, in which case I would suggest Scrooge McDuck as Richard Nixon and Jiminy Cricket as David Frost.
A man can dream, can't he.
Actually, I'd make Dory from "Finding Nemo" to be Frost, and "Zeus" from Hercules to be Nixon.
Where's the rest of Elfego Baca and the Swamp Fox?
That Disney Fella! wrote:Some people may remember when "The Disney Channel" used to air programs, documentaries, and movies that appealed to adults specifically.
I've got an old VHS tape which has Spartacus on it, as Disney Channel broadcast it in 1996 (!).
That Disney Fella! wrote:Anyway, I was flipping through some old "Disney Channel Magazines" looking at programming line-ups and stuff and I found it interesting that in August/September 1994 "The Disney Channel" aired a series of programs called "The Nixon Interviews With David Frost: 1994 Special Edition". The description was as follows:
"In 1977, Davie Frost conducted sweeping interviews with former President Richard Nixon on foreign policy, the China gambit, Vietnam, the anti-war movement - and Watergate. Following each episode [of this series] in this 1994 special edition, David Frost introduces previously unseen footage from the 1977 sessions."
This series of programs aired throughout the month of August on Tuesday nights. ALSO, during the month of August the film "Final Days" (made in 1989 and 2 and 1/2 hour long) chronicling Woodward and Bernstein's account of the final days of the Nixon administration aired 3 seperate times!
Wow! I wouldn't mind having those on DVD! Especially the Nixon interviews. Only the "Watergate" portion is on DVD, the rest were only on VHS.
That Disney Fella! wrote:There were a ton of documentaries that aired on The Disney Channel (some of which have found DVD release elsewhere) including documentaries on "My Fair Lady", Steve McQueen, Laurel and Hardy, Martin & Lewis, Ray Harryhausen, and literally at least 50 more documentary programs!!!!!
There used to be a time when The Disney Channel actually had QUALITYprogramming.
As for who I'd cast in a Disney-style Frost/Nixon, Frost would be Basil from The Great Mouse Detective while Nixon would be Dr. Hans Reinhardt from The Black Hole.
albert
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
Spring, Jack! Heel, Jack! Don't Leave, Jack! wrote:
And hey I just noticed! I've been WISTed! I've finally done it. I can leave the forums a happy man.
You're not really leaving are you?
albert
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
Spring, Jack! Heel, Jack! Don't Leave, Jack! wrote:
And hey I just noticed! I've been WISTed! I've finally done it. I can leave the forums a happy man.
You're not really leaving are you?
albert
Heavens, no! I just mean in the abstract, as in when I'm 90 years old trying in vain to type my thoughts in here with my robo-fingers to complain about how the plate in my head means the new Disney pictures can't be beamed directly into my brain.
Do you go on the chats still? Every time I'm there, I'm like, the only person there, and I haven't talked to you in like, eight years. Or something.
"Ta ta ta taaaa! Look at me... I'm a snowman! I'm gonna go stand on someone's lawn if I don't get something to do around here pretty soon!"
It's a series I've done in my signature for awhile (along with WTF, which is "What the F_ck?!")
Play WISTy for Me, Brendan wrote:Heavens, no! I just mean in the abstract, as in when I'm 90 years old trying in vain to type my thoughts in here with my robo-fingers to complain about how the plate in my head means the new Disney pictures can't be beamed directly into my brain.
Ah, gotcha.
And you know you can always illegally beam the new disney pictures in your brain if you get a special chip on the plate. It has yet to be approved by the government, but it's been a success in Europe so far. No side effects, at least none that's life threatening. You'll grow an extra arm, but that's about it.
ChatSpat Brendan wrote:Do you go on the chats still? Every time I'm there, I'm like, the only person there, and I haven't talked to you in like, eight years. Or something.
Yeah, I haven't frequented chat much. I was there last night, but didn't stay long. And on Friday night was in chat for awhile with Jane and plinks and a couple others. Kinda odd that Jane and I were in chat, we were sitting in the same room watching Disney movies, so we could've just talked to each other instead of chat.
albert
WIST #60:
AwallaceUNC: Would you prefer Substi-Blu-tiary Locomotion?
WIST #61:
TheSequelOfDisney: Damn, did Lin-Manuel Miranda go and murder all your families?
This movie "Final Days" was also shown on The Disney Channel during that month of August. I haven't seen it, but found a few reviews on amazon.com. Check it out:
