The TV time capsule of John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Transport yourself back to a time when America had only three major television networks and a single daytime talk show was capable of generating viewership of up to 40 million a week, more than a fifth of the population at the time . Now imagine, if you will, a television climate in which a beloved afternoon TV appointment, watched in red and blue states, would risk alienating a significant portion of its audience by welcoming as co-hosts a celebrity couple known for their revolutionary zeal. You can almost hear the alarmed cries of the clothes: “We will lose the housewives!”

But this really happened in February 1972, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono, having just written their human rights protest song “Attica State”, a lament for the lives lost in the tragic prison riot and a scathing denunciation of the judicial actions and penalties of the country. systems – sat down with the affable host of The Mike Douglas Show for a whole week. They were free to invite guests of their choice to talk about everything from politics to biofeedback therapy to the benefits of a macrobiotic diet. The Doctor by Erik Nelson Daytime revolution reassembles that bold experiment of bringing the counterculture to the streets as a lively time capsule.

The Beatles had disbanded two years earlier and Lennon remained a superstar of world music, while his wife Ono was an even more controversial figure at the time. Longtime fans blamed the legendary band's breakup – rightly or not – on the Japanese multimedia artist, who was seen as an intrusive presence when Lennon began bringing her along to recording sessions.

But the couple's symbiotic relationship and Douglas' natural warmth and professionalism made the unorthodox meeting a surprisingly smooth resolution once the initial nervousness got over. Lennon's charm seems to have been a great help; he was seen more than once acting as a reassuring mediator between Douglas and their guests.

When Douglas asks, at the start of the first of their five episodes, what they would like to talk about over the course of the week, Lennon and Ono respond: “Love, peace, communication, women's liberation, racism, prison conditions, drugs. ” They make it clear that their creative and political agendas are intertwined and they are there to spread the word. If Douglas has any apprehension about how palatable this might be to his audience, he doesn't let it show.

At first glance, Douglas would seem to belong to a generation and mentality incompatible with Lennon and Ono. This impression is reinforced by the lounge version of the Beatles' “Michelle”, which the former Big Band singer performs as an introduction. But Douglas' openness, as well as Lennon and Ono's relaxed spontaneity, is one reason the experiment works.

Even when Douglas expresses disagreement with host Jerry Rubin's radical views, fearing that he might bring a disruptive element, the host is respectful and receptive as the activist talks about mobilizing the nation's disaffected youth to help defeat Nixon. That moment is one of many in which the ability of people at opposite ends of the political spectrum to exchange ideas without hostility stands in stark contrast to today's climate of maximum-decibel anger.

Mostly, Douglas seems excited to chat with guests outside his normal bookmaking orbit, or to participate in Ono's joint art projects, one of which involves reassembling, one piece a day, a broken teacup. The atmosphere is convivial, but also frank and informative, with appearances from names like Ralph Nader, Black Panther president Bobby Seale and comedian George Carlin.

Then there are the less familiar faces, like biofeedback researcher Gary Schwarz, who hooks them all up to electrodes to measure their internal responses to music; avant-garde musician David Rosenboom; macrobiotic chef Hilary Redleaf, who leads a cooking demonstration making hijiki pockets; and folk singers/activists Nobuko Miyamoto and Chris Iijima, known as Yellow Pearl, whose beautiful song about second-generation migrants “We Are the Children,” carries a message that is still relevant more than 50 years later.

Miyamoto, Schwarz, Rosenboom and Redleaf are among a handful of guests who have added comments in the present, rewatching videos of their appearances and recalling their initial disbelief when they got the call to appear with Lennon and Ono. Miyamoto shares a great anecdote about resisting the show's director's attempts to tone down some lyrics deemed subversive, while Redleaf proudly displays the payment receipt for his $100 fee (he cashed the check).

Singer Vivian Reed, who performs the stirring gospel hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow” in one of the episodes, also looks back, with joy, at what really happened. Reed had worked with Douglas in Las Vegas, so together with frequent guest Carlin, he provided a bridge between the host's comfort zone and that of Lennon and Ono.

Nader, who was 37 at the time and is now 90, provides the context for why these episodes were so transgressive. In his 1972 appearance, he recommended an instruction manual so that politically and socially motivated students could organize themselves, promoting a more responsible understanding of citizenship. In the contemporary interview, he ironically echoes the sentiments of Lennon and Ono encouraging young people to get out and vote, reminding us that skepticism is more useful than cynicism in politics.

An interesting side note in all of this is the presence behind the cameras of Roger Ailes, who had worked his way up from publicist to producer on the show. Noting that Ailes had first met Nixon when the politician was a guest — a meeting that led to him working on the candidate's first presidential campaign — Nader makes the droll observation that you could see the future Fox News CEO studying every aspect of the news machine. television production, thinking, “One day I will ensure that television becomes an important tool of right-wing politics.”

Nelson leaves a gap in the documentary by not discussing any fluctuations in viewership during that week, or whether any of the countless syndication stations that aired the show received letters of complaint. But plenty of firsthand information and off-camera observations are provided by longtime associate producer EV Di Massa, who was 24 the week of the broadcast.

While the focus is more on social change than music, Lennon reflects on the Beatles years, his upbringing and early influences (he and Paul McCartney shared dreams of following in the footsteps of Carole King and Gerry Goffin as the next great songwriting team). . He is quoted as saying that the basement studio in Philadelphia where The Mike Douglas Show was recorded reminded him of the legendary early Beatles venue, The Cavern, in Liverpool. Amusingly, it offers the faintest praise for McCartney's early albums with Wings, although it's worth noting that this was a year before their commercial and critical breakthrough with Gang on the run.

Ono's musical interludes may be a little harsh on the ears, but they definitely have value as quirky period pieces. Lennon's stirring keyboard performance of “Imagine” takes a song trivialized by decades of cheesy covers and restores it to its purest form.

The musical highlight, however, is Lennon's first ever meeting with one of his inspirational heroes, Chuck Berry, who looks like a cute cat in a fringed purple shirt and crisp white pants. When Berry busts out his signature duckwalk moves on the guitar during a duet with Lennon on “Memphis, Tennessee,” it's delightful to see the groups' faces light up. The unexpected aspect of the musical segments only adds to the pleasure.

Attempts to integrate archival news footage from the era — Nixon's trip to China, disinformation in Vietnam, marijuana scaremongering, school bus protests — could be smoother, but show footage is the right protagonists.

There has been no shortage of documentaries on Lennon; It's been just over a month since the Venice Film Festival premiered both One by one: John and Yokoan intimate record of a year of life, and TWST: Things we said todayan experimental snapshot of the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965. But this summary of a unique and deeply sincere attempt to demystify utopian ideals for the conservative masses using the platform of popular television offers a fascinating glimpse into a very different period of the past of this country.

Text on the screen at the end notes that within weeks of the broadcasts, the Nixon administration moved to silence the couple, triggering a three-year legal battle when Lennon was threatened with deportation. That chapter, not surprisingly, was covered in another document, the one from 2006 The United States against John Lennon.