By request, one of the most famous episodes from the second season: "In Concert," written and aired soon after the 1979 The Who Concert in Cincinnati where several fans were trampled to death. Steven Kampmann, one of the writers, felt that as a show about rock radio in Cincinnati they couldn't avoid dealing with the event, so he came up with this story. Hugh Wilson was reluctant to do it initially, but agreed to do the episode if they could take a stand against the "festival seating" that caused the tragedy (since that would give the episode a purpose and not make it exploitative). Originally the caption at the end of the episode was supposed to chide other cities for not following Cincinnati's example in banning festival seating, but CBS refused to allow that and changed the caption to something less controversial.
Music: "The Wait" by The Pretenders; "Sympathy For the Devil" by The Rolling Stones, and in the final scene, "Remembering the Rain" by Bill Evans. Steven Kampmann does the voice of the contest winner in the opening scene.
Thanks for putting these up...how big's the missing chunk in the middle?
ReplyDeleteThere's no missing chunk; this is the complete episode. Act 1 ends with them going off to the concert and Act 2 starts the morning after the concert.
ReplyDeleteI saw McCartney in 76 at the same venue, also with festival seating. I saw thousands of people already lined up on the 6 O'Clock News so I hurried there and worked my way up as close as I could. I was still knocked down and trampled when they opened the doors. I crawled to the first seat I could find (which was the worst in the house!) and clutched it for dear life! A guy I knew broke a limb at the Who concert and was interviewed by Cronkite on TV the next evening.A girl I dated a few years later told me she was there but that she had flashed somebody to get them to open up a side door early and let her in!
ReplyDeleteThat was fantastic - thanks so much for taking my request!
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