What was the most shocking/profound things you've seen on TV?

[Danny Tse]

Just out of curiousity.

For me, it was (not in any particular order)....

1. That Bank of America robbery where the police was seriously overwhelmed by the 2 bad guys with body armour and machine guns.
2. The man blocking the the path of a column of tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
3. 9/11 footage
4. Drew Berrymore "flashing" David Letterman
5. The TV show "Twin Peaks"....and later on, "The X-Files".

[Kex]

Janet Jackson's boob. I mean ... I totally see why the network had to pay a fine for showing that: I'm traumatized for life (and at such a young age, too).

[reberly]

1. Challenger Disaster, when i was just a wee boy.
2. First Gulf War. We had never had that level of coverage before and you couldn't tear yourself away from it

[polkatese]

Really, Kex? you ain't seen nuthin' yet then....pick up a copy of Fatal Attraction flick then.

It has to be 9/11 tower II hit, for me.

[Roy Munson]

I think the most profound thing I've ever seen on TV was when we first landed on the moon. The pictures were crap but the impact of sending humans to the moon had a big affect on this 17 year old that had been following the space program from the beginning. I still believe that going to the moon was the greatest technical achievement in history. In the span of a little over 60 years we went from no human flight to landing on the moon!

[Fongolio]

First moon landing and walk. I was 9 and it was magical.

9/11. I was 40 and it was surreal.

The first time on SNL's Weekend Update when Akroyd said to Jane Curtain "Jane you ignorant slut." I was stoned and it was hilarious.

[Keiko]

South Park :D ;)

Dave Chappelle's skit; Clayton Bigsby, Black, White Supremacist.

[Danny Tse]

Those are all good picks. One TV show episode that really hit me was an episode of "Homicide. Life on the Streets" (I think that was the show title) where a jerk got trapped between a subway car and the platform. Basically, everyone, except him, knew he was going to die once they moved the car.

Oh, that episode was very memorable....and the guy trapped was played by Vincent D'Onofrio. Such an ironic ending as well.

[nooshinjohn]

9/11

The Challenger disaster

The Zapruder film,

and M.A.S.H.

[xcapri79]

Shocking
1. 9/11, I saw the second jet hit in real time.
2. Hurricane Katrina.
3. Challenger disaster.
4. JFK assasination.
5. President Clinton lying to us about his conduct... "I did not have xxx".
6. Black Panthers at polling stations.

Profound
1. Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon surface.
2. Berlin Wall coming down.
3. Polish Communist leader General Jaruzelski literally shaking in his boots standing near Pope John Paul II.
4. Protest in Tiananmen Square.
5. Paul Henderson scoring the winning goal for Team Canada against the Russians in 1972.
6. New Orleans Saints winning the Superbowl.

[piper]

I once saw a show on Cyrogenics on the Discovery Channel. They were talking about freezing a near dead person to fix him up later once the cure was discovered in the future. There is full body freezing or just cutting off one's head and freezing....and they showed just that, not clearly, but they did show these people cutting off this guy's head and putting it in the deep freeze.

Dittos on 9/11.

[FiveORacing]

9/11 (far and away the worst)
Challenger
OJ Verdict
Moon Landing
JFK Funeral (I was 9 years old)
Hurricane Katrina
LA Rodney King Riots
Earnhardt Sr Death (I'm a huge race fan)
Obama Winning
Princess Di death coverage (still don't know why that fascinated me)

[fatchowmein]

The most profound.
Watching the first Space Shuttle landing live in the library when I was in grade school. April 14, 1981.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnEnaKq57Yg

The most shocking.
J. Geils band's "Centerfold" video. We just got cable TV and I didn't know what all the excitement was about so I surfed all the channels and stumbled upon a bunch of girls wearing lingerie dancing on MTV in its early years. I was in grade school.

I think I caught the video around the 1:44 minute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDjMZKf-wg

[George Grand]

Airplanes shooting a gorilla off the top of The Empire State Building.


Anybody else see that?

[warren]

.


Anybody else see that?
With just one eye..... Scarey!!!

[Keiko]

Airplanes shooting a gorilla off the top of The Empire State Building.


Anybody else see that?

Too funny, George. :D

[Poee7R]

It's cheesy, but watching Porky's on HBO when I was 8-9 years old. You know the shower scene. :D

Its stuck with me all these years haha.


Dave

[F1nut]

The assassination of JFK
Landing on the moon
9/11

[Keiko]

Watching porno on my Sony, Super Betamax.

[k0tuynh]

Porn movies in my pay per view channels lol

[ryanjoachim]

Real Sex (HBO) - Back when HBO was free (I was probably in middle school)
Porn PPV - back when the channels were all distorted but every now and then an image would convalesce for just a second of 2 of NAKED SEX OMG!
9/11 - Remember hearing about this on the way to school and watching it throughout the day in high school.

[shack]

These are things I watched in real time...just as they happened.

9-11 - The second tower being hit. I could not belive it was happening. Also the people jumping off the upper floors of the tower to their deaths.

The Challenger exploding...I was hoping it was just a small explosion and the crew survived...and of course they didn't.

On a brighter note...

Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon.

The Beatles first time on Ed Sullivan

The last episode of MASH

[Huck344]

In 1983 during the height of the cold war, there was a TV movie called, "The Day After" about the after effects of a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. I was 11 or 12 at the time. It was a very controversial movie. Only a couple of kids in my class were allowed to watch it. My parents let me watch it and to this day, that movie is burned in my brain. By today's standards it's pretty tame, but it scared the crap out of me back then and I will never forget it.

I will also never forget being woken up by a phone call on 9/11. It was just after 6AM here on the west coast. I honestly thought it was a joke or a hoax or something. I just couldn't believe it.

[vc69]

Just out of curiousity.

For me, it was (not in any particular order)....

1. That Bank of America robbery where the police was seriously overwhelmed by the 2 bad guys with body armour and machine guns.
2. The man blocking the the path of a column of tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Those are strong with me too Danny.

I was watching...

When the first bombs started exploding in Baghdad, Gulf War.

When Challenger exploded.

When news of the tsunami in the Indian ocean started coming in.

When Reagan was shot.

When the P.O.W.'s started coming home from Viet Nam.

Timothy McVeigh's execution.

Thats all I can think of besides the obvious 9/11 stuff.

[heiney9]

Don't foget about WACO

Moon Landing it seems I remember watching it at the babysitters house I was about 3 or 4 years old.

Lennon being shot.

John Wayne Gacy a local serial molester/killer

1st MTV broadcast

Columbine shooting

Regan shooting

These are in addition to those already mentioned.

[nooshinjohn]

The Challenger exploding...I was hoping it was just a small explosion and the crew survived...and of course they didn't.

I had a dear friend in Los Angeles, (he passed several years ago:( ) that was involved in the early design work for the shuttle. Columbia and Challenger were designed with crew modules that were intended to separate along a bulkhead and land in the water like the Apollo return vehicles did. His work was with designing parachutes and the pyrotechnics needed to deploy them. He was one of those that believed until his death that at least some of the crew survived the initial failure of the vehicle.

His part in the program ended with the budget axe after NASA determined that any accident during re-entry or launch would be unservivable. Every time this was discussed, he wept because he knew better...

[shack]

Don't foget about WACO.

While I have no sympathy for the position those people took...the children(and some of the adults) did not deserve to die that way. I know it was a decision on some of thier parts...but to watch that building burn, knowing there were people inside was sickening. Starve them out...wait them out...whatever...but don't kill them out of impatience.

[geoffr]

Some of the above, plus Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby.

[cstmar01]

South Park :D ;)

Dave Chappelle's skit; Clayton Bigsby, Black, White Supremacist.

so freakin' great. just love it, I can watch that and laugh every time I see it (which is countless amount)

[BlueMDPicker]

Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" followed by his weekly, live interviews on "Person to Person" still rank highly with me after nearly 60 years of television. Ed was a no BS guy and really expanded the horizons of a kid growing up on the Great Plains.

Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man" series on PBS ranks right up there as well. He was dying of cancer during the filming and had much he wanted to impart.

Elvis' first live appearance on the Ed Sullivan show was shocking, simply shocking (for the time.) :D

Jack Ruby gut shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, live in the parking garage of the Dallas PD, was an unexpected trauma for a nation already in shock and mourning. I witnessed that from our living room.

9/11 is burned into the minds of all those who witnessed the live coverage. Like many, I saw the second plane hit live. Minutes later I saw the huge plume of ink black smoke rising from the Pentagon from my office window in DC. I really thought WW III had begun. In retrospect, perhaps it had?