Ted Turner’s End of the World Video
JoJo Girard and I both went to Central Michigan. At CMU before the politically correct 1990s, the annual Central/Western weekend (when WMU and CMU played the home football game in Mt. Pleasant) was also the home of the "End of the World" party. Ahh those were the days!
Those days are long gone, but in a related time capsule trip, Ted Turner, broadcaster and founder of CNN, thought the "End of the World" was coming quicker than anyone thought. And now, an intern at CNN has found the video "Terrible Ted" wanted played on the news channel when the end was near.
"When CNN launched in 1980, founder Ted Turner already knew how it was going to end. "Barring satellite problems, we won't be signing off until the world ends," he reportedly said. "When the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God To Thee' before we sign off."
According to various rumors over the past three decades, Turner made good on that promise, creating a tape that would only be played in case of apocalypse: the combined Armed Forces marching band playing "Nearer My God to Thee," according to The New Yorker. But few people had ever seen the tape... until now. Jalopnik writer Michael Ballaban has posted a grainy, minute-long video that he says he unearthed in 2009 while interning for Wolf Blitzer at The Situation Room, under the simple name "Turner Doomsday Video" (as seen in the screenshot above.) Formatted for standard-definition 4:3 television, it would make a bizarre sight today — although we might, obviously, be too busy with the end of days to notice."
(Craig's note: And now you cant even see the video from that link. Hmmm. Coincidence?)
In a surprisingly lo-tech 1980 kind of way, clicking on that link is the way to see the video. It's not Earth shattering, but it is pretty Ted Turner funny, if it's all true.
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