Chatter: “The Day After” and Dad with A. B. Stoddard
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
Brandon Stoddard was one of the most accomplished executives in broadcast television history. In his career at ABC, he helped bring to the small screen such legendary mini-series as “Roots” and “The Winds of War,” as well as the acclaimed television series “Moonlighting” and “Roseanne.” But arguably his most consequential and controversial decision was to air the made-for-TV movie “The Day After,” which graphically depicted the effects of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Stoddard faced opposition from his colleagues, pundits, and even the Reagan White House, which pressured ABC to pull the film. But having conceived of the project as an impetus for people around the world to grapple with the potential of a devastating war, Stoddard forged ahead and broadcast the film in November 1983.
It was an epochal event in U.S. history. One hundred million people tuned in to watch, and the movie became the most-watched in television history. It was a national moment of the kind Americans rarely share today.
Journalist A. B. Stoddard, Brandon’s daughter, spoke with Shane Harris about her dad’s determination to air the film and what he hoped to achieve. Stoddard is well known for her political commentary and work at The Bulwark. But today, she shares personal memories of her father, his illustrious career, and the legacy of his work. In November of last year, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of “The Day After,” she wrote a column, “The Day My Father Scared America.”
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
A.B. Stoddard’s column on her dad
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/brandon-stoddard-the-day-after
Shane’s previous conversation with Nicholas Meyer, who directed “The Day After”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-day-after-with-nicholas-meyer/id1593674288?i=1000558946928
A.B. Stoddard’s columns for The Bulwark
https://substack.com/@abstoddard
The catalog of Brandon Stoddard’s work
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0830992/
Brandon Stoddard’s induction in the Television Academy Hall of Fame
https://www.emmys.com/bios/brandon-stoddard
“The Day After” (on YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGRP9Zy1lg
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Jay Venables of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:52.0 | This is Chatter, I'm Shane Harris. This week journalist A.B. Stoddard on the day after and her dad. He said many times at that time that he was not pushing any kind of policy or outcome, but to bring Americans face to face with the horrors of nuclear war. |
| 1:00.0 | He literally, his quote was, I wanted people to decide what they were going to do about it. |
| 1:05.8 | He just pushed it off a building and people had to deal with the consequences. And it's fascinating that we would have a giant sit-down post-mortem after a TV show, |
| 1:22.0 | let alone with someone from the Secretary of State. A.B. Stoddard, welcome to Chatter. Thank you for joining us. |
| 1:38.0 | Thank you so much for having me, Shane, and thanks for your interest in this whole topic. |
| 1:44.4 | Yeah, so you may not need much of an introduction to a lot of our listeners who are probably |
| 1:49.6 | very familiar with your political writing, your journalism, the work that you've done over the years |
| 1:55.0 | for the Bullwork, on the Bullwork Podcast, writing for the site. |
| 1:59.3 | But we're here today to talk about something a little bit different. So to introduce people to that, |
| 2:05.4 | who was your dad and what is the project that he is so associated with that we're going to be |
| 2:11.0 | talking about today? My father's name was Brandon's with He started out in advertising. He ended up in television. He started out in daytime. He moved to nighttime, to prime time to television shows, and he moved to what became known as the mini series, the multi-night |
| 2:37.1 | television program and then he dabbled for a while in feature films. |
| 2:42.4 | ABC actually had a four year run during which they made six films |
| 2:49.1 | They succeeded to the box office Flamingo kid with Matt Damon. |
| 2:54.2 | Silkwood with Merrill Streep, |
| 2:56.5 | were several of them, Pritzi's honor. |
| 2:58.2 | So they did quite well, but that was a limited experiment. |
| 3:02.3 | And then he basically continued with the making a mini series and the day after is known to many Americans because it depicted the horrors of nuclear war and that's what we're talking about here and it's so interesting |
... |
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