Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

So today, October 9th would be John Lennon's 84th birthday. And I'm sure there will be flowers, as there

always are, to mark the occasion left in Central Park, Strawberry Fields near 72nd Street.

And maybe you listen to imagine in his honor. But that version that we were just playing

is from a new documentary about a lesser

known and kind of quirky chapter in his life, the week in 1972 when he and Yoko Ono co-hosted

the Mike Douglas show, a very popular afternoon television talk show in its day. They performed,

did some art, and book the guests who included Ralph Nader in 1972,

Eldridge Cleaver, the activist Jerry Rubin, not the usual fare for daytime television in the

70s. The film is Daytime Revolution, and I'm joined now by the director, Eric Nelson.

Hey, Eric, welcome to the show. Delighted to be here on this auspicious birthday.

Indeed. And just to start, for people too young to remember, Mike Douglas, can you explain

what the show was, who its audience was, and the kinds of guests you might have expected

to see on a given afternoon when John and Yoko were not the co-hosts?

Mike Douglas was Mr. America, a decidedly mainstream talk show house, a host on daytime television.

In New York, the Mike Douglas show, I think, aired at 430 in the afternoon, and occasionally

would do a 60 share, that's 6-0 share, of people watching TV in New York.

So it was an immensely vital link between New York and Middle America, reaching 40 million

Americans across the country.

So it's hard to imagine anything that popular today, but the Mike Douglas show was that thing.

Right. And that's not the vibe that one would have thought of with respect to John and Yoko in 1972,

...