The phones started ringing moments after the show was preempted.
The response was so overwhelming that Jason Wheldon, the Station Manager of NOBC affiliate WWHO-TV, rushed to the basement of the Spellman Building to take some of the calls personally and, he hoped, deflect some of the criticism away from the switchboard operator who was, after all, only doing her job.
“Where’s my Days of Our Lives!” a woman screamed at him. “And, what’s going to happen to Edge of Night?”
Jason remained calm. “As you can see,” he explained, “an emergency situation has developed at the White House -“
“Emergency?” the woman interrupted. “I’ll tell you what an emergency really is: me missing my soaps! Now, what are you going to do -“
“Madame,” Jason interrupted in his turn, “did you actually see what was happening?”
The woman thought for a moment, then blurted: “The President is running around naked on the lawn of the White House?”
“No,” Jason stated, “It was the Secretary of Defense who was running naked on the White House lawn, alternately shouting ‘We are armed! We are politicians! And, we know where you live!’ and cackling like some half-crazed armadillo.”
“Well, as long as the President is in charge, then -“
“The same group of left-over hippies and Freaks from the 60s who seized control of the White House spiked the water supply with LSD, shaved the President’s head and locked him in a closet,” Jason told the woman. “I understand the President has taken to singing the theme from Ponderosa over and over again…”
“But,” the woman asked, “who was painted silver and had to be rushed to hospital to have large sections of his skin removed so he wouldn’t die of suffocation?”
“That would be the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.”
“Oh.”
“You would have known all of this,” Jason gently scolded her, “if you had been paying attention to our news coverage…”
“I don’t want to pay attention to your news coverage,” the woman, voice trembling, obviously on the verge of tears, sobbed. “I just want my soaps back. Please, can I have my soaps back? Please?”
Jason assured her that WWHO would return to regular programming as soon as it was possible, and had to hang up because the switchboard was overflowing with incoming calls. The network had started its news coverage of the emergency at the White House at 2:13pm eastern standard time; by 3:00pm, WWHO was swamped with calls. In less than an hour, they may have been as many as 1,000 (nobody had the time to do a proper count). Then, disgruntled viewers started showing up on the station’s front lawn…
“No!” Jason, whose nerves were getting more than a little frazzled, shouted into the receiver. “The hippies are still holding hands a forming a human chain around the White House singing “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?’ It’s hippies! Get it? Hippies!”
“I got it!” the man on the other end of the line shouted back. “Bloody Commies! Where’s the Secretary of Defense? He’d nuke all of Washington before he’d let something like this happen!”
“Actually,” Jason said, hesitantly, “He’s joined the chain.
“Joined the chain!” the man shrieked. “What’s the President doing about all of this?”
“The President,” Jason explained, trying to remain calm, “now refuses to come out of his closet. But, I understand that just five minutes ago, he shoved a Presidential order under the crack of the door saying that everybody was beautiful but making it illegal to use day-glo colours within the limits of any city with a population greater than 5,000 people…”
“The whole country has gone insane!”
Jason was about to agree when Jennifer Leigh, the Station’s Programming Director, appeared by his side. “You better come outside and see what’s going on,” she advised him. Jason unceremoniously hung up.
Outside, dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred people, were stamping around on the front lawn of the Spellman Building, yelling, “What do we want? Programming! When do we want it? Now!” and “Hell, no! Where’s our show!” Jason swore under his breath and made a quick decision.
“Miss Leigh,” he asked, “do we have anything to offer them?”
Following him out the front doors, Jennifer replied, “Only reruns of Rawhide, Mister Wheldon.”
Jason didn’t feel reassured. “Friends,” he shouted, and the crowd was immediately attentive. “Please. Surely, we can work out our differences without resorting to -” A copy of Soap Opera Digest whistled past Jason’s ear, and he realized that, in fact, he had been wrong: they couldn’t work out their differences without resorting to mob rules. “Alright,” Jason shouted, “we will return to programming at…3:30!”
The crowd cheered.
“We can only offer reruns of Rawhide…” Jason started. The crowd moaned ominously and somebody started hissing. “Miss Leigh…?” Jason asked, hopefully. “I might be able to scare up some old episodes of Let’s Make a Deal,” Jennifer responded, “maybe even The Dating Game…”
Jason relayed this information to the crowd, which seemed to accept it gratefully and quietly began to disperse. “Phew,” Jason sighed. “I’ve never had to face anything as scary as 100 housewives and househusbands angry at missing their daytime television programmes before. I pray that I never have to face it again!”
At 3:30, WWHO cut away from national coverage of the on-going crisis at the White House to rerun old episodes of game shows, which was unfortunate, because it was only after 3:30 that the news story really got interesting…