Current Events > I had no idea that thing from Poltergeist was real.

(+) Yeah! (+)

That part about a channel playing the national anthem before going off the air. That had to be really weird for non-Americans watching the movie.

>_>

I just DVR'd this since I hadn't seen the movie before. Might watch tomorrow.

Made me think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzhPzHhnFl0

I thought it was something made up by the movie for a Pavlov's dog effect. When you hear the anthem, you know that ghosts are near.

I mean, the movie uses it for that purpose. It's just that they didn't create the concept of a channel playing an instrumental version of the American national anthem before signing off for the night.

FortuneCookie posted...

That had to be really weird for non-Americans watching the movie.

I always found it to be weird indeed. Just as weird as kids being forced to pledge allegiance to the flag every morning.

Shotgunnova posted...

I just DVR'd this since I hadn't seen the movie before. Might watch tomorrow.

Enjoy! Easily my favorite horror movie and the effects still manage to either hold up or just impress considering it's a 40 year old movie.

its apparently real but I don't remember seeing it. But maybe I was just always in bed by the time it happened. I was under 10 for the entire 80s.

Yep, always saw it because I'd stay up late weekdays to watch star trek reruns on one of the local stations.

Not that long ago Cartoon Network used to do it when it changed from night programming to day programming. Not sure if they still do.

Then they realized they could just do more advertisements and the infomercial was born.

I remember seeing it when I was really young (like early to mid 80s) on a small channel.

They used to do it irl. I guess im old enough to remember

This happened in other countries as well so I'm sure the 'non-Americans' would have been fine.

kurdt032 posted...

This happened in other countries as well so I'm sure the 'non-Americans' would have been fine.

It's fair to refer to the international audience as non-Americans when comparing their customs specifically to an American custom. Situational classification is a thing.

TV channels were doing that as recent as the late 90's where the station you were watching would sign off for the night. After that it'd usually just be infomercials or some crap.