The Mike Douglas Show: February 17, 1972 (1972) Reviews

In 1972, John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, made a strategic and historic week-long guest appearance on the hit talk/variety television program The Mike Douglas Show, hoping to get their counterculture message across to middle America. Day four, February 17, 1972, features Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale talking in the last segment about the Panthers' nonviolent agenda of "intercommunalism," or redistribution of wealth and resources -- an agenda scarcely, if ever, covered by mainstream media. Earlier in the program, Douglas gets Lennon to talk about his childhood, teens, and the death of his mother, Julia, by a drunk driver when Lennon was 16. Other guests include pop and gospel singer and Broadway actress Vivian Reed; comedy troupe the Ace Trucking Company; National Black Youth Conference organizer Marsha Martin, and Donald Williams of the Mid-Peninsula Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation. Vivian Reed sings "Everybody's Talkin'" and "His Arm Is on the Sparrow." Also featured is performance art by Yoko Ono and the music video for the song "Mrs. Lennon" from the Imagine album. ~ Steve Blackburn, Rovi