Top 10 Live TV Moments That Left Us Speechless
Live TV leaves nothing to the imagination! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for events or happenings on live television that left us amazed, shocked, or emotional.
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00:00 "It scared the crap out of us. And it mobilized us."
00:05 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for events or
00:09 happenings on live television that left us amazed, shocked, or emotional.
00:14 "I looked up and I saw one of our chief engineers in tears.
00:17 'We can't get the crew,' she said. 'They've been incommunicado.'"
00:21 Number 10. JFK Addresses the Cuban Missile Crisis
00:26 "Good evening, my fellow citizens."
00:28 The 1960s were fraught with Cold War tension, and this is best exemplified
00:33 through the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The public became aware of the crisis on the
00:38 night of October 22, when President John F. Kennedy made a televised address
00:43 explaining that Soviet missiles were found in Cuba.
00:46 "This sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time
00:52 outside of Soviet soil is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo."
01:00 Said missiles were capable of flying to the mainland United States and destroying major cities.
01:05 "Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D.C.,
01:10 the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City,
01:14 or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States."
01:18 This caused understandable panic, as many citizens feared an impending nuclear war.
01:24 Luckily, the panic lasted just six days,
01:27 as Soviet forces began dismantling the missile sites on October 28.
01:32 That was a very long week, and it all began with JFK's historic address to the nation.
01:38 "Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right.
01:42 Not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom.
01:48 Here in this hemisphere, and we hope around the world, God willing, that goal will be achieved.
01:56 Thank you and good night."
01:58 9. The Max Headroom Hijacking
02:02 While it's now a famous piece of history, we couldn't imagine the confusion of seeing the
02:07 Max Headroom hijacking the first time. The first incident occurred at 9pm on Chicago's WGN-TV,
02:13 when a sports broadcast was interrupted by someone wearing a Max Headroom mask.
02:18 The intrusion lasted just 17 seconds, and the Max figure never spoke.
02:22 The second incident was far more detailed, occurring at 11.20 and interrupting an episode of Doctor Who.
02:29 "Because it was a freaking man. He's talking about Chuck's roasting me."
02:35 The Max figure made various pop culture references and conducted troll-like
02:40 behavior for a solid 90 seconds before the broadcast was intentionally ended by the hijackers.
02:46 "My brother is wearing the other one. But it's dirty."
02:52 The pirate transmission understandably confused many viewers,
02:55 and the culprits have never been identified.
02:58 "Takes some pretty sophisticated microwave equipment
03:00 operating in the broadcast auxiliary frequency bands, and a significant amount of power."
03:07 8. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald
03:11 We return to John F. Kennedy, who was tragically assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22,
03:18 1963. Just two days later, Oswald himself was dead at the hands of nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
03:24 At 11.21am on November 24, Oswald was leaving the Dallas Police headquarters for the nearby
03:31 county jail. As this was a huge news story, Oswald's transfer was being broadcast live on NBC.
03:38 Therefore, viewers watched in real-time as Ruby approached Oswald and shot him in the abdomen.
03:44 Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead at 1.07pm.
03:49 While nothing graphic was seen, it's still extraordinarily shocking
03:53 to watch a shooting as it occurs.
03:55 "When Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, there went our ability to question the one man who
04:01 pulled the trigger."
04:02 7. The OJ Simpson Bronco Chase
04:05 When it comes to live TV moments from the 90s, the infamous OJ Simpson Bronco Chase
04:10 is right up there.
04:12 "And there you see just a huge number of police cars, CHP, Orange County Sheriff, LAPD,
04:17 presumably Los Angeles County Police Department as well, as well as LA County Sheriff's cars,
04:23 all a respectful distance behind, just waiting, hopefully, for this to play itself out peacefully."
04:29 It occurred on June 17, 1994, shortly after the former football star was charged with the murder
04:35 of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
04:38 The police arrived at the home of Robert Kardashian to arrest Simpson,
04:42 but he had fled with Al Cowlings in a white Ford Bronco.
04:46 "The vehicle is registered to Al Cowling, a former teammate,
04:49 close friend of OJ Simpson's, who has been a fugitive from justice now almost 12 hours."
04:55 The resulting chase across the LA highway system was televised live,
05:00 reaching nearly 100 million viewers.
05:02 It was such a huge event that every major network interrupted their programming to air the chase.
05:08 "I know that he's just feeling like everything is going against him right now, but
05:12 he's not doing himself any good by just proceeding like this."
05:18 It was a Hollywood thriller playing out in real life,
05:20 and no one could really believe it was happening.
05:23 6. Christian Eriksson collapses on the field
05:26 A prominent Danish soccer player, Christian Eriksson, was competing at Euro 2020 when a
05:32 horrifying incident occurred. Shortly before halftime, Eriksson stumbled and collapsed on
05:37 the pitch after suffering a cardiac arrest. While he was immediately attended to,
05:41 the medical process was incredibly difficult to watch. Players and fans watched in silent worry
05:47 as the medical team desperately administered CPR.
05:50 Even worse was seeing Eriksson's partner, Sabrina Jensen, being comforted by teammates.
05:56 The BBC received up to 6,000 complaints from distraught viewers who had grown upset over
06:01 the visuals. And the Denmark head coach says it was wrong to ask the players to resume the match.
06:07 "Players who are in a shock condition, players who are almost, and they don't really know yet
06:15 if they lost their best friend, and they have to decide."
06:18 Luckily, Eriksson would make a full recovery and return to soccer just eight months later.
06:23 5. The Tam Luang Cave Rescue
06:33 The advent of social media has allowed us to follow breaking news not just on TV,
06:38 but on our phones and tablets. As such, the entire Tam Luang Cave Rescue was broadcast live
06:44 for 18 days between June 23rd and July 10th, 2018.
06:49 "Rescue teams drilling holes using ultrasonic sensors, dropping maps and care packages through
06:55 small crevices in the hopes that the team was alive."
06:58 A Thai soccer team and one of their coaches entered a cave in northern Thailand
07:02 and became trapped after monsoon rain flooded the system.
07:06 "What stands between the boys and the daylight they haven't seen in two weeks
07:10 is about a mile and a half underground obstacle course of rocky chambers,
07:15 half-flooded canals, and fully submerged sections."
07:19 This prompted an enormous international response as governments from all over the world sent aid
07:24 and assistance in extracting the team. After weeks of planning, the rescue itself was
07:28 conducted between July 8th and the 10th and was extensively covered in the media.
07:33 "We are coming, it's ok. Many people are coming. Many, many people. We are the first.
07:39 Many people come."
07:40 Everyone was rescued without injury, but two responders tragically died in the process.
07:46 "We were not scared. We knew that people would try to help us
07:51 and we try to support each other when we're in there."
07:54 Number 4. 9/11
07:56 September 11th, 2001 is a date that will never be forgotten.
08:00 "We believe that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York."
08:05 The horror began at 8.46 in the morning and lasted all day,
08:10 with most people foregoing work and school to follow the proceedings on live TV.
08:15 Everyone alive at the time remembers where they were when they first learned of the attacks,
08:19 and remembers being glued to the TV watching them unfold.
08:22 "There are literally thousands of emergency crews here. We've seen some from Long Island,
08:26 we've seen some from New Jersey, some from Connecticut, we understand."
08:28 The day was filled with some truly unforgettably terrifying imagery,
08:33 like the South Tower being hit by United Airlines Flight 175,
08:37 and both towers collapsing in a surreal shower of steel and dust.
08:41 We knew we were watching a world-changing event,
08:44 and as much as we wanted to, we just couldn't look away.
08:48 "I mean, it took us a long time to function as humans, and that's for us. We were covering it."
08:56 Number 3. The Waco Siege
08:58 For 51 days in 1993, Mount Carmel Center, outside Waco, Texas,
09:03 was the site of a siege involving the FBI. The building belonged to a cult known as the
09:09 Branch Davidians, who were suspected of owning illegal weapons.
09:13 "Many Waco residents had never heard of the Branch Davidians before today,
09:18 despite the cult's existence here since the 1930s."
09:21 A massive shootout occurred when the ATF attempted to take the guns,
09:25 prompting the 51-day siege by the FBI.
09:28 "We understand negotiations are going on as we speak. They may continue, of course,
09:33 with darkfall approaching into the night, but the federal agents have said that they are not
09:37 going to storm this, if at all possible." The story was extensively covered in the media,
09:43 but nothing could have prepared viewers for the story's dramatic conclusion.
09:46 "Now, the word out here tonight, Dave, is that this has basically been a media party
09:50 of speculation, because we have gotten no official word from any kind of authority
09:54 exactly what is going on." A fire destroyed the building, and killed 76 people.
10:00 The blaze was captured by various news networks, including CNN,
10:03 and people could only watch in speechless agony as the compound burned to the ground.
10:08 "It's a tragedy of immense dimensions, I think."
10:11 2. The Challenger Disaster
10:14 "Usually the night before, I had the same nightmare that what I saw today,
10:19 and I thought it was a dream."
10:21 The lead-up to the Challenger disaster made a tragic situation even more so.
10:26 Ronald Reagan had created the Teacher in Space project, which would bring everyday teachers
10:31 beyond Earth's atmosphere and hopefully inspire an interest in science and space exploration.
10:37 Krista McAuliffe of New Hampshire was the first teacher chosen for the project,
10:41 and she was scheduled to fly on the Challenger in January of 1986.
10:45 Her involvement spurred great national interest in the mission,
10:48 and millions of children across the country watched the launch on live television.
10:52 "4, 3, 2, 1, and liftoff. Liftoff of the 25th Space Shuttle mission, and it has cleared the tower."
11:03 Unfortunately, they were subjected to a horrible sight when the Challenger
11:06 exploded in mid-air, killing everyone on board.
11:10 "At 11.40am this morning, space program experienced a national tragedy,
11:18 with the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger
11:20 approximately a minute and a half after launch from here at the Kennedy Space Center."
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11:40 1. The Moon Landing
11:43 "Hello Neil and Buzz, I'm talking to you by telephone from the
11:48 Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever
11:53 made." On July 21st, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to step foot on the moon.
12:01 This was the end result of the very expensive, collaborative, brilliant,
12:05 and meticulous Apollo program, which had been conceived only nine years earlier.
12:09 "Fantastic feeling. That was one of great accomplishment."
12:15 "It was almost miraculous."
12:17 "We did it for all the right reasons."
12:19 An estimated 650 million people watched Armstrong take the first step on live TV,
12:25 and what an unbelievable experience it was. Not only had we landed on the moon,
12:30 but we were watching images on TV that were being broadcast, live, from space. People who watched
12:37 it never forgot, and people who didn't wished they had. Such is the power of a once-in-a-lifetime
12:43 event. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
12:52 Did you happen to see any of these on live TV? Let us know in the comments below.
12:57 "It's happening! Come on, come on, let's go, let's go, come on."
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13:08 [Music]