John and Yoko documentary Daytime Revolution announced – 14 August 2024

Wednesday 14 August 2024 | Film and video, John Lennon

On 14 August 2024, it was announced that Daytime Revolution — a new documentary on John Lennon and Yoko Ono directed by Erik Nelson — would be released in US cinemas on 9 October 2024, John Lennon’s birthday. The film was set to premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival before opening in more than 50 US cinemas, followed by a home release.

What is Daytime Revolution?

Daytime Revolution focuses on one of the most extraordinary and underappreciated episodes in John Lennon’s post-Beatles career: his and Yoko Ono’s week-long stint as co-hosts of The Mike Douglas Show in February 1972. The Mike Douglas Show was one of the most popular daytime television programmes in the United States, broadcast to millions of viewers across the country. Lennon and Ono’s decision to co-host it — and to use the platform to advance their political and artistic agenda — was a bold and characteristically unconventional move.

The documentary draws on archival footage from each of the five 70-minute shows, as well as interviews with surviving guests who appeared during the week. The result is described as a time capsule of a remarkable moment in American cultural and political life.

“Daytime Revolution takes us back in time, as we observe John and Yoko interacting with a transfixed studio audience in revealing Q and A sessions where John Lennon was astonishingly candid about his life after the Beatles. John and Yoko also got to pick the guests, some very controversial at the time, like Jerry Rubin and Black Panther Bobby Seale, as well as Ralph Nader and George Carlin. In addition, the shows featured blazing musical performances, including an epic duet with Chuck Berry, and a poignant rendition of the now classic ‘Imagine’. Conceptual art events and even cooking segments were woven into the crazy fabric of the format.”

The Mike Douglas Show, February 1972

The Mike Douglas Show was a syndicated American daytime talk and variety programme that ran from 1961 to 1981. By 1972 it was one of the most-watched daytime shows in the country, broadcast from Philadelphia and reaching an estimated audience of six million viewers per episode. The show’s format — a mix of celebrity interviews, musical performances and topical discussion — made it an unusual but effective vehicle for Lennon and Ono’s message.

Lennon and Ono co-hosted the show for a full week in February 1972, and they used their position to invite guests who reflected their political and countercultural interests. The lineup was deliberately provocative by the standards of mainstream American daytime television:

Jerry Rubin was a co-founder of the Youth International Party (the Yippies) and one of the Chicago Seven, the activists charged with conspiracy following the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. Bobby Seale was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, one of the most radical and controversial political organisations in America at the time. Ralph Nader was the consumer rights activist and author of Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), who had become one of the most prominent public interest advocates in the country. George Carlin was the comedian and social critic who would later become famous for his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine — a routine that would itself become a landmark First Amendment case.

The musical highlights of the week included an epic duet with Chuck Berry — one of Lennon’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll heroes, and a foundational influence on The Beatles — and a performance of ‘Imagine’, which had been released in September 1971 and was already becoming one of the defining songs of the era.

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Lennon in America, 1972

The Mike Douglas Show appearances took place during one of the most politically charged periods of Lennon’s life. He and Yoko Ono had moved to New York City in September 1971, and by early 1972 the Nixon administration had begun deportation proceedings against Lennon, citing a 1968 cannabis conviction in the UK. The FBI had been monitoring Lennon since his arrival in the US, concerned about his potential influence on the anti-Vietnam War movement and the 1972 presidential election.

Lennon’s decision to co-host a mainstream daytime television programme — and to use it to platform radical political figures — was a direct challenge to the establishment that was trying to remove him from the country. The deportation battle would continue until 1975, when Lennon was finally granted his green card.

The Mike Douglas Show week is now regarded as one of the most significant documents of Lennon’s American years — a moment when his political activism, artistic experimentation and popular appeal converged in an extraordinary way. Daytime Revolution brings this material to a new audience more than five decades later.

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→ Recording: Double Fantasy sessions – 14 August 1980
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