Jackie Danicki

Unbelievably, NBC did a version of This is Your Life in the 1950s in which the focus was a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, Reverend Tanimoto.

He went down to NBC for what he thought was an interview about the plastic surgery project, etc. Instead, he was ambushed by Ralph Edwards, host of “This is Your Life”. It was a complete surprise, and he had no idea what was going on. So the host tries to explain it to him, and then he turns to the camera and goes, “Ladies and Gentleman, This is Hiroshima!” And a FUCKING MUSHROOM CLOUD clip comes on!

And this little Tanimoto dude is just sitting there, like “what the fuck?”

But it gets worse. Cause then Edwards goes “August 6th, 1945, you’ve never met him, but he had a profound effect on you”. And then you see a guy’s shadow behind that door and he says “after we dropped it, I saw it explode, and I wrote later ‘my God, what have we done?”

Edwards goes, “that’s right, it’s Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the man who actually dropped the bomb!”

And Lewis comes out, and he very meekly shakes Tanimoto’s hand. Very awkward. I can’t even describe how bad it was, you really have to see it cause I’m certainly not doing it justice. But it would be kinda like if they did Tori Amos “This is Your Life”, and the first guy behind the screen goes, “After I forced myself on you, I kinda felt bad”. That’s right, it’s the guy that raped you! And he walks out and they shake hands. It was that only times about a million.

You can see the footage for yourself in the documentary White Light/Black Rain now playing on HBO.

Filed under: Life