Today in 1967, The Who made their American TV debut, and it’s not an understatement to say that performance blew up.
That’s just telling it like it is.
The Who had been building a following in the UK, thanks to a sound fans called Maximum R&B, and thanks to their habit of smashing up stages, instruments and amplifiers at the end of their sets.
As the band started to introduce itself to America, The Who got itself a slot on the CBS show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
This was about as off-center a network TV show as you would get at the time, but even the show’s most way-out fans were probably pretty surprised at what went down.
The band had always planned to play along to their recording of “My Generation” and then do a smash-up.
When ended up happening went beyond the original plan.
There are several stories about how that came about, all of them involving drummer Keith Moon.
He wanted his drums to explode at the end of the set, just as he did during concerts.
But according to some accounts, the explosion looked small on camera when they tried it at dress rehearsal.
So either Moon convinced someone to overload the drums with explosives, or he did it himself, or both he and a stagehand added extra explosives without knowing what the other had done.
When the band finished the song, as guitarist Pete Townshend started smashing his guitar into the amps and the ground, BOOM.
The explosion filled the stage with white smoke; the cameras were flooded with bright light.
Moon took shrapnel damage, probably from a flying cymbal.
Singer Roger Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle emerged relatively unscathed.
Townshend, who was right in the middle of the smoke cloud, said his hair caught fire for a moment.
Afterward, he staggered over to Tommy Smothers and wrecked HIS guitar too.
(The host acted shocked, as if it hadn’t been part of the plan.)
There was a rumor another guest, movie star Bette Davis, had fainted because of all the rock and roll chaos.
But an eyewitness said she didn’t flinch, saying merely, “Well, that was a good bang.”
And it was: nobody watching that episode of the show was going to forget an introduction like that.
New Haven, Connecticut calls itself The Pizza Capital of the US.
And to underscore that, the community put together a meal like no other.
Over 4,500 people ate at least two slices of pizza at last week’s Apizza Fest, which would break the world record for the largest-ever pizza party.
The Who literally spark an explosion on national television (History.com)
‘New Haven ah-beetz can’t be beat!’: City says it set world record for largest pizza party (FOX 61)
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Photo by Megan via Flickr/Creative Commons
