Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Monday, April 20, 2015
When Atlanta media mogul Ted Turner created CNN 35 years ago, he promised the network would never shut off - unless the world ended.
We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event. We'll play the National Anthem only one time, on the first of June [the day CNN launched], and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God To Thee' before we sign off.
He wasn't kidding. He did create a farewell video of a marching band playing that song on the main Turner campus in Midtown. It's the same song supposedly played by the band on the Titanic. It's a mere minute long and goes like this:
But that's a bit boring and depressing. Come on - the world is ending. Let's laugh!
So John Oliver of HBO's "Last Week Tonight" came up with a much better apocalypse video featuring Martin Sheen.
"Our world is now only moments of total annihilation," Sheen intoned. "So let's take these last few moments to celebrate the greatest things about humanity's time on earth. We had a good run didn't we? We harnessed fire, invented languages and engineered transparent underwater tunnels so we could look at shark tummies."
"Humanity sometimes failed to live up to our potential as evidenced by our blooper reel," he said, such as a guy who jumps into a pool thinking there is water in it and Hitler.
The final moments also included a cute cat video featuring cats in Western garb in an old-timey saloon. They're adorable!
"Don't be sad over what we're losing. Instead, think fondly of what we had...let's give thanks to peanut butter, to water slides, to the night sky, to the Beatles, to the Pyramids, to that YouTube video of Kelsey Grammar falling off a stage."
"We invented the automobile and then invented an automobile that can drive over 20 other automobiles."
"We invented string theory and string cheese."
And the final moments of this video? Score!
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