I guess it was cheaper and easier than a baby-sitter, and they figured we'd get bored and fall asleep before we saw too much of the R-rated stuff. But, as a kid who worshipped at the tv alter I was fascinated by a behind-the-scenes look. I stayed awake until the ending. Yeah, much of the political stuff, like the scenes with the terrorist leaders was a bit over my head, and I couldn't really relate to William Holden's monologues about age and decay, but I got the gist of it. My favorite speech is when the network's president dies and Howard bemoans tv's intrusion into American lives and the power now in the hands of Robert Duvall's character.

There's a theater downtown that used to show old movies during the summer. They had an old, huge pipe organ that they'd play before the show, and they'd have a sing-along to old songs with lyrics on a screen. I saw quite a few classics I'd seen many times before on tv, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I also saw some classics that escaped me, like Casablanca. They stopped doing that when covid arrived on the scene, and sadly they've never started it up again.

And I did not see it until I was an adult long after its release.

As is the entire movie. Highly recommend.