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Hunter S. Thompson meets a Hell's Angel, 1967 | CBC

CBC · 5.5M views · 2010-07-07 · 6:21

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Overview

A 1967 CBC clip in which Hunter S. Thompson faces a member of the Hell's Angels on television. The studio audience's reactions are a striking window into the era.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it as evidence of how much social norms have shifted, given the audience's approval of jokes about domestic violence.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2014–2022

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Documentaries & storytellingSocial issues & culture
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hunter s. thompsonhells angelscbc archivessocial norms1967

What people said

JKCalhoun · 2022-03 · Reference

You might enjoy this video from television, 1967: [VIDEO] Warning, the misogyny is off the charts. So weird to be watching something from 1967 and it feels like Jerry Springer.

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jgilias · 2021-07 · Reference

We really can not know this. We can only infer from cultures and religions in the relatively short timespan covered by written history. And even then, morality has changed significantly through time. A simple example - would you think that someone telling a story about someone else beating his wife to a pulp is something to laugh about? Here, check out how the audience reacts just a bit more than 50 years ago: [VIDEO] I think the only moral that may have been something close to universal throughout times would've been something like: "Don't kill a member of in-group without a good reason if you're not the head honcho." Everything else? We have literally no idea. EDIT: Really, watch the video, it actually applies to the discussion really well. It's basically an argument about morals.

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thesteamboat · 2014-10 · Reference

To be fair, the Woody Allen joke is also allegorically about domestic violence and this updated version only reinforced those references, so I don't think your reaction was off base. For even more context, around the same time as the Woody Allen stand-up Hunter S. Thompson gets confronted on CBC by a member of Hells Angels. It shows in stark contrast how much society has matured in 50 years (at least regarding public acceptance of domestic violence). You should really watch the clip, but I've again excerpted choice quotes from the Hells Angels member that the audience reacts favorably to. (At 3:24 in the video) > Junkie George is beating his old lady. Junkie George's dog bit him. To me this is a personal feud. If a guy wants to beat his wife and his dog bites him, that's between the three of 'em. [Audience laughter and applause] and a short time later (5:42 in the video): > To keep a woman in line you got to beat her like a rug once in a while. [Again, audience laughter and applause] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by CBC, played through YouTube.

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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