From another ABC Afterschool Special

“We Destroy the Family: Punks vs Parent,” is a 1982 report from LA’s KABC, and it is fantastic vintage moral panic. The segment opens with a Fear show, and in case viewers couldn’t make out the lyrics to “We Destroy the Family,” Lee Ving laughingly provides a spoken-word clarification of the refrain—has he no decency?!? One can assume from the narrator’s serious tone that the viewers are expected to take the threat of punk to the family, very, very seriously, while completely disregarding the fact that hippies (and likely some of these kids’ parents) were expressing similar disdain for the status quo just a few short years prior (albeit on different drugs).

It’s interesting that punk scare-mongering like this and the infamous ABC Afterschool Special “The Day My Kid Went Punk” were aired in the 80s—the latter as late as 1987! This is well past the initial punk explosion, but it coincides with the scene’s rebirth as hardcore in the “respectable” suburbs. The resulting cultural anxieties produced Tipper Gore’s busybody committee, the “Parents Music Resource Group” in 1985, who pushed for censorship on the Senate floor at the same time Jello Biafra was being tried on obscenity charges for an H.R. Giger album insert poster. Watching a ludicrous interview with square parents and their gum-chewing punk kids in “We Destroy the Family,” it’s actually kind of tragic how the obvious disaffection and alienation of the era’s youth went ignored as their artistic outlets were attacked.

You can watch parts Two and Three here.
 

 
Via Network Awesome