I always wonder about people who use the "Mad as hell" quote, and whether they know its context. It came from Paddy Chayevsky's wickedly brilliant screenplay for "Network". The whole point of the movie, as I saw it, was that the newscaster who uttered it on television inspired a whole bunch of people to slavishly do the same (monkey see, monkey do...). The cynical directors of the TV network news used the anchorman's popularity to manipulate the audience into following directions like sheep.

I remember walking through my college campus during the week after seeing the movie as various students stuck their heads out of dorm windows to dutifully yell the phrase, thinking they were being rebellious, when, actually, they were just proving how effectively Chayevsky had manipulated them...