Tom Brokaw special tells the story of history’s wealthiest and most influential generation, baby boomers

On Thursday, March 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, CNBC will offer a two-hour special “Tom Brokaw Reports: Baby Boomer$.”

I watched a one-hour preview of the show and thought it was worthwhile.

It brought back many memories to watch clips the defining events in boomers’ lives – Woodstock, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, civil rights, conspicuous consumption, the Great Recession, and health care.

Famous boomers, such as Tom Hanks, and not so famous boomers were interviewed.

The couple in the mud-stained blanket on the Woodstock poster, Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, said they honestly and sincerely believed that boomers would change the world.

James Stapleton said as a young black man he had opportunities that weren’t available to his parents.

Women athletes described the value they obtained from competing in sports, helping them to get ahead in the business world.

But the economy downturn has brought changes for boomers. Sylvia Bandyke, one of the first female professionals hired into the large engineering division at Ford Motor Co. in the '70's, has lost her job. Pete Kraeger, who worked in the newspaper business for 26 years, is now running his own company.

J. Walker Smith, who has spent 20 years analyzing boomers, said boomers grew up with a promise of prosperity. What was displayed and talked about at the 1964 World’s Fair in Seattle, hovercraft and a futuristic Jetsons lifestyle, seemed possible.

However, the grim 1970s – with the hostage crisis in Iran, double-digit inflation, long gas lines, and President Jimmy Carter’s speech on energy limitations – showed the nation had possibly run into limits.

Another characteristic of boomers, Smith said, is that they think of themselves as an ageless generation who’ll live forever.

Although boomers have enjoyed spending money and acquiring things, gains were made by the wealthy, but the middle class was left behind, Smith said. Boomers have regret about what lies fallow, community degradation and no sense of community.

Brokaw’s interview with Tom Hanks was fun to watch. Hanks, whose films have earned a record $3.5 billion, talked about how movies were changing as he was growing up in Oakland, Calif. Small independent movies were making an impact and antiheroes such as in “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde” emerged.

The interview with the parents of Denise McNair, the 11 year-old girl slain, along with three friends, in the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., was sad to watch. Brokaw said the murders were a turning point in the civil rights movement. A month after the bombing, the Civil Rights Act was signed, paving the way for a more diverse America.

The plight of boomers today was highlighted in the interview with Michael Blattman, a 58-year-old boomer who once made $225,000 as a corporate senior vice president.

Blattman lives in a one-room apartment in New York City now and has been unemployed for two years. Recently, he lost his health care insurance.

I liked it that Brokaw identified President Barack Obama as a boomer. Obama is a boomer, although he doesn’t identify himself as one.

The preview program ended with interviews of a 57-year-old soldier, who fought in Vietnam and rejoined after the September 11 attacks, and a peace activist.

I’d recommend boomer consumers taking the time to see “Tom Brokaw Reports: Baby Boomer$.” As well as a trip down memory lane, it’s thought provoking about what’s next and what role boomers will play in the future of America.

After defining “The Greatest Generation” in his bestselling book, Brokaw, an NBC news special correspondent, is now reporting on their successors, the generation that vowed to change the world.

Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.