War of the World?

Question

Who knows anything about the broadcast put on by Orson Welles???

Answer 1

Mass hysteria was caused by the Orson Welles adaptation of H.G. Wells 1898 story, "War of the Worlds", broadcast on the radio program, Mercury Theater on Halloween, Sunday, October 30, 1938.

Orson Welles had one of his writers, Howard Koch, transform the story of "War of the Worlds" into a radio play in the form of documentary newscast alerts. Welles himself made revisions and the location and time of the story was changed from Victorian England to present day New England. These changes gave verisimilitude to the story.

The dramatic approach of presenting the story elements as a series of news bulletins in documentary style had been employed before by Fr. Ronald Knox. In 1926, Knox made a satirical "newscast" of a riot overtaking the British Broadcasting Company. The broadcast created mass hysteria upon its audience.

Welles broadcast began with the announcement that it was a story based on a novel, however, many listeners missed that announcement because they had been intently listening to a rival network of the more popular radio program, the "Chase and Sanborn Hour" featuring the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Welles had deliberately timed the crucial news alerts to begin at 8:12 p.m. which would coincide with the commercial breaks of the rival network because he knew that the listeners would flip channels. Orson Welles knew how to use radio's imaginative possibilities, and he was a master at blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

Therefore, when the channel flippers tuned into the Orson Welles broadcast, they were shocked to hear the special news alerts warning of an invasion of Martians attacking Earth. The listeners panicked when they learned of the Martians' ferocious and seemingly unstoppable attack on Earth. Listening to the authoritative and real sounding commentary and interviews and believing it to be real, many ran out of their homes screaming while others packed up their cars and fled. Radio listeners had become accustomed to believing everything they heard on the radio, without questioning it.

Interestingly, most of those who panicked were middle-aged or older. Younger listeners tended not to panic because they recognized Orson Welles's voice as the voice of the hero in the popular radio series, "The Shadow".

Hours after the program had ended and listeners had realized that the Martian invasion was not real, the public was outraged that Orson Welles had tried to fool them. Many people sued. Others wondered if Welles had caused the panic on purpose.

Interestingly, most of those who panicked were middle-aged or older. Younger listeners tended not to panic because they recognized Orson Welles's voice as the voice of the hero in the popular radio series, The Shadow.

Strangely enough, this was not the last time that a dramatized broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds would be mistaken for an account of real events. In November, 1944 the play caused a similar panic when it was broadcast in Santiago, Chile, and in February, 1949 it once again stirred up unrest when it was performed by a radio station in Quito, Ecuador. The situation in Ecuador unfortunately turned ugly when an angry mob surrounded the radio station and burned it to the ground.

You can listen to the broadcast here:
http://www.mercurytheatre.info/
Transcript here:
http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/script.html
New York Times article Oct 31, 1938:
http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/wotw.html
FCC investigation
http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/Radio/Newspapers/Oct31/FCC.html

Answer 2

It was a radio drama broadcast on Halloween that accidentally caused quite a panic. It was an updated version of H.G. Well's novel, "War of the Worlds," in which Martians land and attack England. It's a fairly cynical, dark book with an odd uplifting ending, and some of suggested that Wells was ordered by his publisher to write it (the ending, I mean).