ORSON WELLES’ “WAR OF THE WORLDS”

                On Oct. 30, 1938, Orson Welles created a panic that caused many people to flee their homes and some to commit suicide.  Or so the story goes.  It all started when Welles, a radio personality who was the voice of “The Shadow”, wanted something different for his low-rated Mercury Theater on the Air.  He began to look for a story that could be done as though it was happening live.  He decided on H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”.  Writing the radioplay was turned over to Howard Koch.  He moved the setting from England to contemporary America, but he was frustrated in turning a ridiculous book plot into a believable radio plot.  Producer John Houseman insisted he keep working and eventually, with the input of Welles, a radioplay was cobbled that overcame the original feelings by the cast and crew that it was going to be a boring fiasco.  Part of the success was due to amazing sound effects by Ora Nichols.  The program began at 8 P.M. on CBS.  An announcer informed the audience that they were about to hear a radio play.  Then Welles narrated an intro that parroted the introduction to Wells book about a Martian invasion.  Generic orchestra music ensued, suddenly interrupted by an eye-witness report by a reporter from a farm in New Jersey.  Actor Frank Readick imitated Herbert Morrison’s classic broadcast about the Hindenburg disaster.  And away we go!  In an incredibly short time (less than an hour), Martian death rays and poison gas wiped out a National Guard unit and Martians landed in several major cities, like St. Louis and Chicago.  Listeners were taken to NYC where a reporter choked to death on the gas.  And then the commercial break arrived about 40 minutes in to the broadcast.  Anyone foolish enough to have believed this was an actual invasion would have looked sheepish at this point.  But by this time, some phone calls had come in to CBS and to local law enforcement.  And by the next morning, it was a full-blown media sensation.  Welles was forced to hold a press conference where he denied that he had planned to create panic.  He expressed worry that his career was over at the age of 23, but it was boosted (of course!) and he made “Citizen Kane” three years later.  (Although Welles later cheekily proclaimed that he intended for the broadcast to cause turmoil, none of the other participants felt that way.)  How could people have fallen for it?  One explanation was that the very popular Edgar Bergan program on NBC always led off with Bergen telling jokes with his dummy Charlie McCarthy (that’s right, people would LISTEN to a ventriloquist) and many might have switched to CBS when a singer came on.  They would have missed the intro and tuned in to hear Martians had landed in America!  And I guess a few did not bother to check any other station.  (Before you say some people in 1938 must have been very stupid, I have one word for you:  QANON.)  The truth is that there was no panic.  It was greatly exaggerated by the newspapers, who were competing with radio for advertisers.  They used the story to discredit the radio industry.   

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/10/30/241797346/75-years-ago-war-of-the-worlds-started-a-panic-or-did-it

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/

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