Chad Peterman's Blog - Posts Tagged "h-g-wells"
Radio History 101: The War of the Worlds
Good day, class, and welcome to Professor Peterman’s Radio History 101! Today we’re setting the time circuits to take us back seventy five years to October 30th, 1938. On that night, The Mercury Theatre on the Air made history with their broadcast of an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds.
Before we go any further, let’s have a bit of back story. The Mercury Theatre on the Air was the brainchild of one Orson Welles, back before he became famous for his film Citizen Kane. He got his start in radio, and was the first voice of The Shadow. Like I said, this was 1938, well before the age of television, but there will be some familiar names. The Columbia Broadcasting System, CBS, existed back then as a radio network, as did NBC. They made the jump to TV after it was clear that TV was the medium of the future.
Radio itself was different back then. It was only on the AM band, and there were no DJ’s or music stations. Radio stations back in the day ran comedies, soap operas, variety shows, etc. Everything that you find on TV (except reality shows) used to be on radio. And that brings us to The War of the Worlds.
First published in 1898 by H.G. Wells, it tells the story of Martian invaders landing in England, and the terrifying weapons they were armed with, The broadcast of The War of the Worlds would be different. Instead of the novel’s first person perspective, the broadcast would set in what was then modern day America, and would consist of a series of news updates interrupting a dance music program, that told of Martian ships landing in the real town of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
The program started with an introduction, telling the audience that the show was a work of fiction, and that was the last time there was a station ID break until the show took an intermission break about thirty minutes later. The fact that the show had no commercial breaks only added to the tension and realism. The next half of the show was a narrative that told of how the Martians (spoiler alert) succumbed to germs in Earth’s atmosphere. Then Welles himself gave a final disclaimer at the end of the show, but the damage had been done.
A lot of people tuned in after the broadcast had already started, and so missed the introduction. That, along with the “we interrupt this program” nature of the show, led some people to think the Earth really was being invaded by Martians. Newspapers at the time had a field day, suggesting that there was panic in the streets because of this. Again, this was in 1938, and there was a lot more sensational journalism back then, and many newspapers resented the advertising revenues that radio brought in.
But, as they say, the damage had been done. Welles had to make public apologies and deal with the press, and CBS promised that they would never again use “we interrupt this broadcast” for dramatic affect. H.G. Wells himself was quite upset with the show, since he was under the impression that the broadcast would be a reading of his novel, not an adaptation. He stopped complaining about that after sales of The War of the Worlds increased in the following months.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air wound up getting s sponsor, something it never had before, and was renamed The Campbell Playhouse (since the Campbell’s Soup company was the new sponsor). And, as we all know, Orson Welles went on to have a storied career in film.
Orson Welles insisted that he didn’t know this broadcast would cause any sort of panic. Say what you will about the man, but the one thing he wasn’t was dumb. He was quite shrewd, and I think he knew exactly what he was doing. I think he knew this would cause a scare, but he might not have known the extent. Please keep in mind that this was 1938, and there was a lot of news coming from Europe about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The public was already primed.
Now how much of a panic there really was, we don’t know. Newspaper stories, like I said, were exaggerated. There’s a story about a man from Massachusetts who drained his bank account to flee the area, and so didn’t have the money he needed to buy a new pair of shoes. Welles insisted that the man be taken care of. In fact, this was the only lawsuit that wasn’t thrown out. The stories of madness in the streets are anecdotal at best. Most accounts are of calls to law enforcement flooding in.
We learned the power of the broadcast media that night seventy five years ago, and the responsibility those who work in those media have to inform the public of what exactly they’re doing. This story is one of the things that made me fall in love with radio in the first place. Something like The War of the Worlds broadcast could never happen again with the regulation that are now in place, and with the multiple resources people have of fact checking, but that just adds to the magic of this broadcast. That’s why it has such a special place in the annals of radio history. At least in my opinion.
Before we go any further, let’s have a bit of back story. The Mercury Theatre on the Air was the brainchild of one Orson Welles, back before he became famous for his film Citizen Kane. He got his start in radio, and was the first voice of The Shadow. Like I said, this was 1938, well before the age of television, but there will be some familiar names. The Columbia Broadcasting System, CBS, existed back then as a radio network, as did NBC. They made the jump to TV after it was clear that TV was the medium of the future.
Radio itself was different back then. It was only on the AM band, and there were no DJ’s or music stations. Radio stations back in the day ran comedies, soap operas, variety shows, etc. Everything that you find on TV (except reality shows) used to be on radio. And that brings us to The War of the Worlds.
First published in 1898 by H.G. Wells, it tells the story of Martian invaders landing in England, and the terrifying weapons they were armed with, The broadcast of The War of the Worlds would be different. Instead of the novel’s first person perspective, the broadcast would set in what was then modern day America, and would consist of a series of news updates interrupting a dance music program, that told of Martian ships landing in the real town of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
The program started with an introduction, telling the audience that the show was a work of fiction, and that was the last time there was a station ID break until the show took an intermission break about thirty minutes later. The fact that the show had no commercial breaks only added to the tension and realism. The next half of the show was a narrative that told of how the Martians (spoiler alert) succumbed to germs in Earth’s atmosphere. Then Welles himself gave a final disclaimer at the end of the show, but the damage had been done.
A lot of people tuned in after the broadcast had already started, and so missed the introduction. That, along with the “we interrupt this program” nature of the show, led some people to think the Earth really was being invaded by Martians. Newspapers at the time had a field day, suggesting that there was panic in the streets because of this. Again, this was in 1938, and there was a lot more sensational journalism back then, and many newspapers resented the advertising revenues that radio brought in.
But, as they say, the damage had been done. Welles had to make public apologies and deal with the press, and CBS promised that they would never again use “we interrupt this broadcast” for dramatic affect. H.G. Wells himself was quite upset with the show, since he was under the impression that the broadcast would be a reading of his novel, not an adaptation. He stopped complaining about that after sales of The War of the Worlds increased in the following months.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air wound up getting s sponsor, something it never had before, and was renamed The Campbell Playhouse (since the Campbell’s Soup company was the new sponsor). And, as we all know, Orson Welles went on to have a storied career in film.
Orson Welles insisted that he didn’t know this broadcast would cause any sort of panic. Say what you will about the man, but the one thing he wasn’t was dumb. He was quite shrewd, and I think he knew exactly what he was doing. I think he knew this would cause a scare, but he might not have known the extent. Please keep in mind that this was 1938, and there was a lot of news coming from Europe about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The public was already primed.
Now how much of a panic there really was, we don’t know. Newspaper stories, like I said, were exaggerated. There’s a story about a man from Massachusetts who drained his bank account to flee the area, and so didn’t have the money he needed to buy a new pair of shoes. Welles insisted that the man be taken care of. In fact, this was the only lawsuit that wasn’t thrown out. The stories of madness in the streets are anecdotal at best. Most accounts are of calls to law enforcement flooding in.
We learned the power of the broadcast media that night seventy five years ago, and the responsibility those who work in those media have to inform the public of what exactly they’re doing. This story is one of the things that made me fall in love with radio in the first place. Something like The War of the Worlds broadcast could never happen again with the regulation that are now in place, and with the multiple resources people have of fact checking, but that just adds to the magic of this broadcast. That’s why it has such a special place in the annals of radio history. At least in my opinion.
