By Kelsey Baker
A Turning Point In Radio History
This years Halloween marked the 75th anniversary of the mass hysteria that ensued after radio listeners united in chaos when H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" was dramatized and broadcasted all across the nation on October 30, 1938. The program was produced by Welles and the Mercury Theater in New York and aired over the Columbia Broadcasating System radio network.
The infamous narrator, Orson Welles, gained international attention when he broke the typical story-telling format and conducted his version of the alien air raid from Mars in a breaking news bulletin style, much like Herbert Morrison's reporting for the Hindenburg Disaster. Interestingly enough, I later discovered that actor Frank Readick, who was slated to play the voice of the reporter for "The War of the Worlds" broadcast actually listened to the recording from the Hindenburg Disaster repeatedly before he went on air to gain inspiration. The realness of the program, however, did not impress casual listeners from all over the nation.
The Panic Press
"Germany Refuses To Aid Ousted Polish Jews," cried The Austin American with bold text; top, front and center. "Ousted Jews Find Refuge In Poland After Border Stay," yelled The New York Times with a tall, capitalized, bold font.
On October 30, 1938, the Halloween spirit was shrouded amongst the anxiety and fear that muddled the nation's psyche. America was beginning to rebuild itself after the Great Depression and newspapers were cluttered with headlines of parading German and Japanese armies.
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The Oct. 31, 1938 front page of The New York Times.
The publicity for Orson Welles’ dramatization of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds,” was nuzzled between war-fearing headlines (Copyright New York
Times Company Oct 31, 1938)
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Entertainment: Then And Now
Back in the day, the most popular form of entertainment was constructed in a way to let the audience escape from all the distress that congested their daily lives.
Today, the kind of realism that the entertainment industry thrives on was hardly even conceivable or appropriate to casual consumers during that time.
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| View of Grover Mills, New Jersey, where the Martians "invaded" (AP Photo) |
According to Slate.com, a recent study of the Welles broadcast suggested that the blame for the mass hysteria that followed the panic broadcast was on America's newspapers.
"Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discredit radio as a source of news. The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted. Just as radio was the new medium of the 1930s, opening up exciting new channels of communication, today the Internet provides us with both the promise of a dynamic communicative future and dystopian fears of a new form of mind control; lost privacy; and attacks from scary, mysterious forces. This is the fear that animates our fantasy of panicked hordes—both then and now."
Welles of the World
Orson Welles, somewhat of an shrewd genius, astutely exploited the shell-shocked, vulnerable American psyche and manifested that fear through the seemingly real news bulletin of a martian invasion that made "The War of the Worlds" broadcast so darn memorable. I could not think of a better way to conclude this, but from Welles' own dialogue from the infamous program: " So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian. . .it's Hallowe'en."
Sources
The Austin American / October 31, 1938 / pages 1 & 9
The New York Times / October 31, 1938 / pages 1 & 4
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