essayessay by by R. Scott BaldwinR. Scott Baldwin

a radio play a radio play by by

Howard Howard KochKoch

Broadcast Sunday,Sunday, Oct. 30Oct. 30,,

19381938 8:00 p.m.8:00 p.m.

This radio play was based on a novel.

a novel byH.G. Wells

popular CBS

radio program

that dramatized a story or novel each week

•Directed & starred in Mercury Theater

•Played Professor Pierson in Invasion from Mars

•No Television•No space exploration-satellites, moon landing, etc.

•Presented as a series of NEWS BULLETINS

•Used names of real people & places

•Sound Effects

Grovers Mill, NJ

REASONS for the PANIC:

• No modern scientific knowledge about space/Mars

• Frustrations/Insecurity after the Great Depression

• Real threats of war in Europe (Hitler - Nazi Germany - WWII began 1939)

4 Announcements Stated that this

was a PLAY!!

1 in the beginning

2 in the middle (INTERMISSION)

1 at the end

•4 announcements

•Switching channels

•Checking program listings

•Common sense / logic (some physically impossible events)

How people could’ve known

it was not real:

•Rescuing loved ones•Warning others•Calling the police, newspaper, radio, military

•Vigilantes with shotguns hunting Martians

•Traffic violations & accidents

•Packing to leave home

•Suicide attempts•“End of the world” prayer meetings

•Covering face with handkerchief (like a gas mask)

Orson Welles said the play was NOT intended to fool or frighten people; instead, he was afraid it may bore people because it was so far-fetched!

This event made people in the US start thinking about the power of the media & the potential dangers of its ability to affect the emotions & beliefs of millions of people.

•6,000,000 people heard this broadcast

•1,700,000 thought it was real & were frightened

•25% of those frightened thought we were under attack by a foreign country rather than Martians.

Other information...

Other sources report that Orson Welles had expected that some of the radio audience would be fooled by the pseudo news bulletins but was unprepared for the extent of the panic.

Apparent news bulletins interrupted CBS programming: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that these strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars!"

Orson apologized for the hoax at a news conference the next day, while newspaper editorials demanded government censorship of the airwaves. By week's end, the FCC was flooded with complaints against Welles and CBS. "There were headlines about lawsuits totaling some $12 million," Welles later recounted.

Scriptwriter Howard Koch (who later shared an Academy Award for the screenplay of Casablanca) was asked to adapt the story just 36 hours before the first Rehearsal!

Kenny Delmar (later the voice of radio's Senator Claghorn) was introduced as the Secretary of the Interior, though his portrayal intentionally resembled President Franklin Roosevelt. "I was not supposed to impersonate the President. That order came down from the network brass. When Orson came in to direct the dress rehearsal, he said 'Oh Kenny, you know what I want,' so every fifth word was done as FDR so it gave a very strong impression of the President."

                                      

Just a few months earlier, Americans had listened to newsman

Herb Morrison's horrifying eyewitness account of the

Hindenburg disaster. Mercury actor Frank Readick borrowed the recording from the CBS record library and listened again and again to Morrison's frenzied reaction to the horror of the flaming inferno. One of radio's finest dramatic actors, Readick recreated the horror of the newsman's eyewitness account of a deadly spectacle.

RATINGSThe Mercury Theatre on the Air

aired on CBS opposite radio's most popular program, The Chase and Sanborn Hour starring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy & was unable to sell commercial time opposite NBC's ratings blockbuster.

Mercury Theater was critically-praised but limped along with a miserable 3.6 Crossley rating compared to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy's 34.7 share until history was made with radio's most legendary broadcast.

On The Chase and

Sanborn Hour, a comedy routine was followed by singer Nelson Eddy & many switched to Mercury Theater, missing the opening announcements that identified the Welles broadcast as a fictional adaptation.

On The Chase and

Sanborn Hour, a comedy routine was followed by singer Nelson Eddy & many switched to Mercury Theater, missing the opening announcements that identified the Welles broadcast as a fictional adaptation.

CHANNEL SURFING!