The War Of The Worlds - Was anyone really listening?

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

This is my topic. Because almost everything else is taken.

Nobody. I mean nobody should have even been scared of the radio show of October 30, 1938.

Have you seen the movie Airplane? The part where it's saying in the news all over that they're going to crash. One guy said, "They knew what they were getting into. I say let 'em crash."

Well, to me, these people knew what they were listening to. I say, let 'em be scared.

There are too many reasons why that is. Since I have no more time today to do so, why don't you guys think of some, and I'll compare my reasons to yours. Might be same. Might be different.

And have you seen the movie RKO-281?
Oh My God!

None of the actors portrayed the character that they played the actor who played W>R>H>.

To me, W>R>H> is the ugliest man I ever saw. Well, so was the actor who portrayed him.
:p

Bye, now! ;)

[Welles Fan]

There was a TV movie in the 70's called "The Night That Panicked America" The late Paul Shenar played young O.W., and the movie cut from the CBS studio where the Mercury players were doing the show (with some amusing stuff about how they did sound effects, etc) to fictional listeners (the late Vic Morrow among them) who are in various stages of freaking out. It even shows people changing the dials to other programs that are amazingly, not covering this big story of the Martian Invasion, and they freak out anyway.

the theory as to how this happened:
1.) People were listening to the popular Edgar Bergan/Charlie McCarthy program and tuned in to WOTW after the announcements that it was a Mercury production based on the novel by H.G. Wells.

2.) There were so many bulletins in those days announcing Fascist moves in Europe that people were potentially (supposedly, anyway) in a tense state all the time and accepted the "bulletins" as real.

3.) A lot of people simply have shit for brains.

I tend toward reason no. 3, but it was probably a combination of all 3.

[jaime marzol]

radio had only been around for 3 years i think, and in those 3 years america had been treated to an assasination, murders, hitler raping checkoslavachia, brought to the horrified radio listeners by a brand new thing called On The Spot Reporting.

after assacinations, murders, the rape of a neutral county, why not alliens?

and people had shit fo brains.

[jaime marzol]

and supposedly, welles had timed the broadcast so when the musical guest came on the charlie macarthy show, and all of america surfed the dial until the saphead singing was over and the dummy came back on, the mercury show was in fire and brimstone.

imagine a show with a vertriloqiest being so popular, that movie theaters stopped the movie and put a radio on the stage during the charlie macarthy show.

if it wasn't for rock and roll, ventriloqui could have been really big.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

Damn It! Hit something wrong. Have to start again.

Those people still were not listening to the program. One of the characters said:

7,000 armed men went into action. Only 120 known survivors.

First of all, you can not get 7,000 armed men from one place to another that quickly.

Second, you can not count that many dead bodies in that length of time.

The show was on the air at 8:00-9:00p.m. in most places. Between the talk of Professor Pierson ;) and the reporter, this was said:

Reporter: Could this have anything to do with the subject we've just heard about?

Professor: Oh, hardly. This is just a meteorite which has arrived at this coincdental time. But we will conduct a search when daylight permits.

When daylight permits

Daylight does not permit in less than 5 fucking minutes.

Someone sent Mr. Welles a letter saying:

All the geniuses were listening to a dummy
While all the dummies were listening to you

I think that is possibly true.

I don't know.

I've got more.

Later.
:p

[Welles Fan]

The movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension had an interesting theory about the Martian broadcast.

[jaime marzol]

i can count 7000 armed men in, oh, 13-minutes. wanna see?

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

Sure, I wanna see.

I wanna see you count that many in the length of time that they had to do it in the radio broadcast, though.



I know that radio was the only form of connection that they had in those days. But they still should have known better. And I agree with the past replies. They just had shit for brains.

An additional reason is because Mr. Welles's voice is so unforgetable; recognizable. With a few acceptions. If anyone has the War of the Worlds show, listen on side two, where the pilot is talking on the intercom. At the very start of the pilot talking, it sounds like Orson. But then, they dubbed the rest of it.

Just a little bit.

See ya,

natalie

[jaime marzol]

Obssessed_with_Orson:
you are divulging secret welles info not known by many. stop before you get arrested and questioned.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

secret info?

there are no secrets about Orson Welles.

all the questions i want to get answered are from reading the books, and/or magazine and/or newspaper articles and going "huh?!"or "I don't get that"

[Steeler1]

Knowing Mr. Marzol, Obssessed_With_Orson, I think Jaime was being facetious about 'secret info'! ;)

As a history teacher I have run into this problem when students make judgments about the actions of people in history.

Be careful when judging the reactions of people in the past. You do not want to view the world of 1938 using eyes and ears centered and focused on the electronic savvy world 2002. Today America is largely urban, but the America of 1938 was largely a rural, god-fearing society. The spread of news from across the country was slow. Radio provided instantaneous information for the first time in history, competing with local newspapers which were often days or weeks behind. Americans put their faith in radio because for the first time the latest news came into their homes from all over the world days before most rural newspapers could respond. Radio was trusted and no one before Welles had packaged entertainment in the guise of news. People didn't have 'shit for brains' (let's hope not for we are all the recipients of their DNA!) They, for the most part, were naïve and maybe childlike in the way they trusted news sources.

That's the beauty of the Mercury Theater’s "War of the Worlds" and why it was such a historic event.

Maybe the radio audiences of 2002 are too sophisticated to believe a ‘War of the Worlds’ type broadcast, but there were several news items reported in reference to the events of September 11th, 2001 that were generally believed and later proven incorrect.

[Welles Fan]

Steeler1-No they didn't all have shit for brains, but a large portion of the population did and still does. I didn't mean for that comment to be taken as a knock against the generation of the 30's. The internet hoaxes you allude to are proof that the same condition afflicts people of this generation. I'm talking about the people who will put on the DVD of Ben-Hur and then return it as "defective" because it has those "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen.

Plus, it was meant to be a somewhat light-hearted remark, not a statement of scientific fact.

[Steeler1]

Welles Fan,

Peace!
Please re-read my post. It was a general post, not directed to your remarks. As an educator, my intension was to enlighten not to attack your opinion of people in general. I interpreted 'shit for brains' as a description for the naivety of the 1930's radio audience. I now understand your intensions and remarks.

[jaime marzol]

"unsophisticated audience, and a certain lunatic fringe both contributed. most just heard a few minutes of it before they went screaming to the hills," i say, then pull out my pepper spray in preperation for a wellesnet rumble.

[Le Chiffre]

The Martian broadcast was one of those things that apparently created a wildfire of distorted rumors and practical jokes, as well as genuine panic. Hadley Cantrill's book on War of the Worlds, if I remember correctly (it's been awhile since I read it), contains a study of the panic indicating that many of the people who did panic never heard ANY of the broadcast! I remember the book quoting a woman who said that she never heard anything at all about Martians. All she heard was that gas bombs were being dropped, people were dying everywhere and all the roads were jammed. Sounds like a good reason to panic to me.