The War Of The Worlds, and the Golden Age of Radio

In what has become somewhat of a tradition here at LTR, I thought I'd share a little history with you.

Seventy-one years ago yesterday, October 30, 1938, a radio drama aired that really made an impact on the airwaves of America. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, led by Orson Welles, did an adaptation of the H.G. Welles classic science fiction work The War Of The Worlds.

I wrote about this the past two years, here and here. Here's some of what I wrote then:

Welles and company prepared an adaptation of H.G. Wells' science fiction thriller The War Of The Worlds, which told the tale of a violent alien invasion of Earth. And in keeping with the eccentric nature of their on-stage productions, which included Shakespearian works set in Fascist Italy and the Carribean, among various contemporary settings, this adaptation would be unique.

The broadcast, as envisioned by Welles, was to be done as a hoax. Welles was never a fan of overly-political radio commentators such as Father Charles Coughlin, and perhaps wanted to show people that they could not necessarily believe everything they heard on the radio. Most likely, he was inspired by the horrific thought of his ambitious dramas getting clobbered in the ratings by a radio ventriloquist. Something had to be done.

The show started with an ordinary ballroom concert performance (actually the CBS radio orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann) would be interrupted by live news reports and announcer cut-ins, reporters on the scene, sounds of ham radio operators and interviews with fictitious government officials – all relaying a fictional Martian attack on Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Not much more can be added to what I wrote earlier. But audio dramas such as War Of The Worlds, to this day, speak of the power of really good "old time radio" presentations, done before the advent of television. The better ones really had no need for television, as they effectively drew pictures for the listening audience. For example, Dragnet, considered by many to be the best of the old-time radio shows, and definitely the best-produced, was arguably more effective on radio than in its later television incarnation.

The Internet Archive has a mind-boggling selection of old-time radio shows on their site, including drama, comedy, suspense, horror, sci-fi, crime stories, westerns, variety, news broadcasts and much more. And it's all free, allowing anyone to download old episodes of the comedy duo Bob and Ray, or enjoy the Red Scare camp of I Was A Communist For The FBI (highly recommended!).

Listening to radio these days can often be either depressing or boring (or both). Thankfully, the Internet Archive has preserved many, many examples of radio's Golden Age.

For your listening pleasure this Halloween, here is the original Mercury Theatre presentation of War Of The Worlds:



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Weekend update

Kinda slow on the news front, and I've been spending the past few days on what I think is a pretty cool tribute to analog television. Nonetheless, here's what else is going on...

The analog ending

Unless you've been living under a rock, have no grasp of reality, or are George W. Bush, you should all know by now that today is D-Day, as in 'digital'. That means full-power analog television in the United States will go bye-bye today. What this essentially means:

1. This applies to all full-power signals. They will broadcast in digital-only from tomorrow forward. It does not necessarily apply to low-power stations or translator stations. They are exempt, but some may be shutting off analog anyway. The FCC has not set a shutoff date for low power TV broadcasters.

2. Your old TV may not be very effective without a digital converter box. Sets built in the past several years should be okay. I'm sure you know whether or not this is the case. In addition, those little portable sets you take with you on camping trips and wherever else are now paperweights. Send 'em to Canada or Mexico - they've got analog for the next two years at least. Also, if you still record with a VCR, it's analog tuner will not be very effective anymore. Split a cable off from your converter/cable box and you should be okay, though you may not be able to record one channel while watching another.

3. If you are still unprepared for this, and call TV stations, the FCC, etc. bitching about the loss of your favorite stations, I'm afraid television has already rotted your brain and God is trying to tell you to stop watching.

4. For those of you in the 'rabbit ear' crowd, if you haven't 'rescanned' your converter box/TV tuner, you probably should. With the switchover, some stations are changing their RF frequencies (which is their actual channel, rather than the virtual channel - don't ask) . If you're kinda confused over this, and I don't blame you, don't worry about it - just rescan. You may notice a few just-added channels or subchannels in your lineup.

Radio station celebrates the Big One Hundred

Wow! Has it been 100 years already since the precursor to KCBS in San Francisco first started broadcasting? It seems like just yesterday that they started experimenting with this crazy radio thingy.

But yes, all-news KCBS is celebrating its centennial this year.

It all started down the bay in San Jose, where engineer Charles Herrold conducted some experiments and was even doing regular broadcasting. In the very beginning, he just used a simple greeting like "San Jose calling."

On December 9, 1921, Herrold received a commercial license for his station with the callsign KQW. It was the 21st licensed radio station in the United States and the 11th in California.

Now, some may contest which was indeed the very first radio station in America. Many claim it to be KDKA in Pittsburgh, which was the first to obtain a license. But prior to KDKA, there were many unlicensed stations across the country, and a few of them exist even today. Many cite what is now KCBS as the very first continually broadcasting radio station in this country, and quite possibly the world (and no, I will not get into any comment debates with any of you smartypants, so hold off).

KCBS has a site devoted to their history here.

Peter B. Collins returns via podcast

Thanks to one of our readers for this heads-up. Peter B. Collins, who ended his radio show a few months ago, has returned with a regular podcast.

He will do 2-3 per week, at roughly 45 minutes to an hour in length.

You can find them at his website, Roots Up Radio or on iTunes.

No Republicans on Rachel

Wingnuts have long made hay over Rachel Maddow's reluctance to book right-wing guests on her radio and cable news shows. Funny, they don't seem to question Rush Limbaugh, who only allows left-leaning callers if he can walk all over them, or any of the FOX News meat puppets, who merely book left-leaning punching bags.

This blog from Baltimore Sun critic Dave Zurawik touches on this very topic, as if it is so damned catastrophic in the shape of things today. Whiny wingnut site Newsbusters.org also pisses and moans about it.

Hey, it's her show, she can do whatever the hell she wants. Much of cable news is at times almost unwatchable because it's typically pundits and 'strategists' yelling back and forth at each other. Since there are many right-wing radio and television talk shows, why not a left-leaning one that is more sedate and gives its viewers what they want? Why should she model her show after every other one on cable TV?

Let's be honest, the crybaby conservative brigade just hates that there are any liberals on TV. Further proof that most wingnuts only like America if it conforms with their own narrow world view.

Scare on the air - 70 years later

The date was October 30, 1938. The setting was the CBS radio studios in. A scrappy 22 year-old radio and stage producer/actor named Orson Welles, along with his troupe, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, were preparing a special retelling of a science fiction classic. What resulted would become the stuff of legend – even 70 years later.

Welles' group, which had previously done ambitious retellings of classic and contemporary on their weekly radio series, had something special in mind for Halloween of that year. The group obviously felt they needed to do something to grab attention. Ratings for the show weren't very good. The Mercury Theatre didn't even have a sponsor at the time. CBS moved them to Monday night death slot, opposite one of the top shows on the air, the NBC Red Network's Chase and Sanborn Hour, hosted by Don Ameche and featuring Edgar Bergen and his wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy.

Welles and company prepared an adaptation of H.G. Wells' science fiction thriller The War Of The Worlds, which told the tale of a violent alien invasion of Earth. And in keeping with the eccentric nature of their on-stage productions, which included Shakespearian works set in Fascist Italy and the Carribean, among various contemporary settings, this adaptation would be unique.

The broadcast, as envisioned by Welles, was to be done as a hoax. Welles was never a fan of overly-political radio commentators such as Father Charles Coughlin, and perhaps wanted to show people that they could not necessarily believe everything they heard on the radio. Most likely, he was inspired by the horrific thought of his ambitious dramas getting clobbered in the ratings by a radio ventriloquist. Something had to be done.

The show started with an ordinary ballroom concert performance (actually the CBS radio orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann) would be interrupted by live news reports and announcer cut-ins, reporters on the scene, sounds of ham radio operators and interviews with fictitious government officials – all relaying a fictional Martian attack on Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Welles made sure to announce at the beginning of the program that this was merely a dramatic presentation, that Martians weren't really blowing up New Jersey. But he was smart enough to realize that Chase and Sanborn took their first musical break at fifteen minutes past the hour. He scheduled the first 'report' from Grover's Mill at the twelve-minute mark to heighten the audience's confusion. Welles mischievously knew that quite a few channel surfers would have missed the earlier disclaimer claiming it was all fiction. As a result, some listeners happened upon the CBS broadcast at the point when the Martians started to emerge from their spacecraft.
What happened next has been subject to much debate, and the real-life incidents that transpired ironically made the whole thing even more legendary. Many newspapers of the day, including The New York Times, reported that many people listening to Mercury Theatre that night thought they were listening to a real newscast and were pretty freaked out. Listeners reportedly ran to tell their neighbors and friends, and just like the childhood game of 'telephone,' the whole thing took on a life of its own. The media reported mass hysteria over the broadcast, and even more contemporary historical retellings claim the same. In reality, nobody has really come to a consensus on what the overall reaction truly was. Was the reaction really overblown? There were stories of crowds gathering in the Grovers Mill area. And there were other isolated reports of mass panic. In Concrete, Washington, where listeners heard the show on Seattle stations KIRO and KVI, listeners were pretty freaked when a coincidental city-wide power failure occurred during the broadcast, resulting in residents storming the town center with shotguns. Likely, most of the reports of hysteria were, like the radio show, overblown. Most people were perhaps more baffled than scared. But the reports of panic added an entirely new dimension to the hoax broadcast. Life was truly imitating art.

Whatever the reaction by the public was during and immediately after the broadcast, there was definitely an outcry in the days that followed. CBS defended Welles, claiming that there were disclaimers throughout the broadcast, and gave Welles and company a slap on the wrist. CBS did promise never to do anything like that again. The FCC investigated starting the next day. Some in Congress demanded more government control over radio content.

While the Mercury Theatre was mildly rebuked over the whole incident, it did get the troupe what they really needed – attention. Campbell's Soup, impressed over the reaction, signed on as a sponsor. And Hollywood came calling, with RKO Pictures wooing Welles and the Mercury Theatre to the silver screen with a lucrative contract promising complete artistic freedom. The result was 1941's Citizen Kane, regarded by many as the greatest film ever made. The film was controversial, due to its main character's resemblance to powerful newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Hearst put pressure on RKO and other studios to destroy the film, but an adamant Welles premiered the film anyway, which initially flopped due to shunning by the Hollywood moguls. Welles lost much of his clout, and subsequent films, such as The Magnificent Ambersons, famously fell victim to studio meddling and editing. In later years, up until his death in 1985, he wound up doing acting gigs, in addition to commercial and television work, to finance his own independent low-budget films, where he at least had creative freedom.

The Mercury Theatre's broadcast of The War of the Worlds has gone down in history as perhaps the most famous of all the old time radio dramas. Many stations, mostly noncommercial, air the original 1938 broadcast every Halloween. Quite a few others, perhaps even in your town, stage live recreations of the original – on the air, on stage, or both. But the original had the magic. I have long been a fan of the broadcast, its lore and even the story itself. I have heard various reenactments. I've seen some of the film versions of the original story, including the frightening Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise take from a few years ago. I wrote about the legendary Orson Welles version one year ago here. And 70 years later after the original historic broadcast, the story is still as scary as ever.

Here is a listening treat for you, the original 1938 broadcast from Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre On The Air, doing their take on War Of The Worlds. Turn off the lights and enjoy:

As I mentioned before, there have been remakes. And there have been a few contemporary retellings. Perhaps the best, and most famous, was done in 1968 by WKBW in Buffalo , NY (which is now progressive talker WWKB). There are no professional actors taking part in this - it was done by the WKBW on-air staff and news and programming departments. It was updated in 1971 and 1975, to reflect station staff changes. Here's a double treat, a rarity – the 1971 edit of WKBW's adaptation of War Of The Worlds:

You can also download the entire broadcast directly from The Internet Archive (low bitrate) or at The Mercury Theatle website (higher bitrate). For a different experience, try King Daevid Mackenzie's version, which edits together both the Mercury Theatre broadcast and the Chase and Sanborn Hour, approximating the sequence that many had originally heard when flipping around the dial. The Glowing Dial podcast has a three hour show that also features the original, Welles' press conference the following morning, a few interviews, the WKBW 1971 version and even a very rare radio conversation between Orson Welles and the aging H.G. Wells.

When radio really scared people

Long before Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and their ilk tried to frighten people into voting Republican, and long before FOX Noise claimed that al Qaeda operatives set the recent Southern California wildfires, a different type of fearmongering took place on our nation's airwaves. But this one was played as an ingenious dramatic hoax. And unlike the feeble attempts of today's propagandist blowhards, a 22-year old actor/producer/director named Orson Welles really did scare the hell out of people.

In honor of Halloween, and the 69th anniversary of a very infamous broadcast, I'd like to share a little story.

The date was October 30, 1938. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a theatre company headed by Welles and John Houseman, had already done a variety of high-brow dramatic radio presentations for CBS, mostly based on classic and contemporary literature. Adapted titles up to that point inlcuded Bram Stoker's Dracula, A Tale of Two Cities, The Magnificent Ambersons (which Welles later turned into a film) and Heart of Darkness, to name a few. Stars included Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and others. The music for the show was composed by CBS staff conductor Bernard Herrmann, who later went on to become perhaps the greatest film scorer in history with Welles' Citizen Kane, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Vertigo and North By Northwest, and his last film, 1976's Taxi Driver, on his impressive resume.

Unfortunately, as with many other brilliant shows since, there wasn't that much interest. The Mercury Theatre, which had no sponsor at the time, was moved to Monday nights opposite one of the top shows on the air, The NBC Red Network's Chase and Sanborn Hour, featuring Edgar Bergen and his wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy. Yes, they was getting their asses kicked by a radio ventriloquist! Obviously, Welles and company needed to kick it up a notch.

For the Halloween broadcast, the same troupe that had done stage adaptations of Shakespeare's works set in Facist Italy and the Carribean (complete with an all-black cast) decided to adapt H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, a book about a Martian invasion, in a totally different style - it was to be in the form of a live news bulletin, complete with a faux music program being interrupted by announcer cut-ins, reporters on the scene, sounds of ham radio operators and interviews with fictitious government officials, including a phony Secretary of the Interior who sounded a lot like President Roosevelt, all relaying a Martian attack on New Jersey. Keep in mind that, at a time when Hitler and Mussolini had banded together and started their march over Europe, people everywhere were a bit timid.

To his credit, Welles did announce at the beginning of the show that this was all just a dramatic presentation. Obviously, he knew that most radio listeners were tuned to the radio ventriloquist, and probably did a little channel surfing over to his show during musical numbers and commercials. He made sure the first pseudo-report at the 12 minute mark, about the time that the aliens had allegedly started to emerge from their spacecraft. After that, distraught reporters on the broadcast relayed the news of aliens blasting bridges and buildings and releasing poisonous gas in the air.

"2X2L calling CQ ... Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there ... anyone?"

Voice of ham radio operator in The War of the Worlds

Keep in mind that in the early days of radio, people hadn't ever heard anything like this. Even though most of the voices of the Mercury Theatre were well-known (Welles was the star of the popular radio drama The Shadow), most thought that we really were being invaded, particularly with all of the paranoia involving the growing Nazi threat in Europe. While the broadcast was in progress, residents in northeastern cities went outside to ask their neighbors what was happening. As the story was repeated by word of mouth, rumours began to spread, and these rumours caused quite a bit of panic.

The curious quickly started to descend on Grovers Mill, New Jersey, the site of the alleged Martian landing. Eventually police were sent to the area to help control the crowds. To people arriving later in the evening, the scene really did look like the events being narrated on the radio broadcast, with panicked crowds and flashing police lights streaming across the masses. All that was really missing was the sight of Martians incinerating people with death-rays.

The switchboard at CBS lit up. The police and the media were befuddled over the realism of the fake news bulletins. There were instances of panic scattered throughout the US as a result of the broadcast, especially in New York and New Jersey. It was estimated that roughly 6 million had tuned in to the broadcast at one point or another, and about a third of them believed it was true.

In Newark more than 20 families wrapped their faces in wet towels to save themselves from the gas raid, tied up traffic with their calls for gas masks, inhalators, ambulances, police rescue squads...While a doughty little band of Princeton scientists set out to investigate the reported catastrophe, in Harlem the godly gathered in prayer. Eight hundred and seventy-five panic-stricken people phoned the New York Times alone.

"Boo!" Time Magazine, November 7, 1938

At the end of the broadcast, Welles broke character to remind listeners again that it was all just a dramatization. As per the Howard Koch-penned script, this was done several times during the broadcast.

The broadcast made front page news the next few days. Needless to say, in the aftermath of the program, the people who fell for it were rather livid. CBS defended Welles, claiming that there were disclaimers throughout the broadcast. They did, however promise never to do anything like that again. The FCC investigated starting the next day. Some in Congress demanded that the government exert more control over radio content. In the aftermath, broadcasters have become more careful about what they say and do over the airwaves. Well, not entirely.

And Welles and his cohorts went on to much bigger things. They immediately got a sponsor in the form of Campbell's Soup, and RKO Pictures wooed Welles and the Mercury Theatre to Hollywood, where they stirred up even more controversy by making Citizen Kane, regarded by many as the greatest film ever made.

Today, the Mercury Theatre's broadcast of The War of the Worlds has gone down in history as the most remembered of all the old radio dramas. In 1988, West Windsor Township, where Grovers Mills is located, held a "Martian festival" to commemorate the broadcast, and even erected a monument on the site of the alleged invasion. Every Halloween, many noncommercial radio stations and theater troupes still reenact the broadcast. Likely, there may be one in your town.

Sixty-nine years later, it is still an amazing broadcast, and even sent shivers up my spine when I first heard it years ago. For your listening pleasure, I present to you below, the Mercury Theatre's original broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

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You can also download the broadcast directly from the Internet Archive (low bitrate) or at the Mercury Theatre website (higher bitrate). For a different experience, try King Daevid MacKenzie's version, which edits together both the Mercury Theatre broadcast and the Chase and Sanborn Hour, approximating the sequence that many had originally heard when flipping around the dial.

So, kick back, turn off the lights and enjoy. Even to this day, it's capable of sending goosebumps up and down your spine. Imagine the impact it had back in 1938.