Yep, Martians attacked earth, for real. At least... if you talk to the one million* people who thought so on October 30th, 1938. This story is a little infamous (and a lot exaggerated), but it goes like this. On October 30th, 1938, The CBS and Orson Welles aired a radio drama adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (Did they wish upon a Well/Welles??? Eh? Eh? ... I'll see myself out now...) And due to how convincing the first half was, it scared a lot of people. Perhaps... even one million (actually, not one million. Article about it here: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/history/2013/10/orson_welles_war_of_the_worlds_panic_myth_the_infamous_radio_broadcast_did.2.html), even getting sued by a woman for causing her "nervous shock." So why was that? And how did it effect the Radio Drama scene?
First of all, if you haven't listened to it, do so, right now. It's worth the one hour long runtime I'll wait. (Download it here: https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns) You back yet? Good. Anyway, the magic of the first half is entirely due to how it's presented. It opens up with some credits, "The following is a drama brought to you by CBS and Orson Welles." But the rest is presented entirely as if it were real news. It starts with a music program interrupted by some breaking news. We then hear from announcers, bulletins, interviews, and eyewitness accounts. If you were to first tune in after the initial credits, you'd think this was real news. The sound design is fantastic, sound completely realistic (as realistic as we'd think Martians would sound like anyway), no Wilhelm screams here folks. The very fact that it was presented as far from a story is what made the story engaging.
Even myself, a guy whose familiar with the story, heard the credits, is from far in the future, sitting in a car listening to this downloaded from my phone, was immersed in the story. My favorite moment by far [Spoilers, you disobedient, disembodied, faceless readers] is on the bomber plane. We hear the heat ray in the distance, the engines going out, and the crew decided to crash into the Martian. I could hear the determined, scared quiver of the pilot as he told us. I heard the plane zoom downward, the noises from below getting louder. And the we the first split second of a crash before it cuts out. Silence for a moment, as we reflect on what just happened, and as the radio cuts back to the announcer. I was totally hooks at this point. [Spoilers have finished, but you should have listened to me you know.]
The story felt very real to me. Yes, the old, poorly aged, poorly acted, radio broadcast about aliens invading earth felt real. A sense of panic slowly grew, every moment I was more and more scared. And every moment I loved this broadcast more and more.
But then, the second half started. the entire perspective shifted. It went from a radio broadcast station airing any news it could get to a guy (previously introduced) writing in his journal. The continuity was destroyed, even though the perspective shifted to a character we've heard a lot of before and picked up almost right after, if felt like a whole new story. All of the sudden our main character is giving Shakespearean monologues about his identity, and the fate of the human race. Days go by in minutes, whereas in the first half every second felt precious.
And the way it ended [Spoilers] felt really anticlimactic, Richard was just like, "Oh yeah, by the way the Martians are all dead, so... there's that." And while that was tied in with how humans were defenseless, while the most insignificant beings stopped the Martians was cool and all. But it almost felt out of place. [Spoilers/]
So, yeah, the second half kinda killed it for me. In fact, if you just chop off the entire second half, this would rise into my favorites list. I don't quite have Top-Favorite-Radio-Broadcasts, but it'd be on something.
And the reason the first half was so powerful was solely because of the way it was presented. I'm a sucker for immersive stuff like that, when a book has notes scrawled in the margin, or comics use the panel borders as psychical objects (like stepping over, or leaning over). Orson Welles' War of the World Radio Broadcast did something magical, actually took advantage of it's medium. It did it so well that when CBS was sued do to shock, the FCC ruled that Radio Dramas cannot use news flashes as a storytelling method. Because it conflicts with the actual new flashes. The story got in the way of the news. Which means that we will never get anything like War of the Worlds again.
Because radio also doubles as a news source, it can never take full advantage of itself as a storytelling medium. So what does that mean for other mediums like it? What does that mean for TV?
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Oh sorry, I got caught up on reading articles about how fake reality TV is. Did you know even Extreme Makeover: House Edition and Pawn Stars is fake??? My heart is broken. But different time, different story. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, um, ahem. Somethin', somethin', TV will never reach it's true potential. But come on, it doesn't really matter, TV's gonna die out anyway. (thanks streaming services!)
-The Madman
*Not true
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