War of the Worlds Broadcast: How Orson Welles Convinced America Aliens Were Invading

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_03] You've tuned in late. All you hear is the music stopping and then a voice. Explosions have been heard on Mars. Then something crashes into a field in New Jersey. A reporter describes a creature climbing out of it. And then that reporter starts to scream and the line goes dead.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_03] Aliens were wiping out the entire country. Gas masks, fleeing families, a woman holding a bottle of poison all over a radio play. That's the story. But here's the problem, Adam. Almost nobody was listening.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_03] Welcome to The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. A weekly variety of podcasts that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01] We explore strange true stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries and remarkable people.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_03] I'm Kyle Risi, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm Adam Cox, the bearded lady's back hair technician.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_03] Gross. That is so gross.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01] Well, you know, if she's got enough front hair. Yeah, just needs to make sure it's all like on the beard. Yeah. Unsightly back hair. Uh-uh. Not the coming of a young lady. Well, she's actually going a bit bald on the front side. So I'm actually doing a hair transplant using her back hair.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_03] That's rank. Do you remember that myth that used to go around that people would be like, um, when they get a hair transplant that they get it from the bum? No. I believe that as a kid. Obviously it's not true because who has bum hair? Not me.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01] Well, unless that's what you specifically asked for.

[00:02:11] Yeah. Gross.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01] We'll take it from the back of your head. No, no, no. My butt. Where do they get hair that they transplant onto your head?

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_03] In fact, the back of your head. Oh, it's on the back of the head? Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that like different hair though? Uh, it's close enough. It's close enough. Guys, don't forget if you love us and you can't wait to get your teeth into more episodes, then there's good news. We've got a Patreon packed with exclusive perks. And even as a free member, you get early access to next week's episode a whole seven days before anyone else.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01] And for as little as $5 a month, you can become a fully-fledged freak of the show that unlocks every one of our unreleased episodes plus the entire back catalogue. And very soon, we'll be dropping one brand new exclusive episode per month just for our Patreon members. So yes, an episode you won't be able to get anywhere else, just Patreon.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_03] It's very exciting. And like, we've got like six now. So I don't know which one we are going to make an exclusive drop.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01] It's a, it's going to be a roulette. Do you reckon? Do you just randomly select one? Yeah. Well, we kind of know what our Patreon members like. So we'll try and pick something out, especially for you.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, for sure. They're very vocal. They like a lot of the history stuff, you know, the history, true crime. We have one member who's really into the whole Protestant Reformation and Henry VIII. So I think we have a few coming up, like Mary Queen of Scots that might be perfect. Yeah, this is edutainment. Edutainment. I love that. Should we coin that? Trademark. Trademark. I don't think I came up with that. But of course, as we say every week, who cares about extra episodes?

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_03] Because let's face it, people only sign up as a certified freak and a big top tier member because they want exclusive access to our compendium keychain. And let me tell you, it's a real crotch dangler, as we always say. It's big. It's bold. It's beautiful. It's far too big to be used as a keychain because its real purpose, as we all know, is so that it can always be there dangling right there near your crotch.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01] It's a modesty keychain.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_03] It covers up the shame. If it's too big, it will cover it up. If it's too small...

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_01] It will cover it up. It will cover it up. And if none of that's for you, which is totally fine, then please follow us on your favourite podcast app and leave us a cheeky review because it generally helps other people find us and it keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_03] So I think we've done our duty. I think that's the housekeeping out of the way, would you not say, Adam? I would say so. Should we dive into today's episode? Let's do it. Adam, today on The Compendium, we are diving into an assembly of clever allusions, missed introductions and the strange power of a single voice in the dark. Actually, Adam, today's show is about aliens. Finally! I told you for the last three years. I might not be, but let me paint a picture for you. Okay.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_03] On the morning of the 31st of October, 1938, 23-year-old Orson Welles walked in a room filled with reporters. Orson hadn't slept, the cameras were waiting, newsreels were filming, and every journalist in that room wanted an answer to essentially the same question. Had Orson Welles deliberately terrified America? Because, according to the newspapers, the previous evening the country had descended into absolute chaos.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_03] Families had reportedly fled their homes. Police stations had become overwhelmed with frantic calls. People had asked for gas masks, and one man even wanted to volunteer to fight back. Adam, on top of this, there were also reports of people preparing to take their own lives rather than face what was coming. And Adam, none of this unfolded over several days or several weeks. This all supposedly happened over a span of just a few hours.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_03] And apparently, this was all Orson Welles' fault.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_01] Do you know what? I think up until like maybe the 80s, let's say 70s actually, America seemed really easy to scare.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, with the whole satanic panic.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01] The exorcist. Like, the shining. The psycho. You know, people were like, you know, fainting in the cinemas. True. So it seems like, you know, it was really easy to get scared back then.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_03] So Kyle, what the hell did he do? Adam, Orson Welles had managed to convince America that an army of aliens was systematically wiping out the United States.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01] He's very persuasive.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_03] He's totally. Like, which is an incredible accusation to wake up to in the morning, isn't it? Have you heard of the story before?

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01] Not this story. I mean, I do know about Orson Welles because he did like the soundtrack to War of the Worlds, right? Not the soundtrack. He did a radio broadcast. Oh, the radio broadcast. I'm sure there's like a famous song within the radio broadcast.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not sure.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01] I didn't listen to the whole broadcast. My dad's gone on about it like at least once or twice. So, yeah. Listen to this.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_03] Listen to this and you're like, oh God, this is the moment I'm going to die. But yeah, I have heard like it was kind of a big deal, right? Yes. And it ended up causing mass panic across America. Orson Welles, at this moment in time, is already one of those people whose life literally sounds fictional. He was a celebrated actor. He's a writer. He's a director. A theatre producer. He's even dabbled in magic. And of course, he was a radio performer.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01] He'd be great at a party.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, yeah.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, yeah. 100% he is. Like he's entertaining. And if the conversation gets dull, then just pull out a handkerchief.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_03] There's a threshold before someone like this becomes entertaining in a party. There's definitely a space in time where you're not entertaining. And we'll go into it and I'll explain everything why. But he's also the man behind Citizen Kane, which is often described as one of the greatest movies ever made. Yeah. Like you did film at university. Have you watched this film? Are you aware of this film?

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, I'm aware of it. I don't think I've ever watched it. And isn't it a reference of Friends? Oh, possibly. Because it's such a renowned movie that I'm pretty sure they were like, I don't even get it.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_03] And the thing is, though, it's so bizarre because when I look at pictures of Orson Welles, if you get a moment, just Google him. What he looks like is because he's from the 1930s, right? He was born in the early turn of the century. And when you see pictures of people from back then, they look like they suit the time. He honestly looks like a 2006 drama student who has done a production and he has gotten some black and white photographs of himself who is wearing a trilby.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_03] And he's like, oh, I'm going to take some atmospheric shots of me looking film noir. That's what it looks like. I feel like you're projecting. No, I'm not. I'm just that's just an observation. Sorry. Can't have opinion now. But Adam, years before Citizen Kane, Orson became famous for something much stranger. Because on the evening of the 30th of October 1938, Orson and his theatre company broadcast a dramatised adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_03] Now, instead of presenting it like a normal radio play, they told the story through a series of weather reports, live interviews and urgent news bulletins. So if you had joined late or if you'd missed the introduction where it explicitly said that this was a dramatised version, it could sound less like science fiction and more like a genuine emergency unfolding in real time. And according to the story, that is exactly what millions of people believed.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_03] And so today, Adam, on the compendium, I'm going to tell you how a radio play that almost everybody behind the scenes thought was going to be shit became one of the most famous broadcasts in history. But also how there may be more to the story than history would have you believe. This is a story of how America convinced itself it had been fooled.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01] I didn't realise that. So I guess there hadn't been anything quite like this before this radio show.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03] No, it was very much a new format that he wanted to play with. And that's one of the things about Orson Welles. He was definitely a pioneer of manipulating audiences for a particular effect. Maybe like because something was a bit ingenious or maybe it was different or something they hadn't seen before. He was very much on the cutting edge of like, what can we do that is different? And this was one of those instances.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01] And I'm guessing this radio play didn't come with like a trigger warning back then or like...

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, it came with a trigger warning. Oh, did it? People just missed it.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01] Okay.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And by the time the second one came along, they'd already started freaking out and they'd fled their homes. So, yeah. But like I said, there is a little bit more to the story. So I'm not just going to tell you what history has told us. We are also going to explore some of the facts. All right. Get to it. Adam, of course, as we always do, we always start with the man behind the actual story, right?

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_03] Orson Welles, Adam, was born George Orson Welles in Kenosha, Wisconsin on the 6th of May 1915. And almost immediately, the adults around him decided Orson was a progeny. Why is that? Well, as a child, he played piano, violin. He painted. He drew. He wrote stories. He performed magic tricks for his parents and their friends. And even staged like little productions of Shakespeare. And he wasn't a kid who happened to be good at just one thing. He was annoyingly good at literally everything. Yeah, he sounds annoying. Yeah, he is.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03] What is the cutoff point to be described as a progeny? Like, it's important to know because I want to know if there's still hope for us.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01] I think that ship has sailed a long time ago.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_03] But there might be things like we haven't progressed to yet in our age that if we started now, we could become a progeny of the geriatric generation. Oh my God. A midlife prodigy. Yeah. Like Bowles. A Bowles prodigy.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_01] He's a 30-year-old Bowles prodigy. Oh, and think about Morgan Freeman. He didn't start acting, I swear, until like his 40s or 50s.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_03] Oh my God. Morgan Freeman is a prodigy. Yeah. He's a geriatric prodigy. He is. So there is hope. There is hope for us. But we just need to find our niche.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_03] And so much of Orson's creativity does seem to come from his mother, Beatrice. She, in her own right, was a talented pianist, an intellectual who encouraged his music, readings and performing and things like that. And his father, Richard, he was more of like an inventor, tinkerer type, also a businessman. He'd also earned a ton of money from inventions connected to bicycle lighting. He'd invented, like during the early turn of the century, there was this boom in popularity for bicycles.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03] However, because of course the Industrial Revolution meant that it was much easier to produce them and manufacture them. And so it just took off all over the world. However, riding a bicycle at night in the early turn of the century, a little bit hazardous. Yeah. You could fall into a coal mine. And so he invented this really ingenious bicycle lamp. It's like a carbide lamp. So there's like some, I think like calcium or something inside there or some sodium stuff in there and you drip water on it and it creates this really bright light. Oh, right. So it didn't need any batteries.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_03] And so he was responsible for inventing that with a couple other guys. But it makes him very, very rich because at the time the boom of bicycles was just taken off all over the world. And so, Adam, it is fair to say that Orson Welles grows up in a very comfortable environment. A cultured home surrounded by artists, actors and successful people. As obviously his parents' fame grew, they started to surround themselves by people higher in society. And of course, whenever those people visited, Orson was always there entertaining them with magic tricks and productions of Shakespeare.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03] Which is the fucking worst. Because if your child starts performing Shakespeare at a dinner party, please, guys, I know some of you have kids out there. Just understand that your guests are smiling because they love you. Internally, they're thinking, I fucking hate this kid. I mean, is it just a one-man show?

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01] Is he playing literally every character?

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, God, can you imagine even worse? Him getting all the guests like to star in his production. Oh, my God.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01] I imagine it very much like the one-woman show from Friends. The monologue. The monologue.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_03] My first period. Well, obviously it wouldn't be that with Orson Welles. It'd be like, my first paper plane. And how it made him feel. Yeah. However, Adam, this does explain something very important. Because from a very young age, Orson became used to having an audience. He performed. Adults stopped what they were doing. And literally everyone told him that he was just extraordinary. And he clearly was extraordinary. But if every adult you meet spends your childhood telling you that you're brilliant, eventually you are probably going to believe them, right?

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_03] Sadly, however, Adam, that childhood doesn't last. Because Orson's parents separate when he's around about four years old. And remember, he's already brilliant. Yes. He's already brilliant before four. No, no. Hang on. He's been performing Shakespeare before the age of four. Yeah. Doing all sorts of things. Magic tricks. Like, brilliant at painting. Brilliant at kind of putting on these little shows. Magic tricks. All sorts. At three years old?

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Okay, I take all back. That's pretty impressive.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_03] It is impressive. He's a child prodigy. Like, people don't just throw that around willy-nilly. Like, he's pretty impressive. However, his mother ends up dying from hepatitis shortly after his ninth birthday. It also didn't help that during this time, his father had also fallen off the rails due to alcoholism. I think the divorce had had a major impact on him. And of course, through that, he ended up losing a lot of his fortune that he had earned from his little bicycle invention. And sadly, Adam, Richard also ends up passing away when Orson turns 15.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_03] And so, Adam, it's a pretty stark turnaround from, like, the background that he came from, right? I mean, it is obvious, and I'm going to say it, and I will apologize. Orson Welles becomes Orphan Welles. Wow. Sorry, it's low-hanging fruit. What did you expect me to do? Is he alive now? No. No. So, following the sad death of his parents, a family friend called Maurice Bernstein becomes Orson's legal guardian.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_03] And he pretty much does everything he can to ensure that Orson continues to flourish in his education. By this point, Orson was already attending the Todd School for Boys in Illinois. It's a place that kind of encourages creative, eccentric students that are already kind of brilliant. So, already, he's in the right place, considering the potential that he's shown up to this point as a three-year-old. And here, Orson, he acted in school plays. He even directed them. He gets involved in set design. Like Adam, again, keeps saying it. He is amazing.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_03] The school also, however, has a radio studio, which Orson enthusiastically gets involved in. His dad had obviously been a tinkering in life, so he's constantly working on different inventions, trying to solve different problems. And so, for Orson, early radio was exactly the same thing, especially when it came to, like, the sound effects. Like, there's no button marked thunderstorm that you could press. Every sound has to be physically created inside the studio live.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_03] So, if you needed a sound of footsteps or the weather or the atmosphere, these all had to be built using ordinary objects that you would arrange in front of you, ready to go on cue. And so, like, if you have, like, an hour of production and you've got, like, a hundred different sound effects involving multiple different objects being hit together or rubbed together or whatever, you have to be really organized. Do you know what I mean?

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I think I've seen, like, videos of people doing this before.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, they're called foley artists.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I didn't realize they had to do it live, though, although I guess back then they would have done. Now they can just probably record a sound and it's, you know, it's in the bank.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. But, I mean, some foley artists, they still keep true to the old-fashioned way of doing it. So, you see, like, people watching a cartoon and they're kind of creating all the different sound effects as the motion is playing. And you see them, like, hitting a stick or they're, like, squishing jelly or whatever to create the different sound effects. And they're doing that on the fly as the motion picture moves in front of them. So, they're, like, kind of, it's a conveyor belt of them. Just like, okay, that sound effect's done. Move that out of the way. Move on to the next one. It's pretty impressive.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01] I would like to see that, but it go wrong.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01] That's what I want to see. Like, that sound effect doesn't match up.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_03] No, it doesn't.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01] He's, like, tripping over in the background. He, like, breaks the cymbals. Yeah. That's what I want to see. Big crash. Yeah. And there's, like, a deathbed scene on the screen. And he's got to do the wailing.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Do you know what I read the other day? I don't know, slight deviation, but I was listening to No Such Thing As A Fish and they were talking about Lou Bega. Do you remember him? No. From Mamba No. 5. Oh, yeah. Do you remember that song? Yeah. To the point that his wife was like, if you listen to that one more time, I'm going to divorce you. But someone done some research and they looked into one of Stephen King's novels, most famous novels. And I think it was Carrie. And I think there's one or two.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_03] And they found the names of every single one of the girls that Lou Bega sings. Oh, really? Yeah. In that song, Inside Carrie. But this was decades before Lou Bega was even on the radar. Oh, so... So it's a bit of a coincidence that he was so obsessed with the song. And yet, people found evidence of all those names inside one of Stephen King's most popular novels.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01] Are we saying that Lou Bega was influenced by Carrie?

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_03] Who knows? But the point is, is that Lou Bega, unfortunately, before he became big, I think like in 99, his father was dying on his deathbed. And he went to the hospital and he played him this latest song, Lou Bega, Mamba No. 5, while his dad was essentially dying. And his dad's only comments were, this will make you big. This will be your breakthrough song. But what a song to play for your father when he's on his deathbed. I mean, you've got to lighten the mood, right? You have.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_03] But what is disturbing is one of the names in there is Sandra. And Sandra is his sister. So that must have been quite strange for his father to go, Sandra in the sun, huh? Okay. Stay away from your sister. Yes. It's a good advice for everyone. Anyway, back to Austin, Adam. Because even though he's getting involved in all these different sound effects as a foliatist, etc. In front of the mic, he is also extremely brilliant.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_03] Because one of his defining features as a literal human being is his voice. It was super deep. It's really authoritative. And remember, Adam, he's 14 at this point and that voice is already established. So puberty is a blessing to him right now. And throughout school, he is a literal champion in everything that he tries. As well as being academically gifted, he understood how to control the stage, how to create a believable world through sound, and how much authority his brooding deep voice could physically carry in a performance.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_03] Then at 16, Orson graduates. His brilliance lands him a scholarship at Harvard. But he turns this down because he wanted to instead go traveling around Europe, which is kind of what you do. But remember, this is a scholarship that he's been given, right? So it's not like his parents are paying for this. This is an opportunity that might not come again once you come back from your travels. Yeah, but you got to go on your gap year. That is true. I don't think he called a gap year. I reckon he did. Do you reckon? Well, I mean, he is going to Europe now.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_03] So, I mean, he might pick up on some of the lingo and how we say things. The thing is, though, when he sets out on his travels, he sort of overestimates how long he wanted to be away for because very soon he starts yearning for the stage again. And so when he arrives in Ireland, he decides that he can't wait any longer. He walks into Dublin Gate Theatre and he convinces the director that he was actually an established Broadway actor.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I imagine he's got that kind of conviction that will probably convince them.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, sure. And of course he wasn't. The director did later say that he 100% knew that he was bullshitting him. But the fact that he had the balls to walk in off the street and try his luck was enough for them to think, yeah, we'll hire you. I guess that's what they want. In fact, the director said it was his chutzpah. Chutzpah? Yes, like that Jewish word that a lot of the New York Jews always hear, right? Like consumption or like drive or like balls and confidence. Ah, I see. Yeah. Don't get too much of chutzpah in the UK. I like that word.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_03] And even if the story is complete bullshit, it takes an extraordinary amount of nerve to walk into a professional theatre at 16 years old and announce that you are already successful and also make people believe that. So that's quite impressive in itself. Like he doesn't seem to be the sort of person who waits for permission to be the person that he wants to be, which I quite like. And so he ends up working for the theatre in Ireland for a couple of years. People think he's awesome. Naturally, Adam, he starts thinking, if I can make it in theatre in Ireland, maybe I can

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_03] make it in Broadway or in the West End for real. However, that reality check quickly catches up to him because when he goes back to the United States, Broadway is literally like, lol, no.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, because I guess in Ireland, he's like, oh, this is the American. We need an American to play a character, right?

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_03] I think he is actually brilliant. I think he can, he's not just typecast as an American. Oh. I think he can do other stuff. He's got range.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01] Oh yeah, he's a magician as well.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_03] But it's the level, right? So he's walked into this theatre in Ireland, which, hey, theatre's in Ireland. I love Ireland. It's beautiful. It might not necessarily be Broadway. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And so they've set their standards a little bit lower. They've seen him. They think, yeah, he's brilliant. But in comparison to what they might expect from the standards in Broadway, it's not the same thing.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, Broadway is like the pinnacle of live theatre, isn't it? And then the West End kind of is on par. I'd say it's probably better. Possibly. Yeah. So yeah, maybe that's, that's true. They're kind of the same, but I don't know what the next level is.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that that is the pinnacle, right?

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_03] And so naturally the thing that he decides to do to deal with his bruised ego is he just goes travelling again. So he's pretty damn wounded. He ends up travelling through Spain and Morocco where he ends up meeting a few prominent people, including Thornton Wilder. Very successful novelist and playwright. I think he's like written The Matchmaker and Our Town. Now Thornton introduces Orson to a couple of his theatre friends and through them, it's a bit of a chain, but eventually he gets involved in a few productions.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_03] And it's through this work that he catches the attention of producer John Houseman. Very important in the story. And he basically wants Orson to get involved in his federal theatre project. At the time, America was still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. So few and fewer people will go to the theatre. The federal theatre project was established to kind of keep the medium alive throughout the economic downturn while also helping to kind of boost public morale. It was a government funded kind of project.

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_03] Now the first project together is where Orson steps up as director in a version of Macbeth. Now the selling point is that this was going to be an all black cast and it became known as Voodoo Macbeth, which I think sounds incredible.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01] I see. So if it's an all black cast, what's he doing? He's the director. Oh, okay, fine.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And the production was a massive success, Adam. Remember, Orson at this point, he's 20 years old. It does a huge amount to promote African-American theatre, which this, remember, this is before the civil rights movement. So it's a massive feat to be able to achieve that.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01] Playing into the whole voodoo thing, is that the right thing to do? Because it almost feels, I'm not quite sure where that was sort of coming from, Voodoo Macbeth.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_03] I don't think it is anything negative there. I think voodoo is a thing in the Caribbean and in Haiti and things like that. So I think it's part of a religion. It's a whole thing. So I don't think there's any negative connotations to it, but I do agree. It struggles the line based on what people perceive voodoo is versus the reality of it.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And I was just thinking at that point in time, yeah, I just don't know if that would just make certain people think a certain way.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_03] If you're in the arts, you know. So I think, you know, you have the intelligence to know is the assumption I'm making. But the point is, is that it's following this that Orson's reputation as one of America's most exciting young directors is firmly in the bag. Because following the success of Voodoo Macbeth, Orson and John Houseman, they decide that they're going to team up again a year later to form the Mercury Theatre Company. Their first production was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, except all the actors.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_03] Not going to be like in togas or anything like that. In fact, it wasn't even going to be set in Julius's time. It was all modern dress. And the production was kind of set in the modern day time of the 1930s, where there's loads of like fascist overtones. And so this is very different, but also incredibly politically relevant, since obviously fascism was now spreading across Europe at the time. And again, Orson was very good at taking classical works, shaping them into something different

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_03] that still resonated with modern audiences. Like it is, he's such a big deal because he's able to do that really well. And so the production is another massive success. And by May 1938, Adam, just three days after his 23rd birthday, he lands a cover on Time Magazine. Wow, he is doing well. Yeah. So like most certainly the youngest director ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. Yeah, at that point in time.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_03] But despite, of course, his reputation and the incredible productions he was putting on, he wasn't making amazing money. The elaborate shows he always wanted to create weren't always possible through ticket sales alone. And so remember, like theatre is expensive. So to supplement his income and to help fund more elaborate productions, Orson picks up some side work in radio across Manhattan. And once again, Adam, his voice means that he is absolutely brilliant. Radio physically loves him. Orson becomes particularly well known for playing the title character in The Shadow, which is basically,

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_03] a crime fighter who can somehow cloud people's minds so they can't see him, allowing him to either apprehend them or kind of get away. And he does really well at this gig. So well, in fact, that in 1938, CBS give the Mercury Theatre Company its own programme adapting famous novels into hour-long radio dramas. It was initially called First Person Singular, which does bring back connotations of that woman from Friends. Oh, yeah.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_03] But and I think also it's a pretty shit name, but it's because it's a lot of it is monologues. So that kind of makes sense from that standpoint. But even then, I think they understood that it was a shit name because they later changed the name to the Mercury Theatre on air. And at the time, they weren't really that well known. So it didn't really kind of attract too much sponsorship interest. That meant it was a fairly low budget show. But at the same time, they were also just getting started. Do you know what I mean? So like, didn't matter.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_03] Like people don't go into doing these types of things unless they have a sponsor. They do it in spite of the fact that they don't have a sponsor. Do you know what I mean? And so every week, the actors would stand around the microphones reading from scripts while a small orchestra supplied the music and a sound effects team created pretty much every door, footstep, gunshot, storm, all inside the audio. And so remember, there's no editing after this. If someone ever missed their cue, that mistake went directly into literally homes across America. You had to know exactly when your cue is coming.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_03] Now, the first episode that they do was an adaptation of Dracula. And of course, Orson is a perfectionist. At one point, they needed to create the sound of a wooden stake being driven through Dracula's heart. Well, how did they know what that was going to sound like? Well, what would you think it was going to sound like? Squelch. Yeah, there's a squelch. So what kind of materials would you use? I don't know. Like, to me, the instinct would be, well, just emulate that, right? Get some meat. Get some meat. Get an actual steak. Draw it through there.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01] But a lot of the times when they have, when you think that would make sense, it doesn't sound good enough or it doesn't sound like convincing enough. So they would use something else, right?

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, because there's a very important element to that. And I'll get onto that in a second. But you're exactly right. So they would experiment with the obvious. But also at the same time, if you go through rehearsals over like a week, how many livers do you need? Something that's going to be something that you can repeatedly use. You don't want to be stabbing through like a nine-day-old liver. It's going to sound more scratchy than squelchy.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, and you think like, this is going back maybe 20, 30 years, like punches, they always would sound like, doesn't sound like realistic. And they'd be punching like a wheat bag or something like that. Yeah, it's definitely evolved, isn't it?

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_03] The sound of what we've come accustomed to. And that's the important thing. And so the Foley team experiment with loads of different things, including oranges and organs that they would get from the butcher. But honestly, as we said, like nothing really sounded right. They do eventually try a cabbage. So how is that going to sound like Dracula being staked through the heart? I guess it's going to sound more crunchy. Leafy. Leafy. But what they do is they, I think they hollow out the center of it.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_03] They fill it with water and then they drive through it with like a sharpened broomstick to see if they can kind of get that sound. But even then, it just didn't feel real enough. How Orson knew that was beyond me? Like, how does he know what that's supposed to sound like? Unless he's moonlighting as a cross-dressing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01] I don't know. He's clearly got a picture or a vision in his mind.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. Eventually, what they found did work was a watermelon, which they would then smash with a hammer and then rummage it around inside just for a second. So no liver or actual wooden stake, which is so interesting. Because even though it's not what you would have expected to make that sound, Orson understood what he wanted the audience to feel. And that's exactly what you said at the very beginning. I did. Yeah, you gotta remember. Just a few seconds ago. It's been a lot of takes since then.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_03] And so because of this perfectionism, it's not uncommon for him to literally reject sounds right up to the minute they're about to go live. And he's like, no, I'm not happy with that sound. Find something else or try this or whatever. And so, Adam, they do this every single week. When they first started airing, they were assigned a slot of Mondays at 9pm, which isn't great. But the network quickly saw the program's potential and they ended up moving them to a primetime slot of Sundays at 8pm. That's the big time, right?

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_03] Even though they still don't even have a sponsor. No one's picked them up. But the network saw potential in what they were able to achieve. So whatever they were doing, they already had audiences gripped by their storytelling. People liked the format. It was also predictable. They knew what to expect every week. There was always a new adaptation from a novel. There was the standard introduction, music, narration, dramatic scenes, all that stuff, right? You get to know the format of a show that you're really into.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_01] I see. And this, if it's every week, people know that it's a story. It's fictional, right? That's right.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. It behaved basically like a radio play. But then Adam, in October 1938, Orson decided that the 17th episode needed to behave differently. He wanted to create an episode that sounded as though it was happening now, like to give a genuinely immersive feel to it. He had this vision of presenting a story through a series of fake news bulletins. Like maybe it could start off with like a regular concert happening,

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_03] which would then be interrupted by a breaking news story beginning to unfold in real time. And so Orson and John Houseman began thinking about what kind of story would suit the style. And eventually they land on H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. I see. Do you know the story of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds?

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_01] Loosely. Like it's aliens that come to this planet, right? And then are they like giant silver machines? I'm trying to think of like there's the artwork from the soundtrack. And then there's the Tom Cruise movie back in like the early 2000s.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, the artwork is very distinctive. It kind of reminds me of, is it the Escher guy? Who's that famous artist, Escher? Done the famous kind of pencil sketch or graphite sketch of the ball with the metal ball reflecting kind of the entire room. I think it might even be him actually. In essence, the novel follows a Martian invasion of Britain. The Martians arrive in a giant kind of walking machine equipped with various heat rays and poisonous smoke. They completely overwhelm the British military.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_03] But just as humanity, and this is a spoiler, just as humanity is about to be absolutely screwed, the Martians are killed by an earthly bacterium that we're completely immune to, but it's completely deadly to them. So like they're traveling millions of miles, conquering a planet, then they're defeated because Susan from Putney Avenue had a cold.

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01] Well, that's on the Martians. They should have really done some planning and health and safety, risk assessment, just didn't do it. They weren't bureaucratic enough.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_03] Bureaucracy ended their civilization.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_03] And it's like a proper old-timey book. It was written like in the late 1800s. It was originally serialized in the UK, but also in the United States in Cosmopolitan magazine, of all things. So Cosmo wasn't always about climaxing your way to better skin. They were actually publishing real stories and articles.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I can't imagine they were doing that back in the 20s.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_03] Were climaxing themselves to better skin?

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01] No. Definitely not. But they're talking about how to, I don't know, clean a kettle. I don't know what's going on.

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, possibly. I mean, the demands change, right? Demand, yeah.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, how to not look slutty with your ankles out. You see that slut with her ankles out.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_03] But also at the time, the book was used massively to mock the British, with Americans ironically saying like this was British imperialism kind of turned against them. Because Britain was, of course, one of the most powerful colonizing nations. And then suddenly H.G. Wells turns the situation around and is asking, what would happen if Britain became a country being invaded by a technologically superior force? Do you know what I mean? And so in the end, they thought that they found their story,

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_03] and it was going to be H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Except, of course, they needed to adapt it to serve an American audience and suit this idea of an unfolding news report happening live. So instead of Britain, the entire story was going to be set in the United States, but with the epicenter being in New Jersey. Like, they were aiming for a real sounding story. If you're listening in nearby New York, and you hear Martians are attacking the English countryside, you're not going to be anxious, are you? You're going to be more like, oh, poor Brits.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, that's a shame.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, well. Back to reducing my hem to reveal those, you know, those ankles. And so to get to work, the responsibility of adapting the book into a script fell to a guy called Howard Koch. He'll actually later go on to co-write Casablanca. So he's going to be big. I don't think he's that big right now, but there's some serious people in this. The problem was that Howard hates the story. He thinks it's A, too dated, and B, too childish. He doesn't also think that it's going to translate well to radio, but he gives it a crack.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_03] But after a few days, he says to John Hausman that it's crap, basically. And he asks whether or not they could choose something else. So John tries to contact Orson, but at the time, he's in the middle of like a 36-hour rehearsal session.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01] Wow, he's committed.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Remember, he's working on other stuff, too, as well. So he is around surprisingly little. Very often, he'll just show up and raw dog the recording. He's hardcore. And so John, because he can't contact Orson, he just tells Howard, yeah, Orson said no. And then he's like, he wants you to do War of the Worlds. So he's trapped, basically. We've all done it, basically. So Howard perseveres. He delivers the first draft. All the actors come together to rehearse, of course, without Orson Welles. Obviously, he's still AWOL.

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_03] Adam, everybody thinks it is shit. The script was divided into two halves, with the first half being all the fake news bulletins. And the second half was like a series of long, boring speeches from survivors describing the aftermath. Like on paper, the format made sense. But in rehearsal, it's just really boring and lifeless. It just, it was too slow.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_01] I guess if like they're used to doing a story with a narration or there's kind of like dialogue between characters. Yeah, there's probably, this isn't the norm. And they haven't heard anything like this before. So they're trying. It doesn't make sense.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_03] You also get used to the format that you adopt as well. So you know how to control the different strings. But when it's a completely new format, maybe you just haven't become accustomed to the delivery of it yet. However, the plan was still to run with it. Because like it's too late in the day to change now. But absolutely nobody at this point has any faith in this episode. However, when Orson finally shows up and he reads the script, he's like, we cannot. Ship this.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_03] And so if this was a movie, this is where you would cue that montage of everyone just kind of like rallying around to fix it. Like people are running down the stairs. There's Orson with his head in his hands and John and Howard arguing over scenes. The Foley team are experimenting with different sounds to no avail. It's all going on.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] So why is Orson now saying, yeah, this isn't going to work? I thought he kind of signed off on this.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_03] He wants the format. He just doesn't think the story works, basically. Orson immediately recognized that the news report section is the strongest part of the production. And so he asked Howard to expand on those scenes and reduce the monologues and reshape the invasion. So it felt as though it was accelerating around the user. Because in the book, the story famously takes place over like several days with references to like last night's massacre and other events happening around that time. So Orson wanted to feel as though everything was happening now.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_03] And so he asked Howard to remove all references to time passing. So that helps with kind of the acceleration, moves things along, makes it pacey.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And it sounds like the actors kind of knew. They clearly had an idea this isn't quite working. So...

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Oh yeah. They all did. And so when the rewrite is finally done, they are very close to the wire. There's just not a huge amount of time to go through the entire script with like a fine tooth comb. So inadvertently, they neglect to notice one major flaw, which would be the crucial element that fed into the eventual hysteria that would unfold. And that is that the first half, the fake news section, ended up running over the scheduled half hour point where there was supposed to be a break.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_03] Normally, listeners would expect the program to pause at this point, usually for like sponsor messages. Of course, as we know, they didn't have any sponsors, but also for the station to identify itself and remind listeners that they were listening to adaptation of a work of fiction, right? So this matters because radio audiences, especially those tuning into Orson's show, had already come to expect a break at that particular point.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_03] So you can understand how the shift in the episode's format from its usual, combined with the lack of pause at the expected time, might make anyone wonder whether or not what they were listening to was actually real.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, because even now when you have scheduled programming and it cuts to like breaking news, everything's just a bit off, right? So that's what you kind of expect when something's unfolding. And if this is, you've got this live news broadcast, what sounds like that, and you've not got your ad breaks as you normally would.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, so those are like the major things. But this is especially the case for those who might have tuned in late, Adam, and missed that introduction. Instead, you tune in and the first thing you hear are reports of explosions and people freaking out, right? So it sounds absurd when you listen like this. And at the time, it would have been difficult to foresee the impact of this, but all of those things happened.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_03] People did tune in late, the story sounded too real, and they didn't hear that expected ad break. And so, cue, shit hit in the fan, basically.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_03] And again, it sounds silly to us, but consider that only weeks earlier, American stations had repeatedly been interrupting normal programs with urgent reports about Hitler and Czechoslovakia with the crisis that was unfolding in Europe ahead of the war, right? So people were already sensitive to music cutting out while an announcer delivered like a serious story.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_01] Interesting. So yeah, the setting of the time played a bit of a factor in this as well.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, people are a little bit on edge. But other details that would also affect how audience receive the report is, for example, one guy, a guy called Frank Reddick. He wanted to capture the same emotion that was heard in that infamous Hindenburg disaster report, which had only happened like a couple years earlier. And that was obviously still fresh in people's mind. So when he was rehearsing his lines, he wanted to channel the energy and tone of Herbert Morrison's cries going, Oh, the humanity! Do you remember that scene? We did that episode.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_03] And even on the broadcast, Reddick cried during his delivery, which does nothing to reassure people that this isn't fiction.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_03] So people are just trying too hard.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, so the actors actually cried during this. Yes. Oh, wow. So he did really go for real.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, he proper went for a method acting, Adam. Yeah.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_01] How did he cry? Onions or?

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_03] No, he didn't need it. I just guess it needs to sound like he was crying. That's the important thing, right?

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_01] Did he pull a nose hair?

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_03] No, I'll say it again. He didn't actually need to cry. He didn't need real tears. That's for television. But sometimes it helps, right? Method acting. Oh, maybe it could do. Yeah, possibly. But yeah, he does it basically and it's quite convincing. They also really work on the sound effects as well, which I think is one of the most ingenious aspects of the story. Because to emulate the giant walking machines that are in War of the Worlds, if you remember that story, you see them walking through the English countryside with giant huge legs.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_03] Now, to simulate that, what they did is someone had made a homemade hydraulic mechanism with piston sounds. Oh. And they just had that on the desk in front of them, which I just think is so smart. Clever. Now, the sound of the alien capsule opening, what do you think would create that sound?

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_01] Using like a twisting movement there. I gave something away. So something that twists open.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_03] They used a jam jar that they opened inside a toilet bowl. Oh, what does that sound like? I guess it creates a bit of like reverption or reverb, like a little bit of excitement around it. But yeah, open a jam jar inside a toilet. I love an exciting jam jar. Nice. Good. Noted. Thank you. Now, there are also a lot of rules that broadcasters also had to follow, even back then when radio was relatively new. For one, you weren't allowed to impersonate certain people, like government officials and things like that.

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_03] For one section of the broadcast, they were due to feature a speech by the Secretary of the Interior. But of course, that wasn't allowed. So the note given to actor Kenneth Del Mar was simple. Come across more presidential.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01] Wink, wink. Okay. So yeah, pretend you're the president.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, exactly. Of course, Kenneth understood exactly what Orson meant. So when he went on air, he sounded like President Franklin D. Roosevelt. So technically, they weren't breaking any rules because the instruction wasn't written down as an impersonation. If anybody thought it sounded presidential, they could argue it was subjective because the actor had never explicitly been instructed to impersonate the president. Right. Okay. Okay. Because act more presidential can be used as a verb, right?

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So it sounds like you're a political figure.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, exactly. But also, as part of the routine process, CBS would also have lawyers routinely review all the scripts. They did review the scripts. They did make some changes, but it was mostly altering kind of names of real organizations because they didn't want to get in trouble. But Adam, nobody ever thought that this production would genuinely fool anyone. They were just simply trying to rescue a show that had appeared rubbish during rehearsals. And in the process, they created basically the perfect storm, apparently.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01] So you've had Orson come in. He's kind of rescued the script before because it wasn't quite going to plan. They've made it very authentic. They're really playing into this live news broadcast, emulating political figures. And yeah, they're putting a lot of production to making sure that the sound effects sound as real as possible.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Within, obviously, their means. Yeah. Even had lawyers kind of review it as well. So they're taking these things seriously.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. But no one at this point, they're just putting on a show. They want it to sound as authentic as possible, but not thinking that people are really going to believe it.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And at the same time, another element that I find really impressive is this whole late stage preparation is very rushed as well.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. It sounds like only a few days before the actual show, right?

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. So the moral of the story is no need for extensive planning. Things will just come together.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_01] Just do it on a... I think it's the thing. When you've got a deadline, you have to hit it, right? So how does the show pan out? Okay.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_03] So, Adam, eventually, at 8 o'clock on Sunday, the 30th of October, 1938, the broadcast goes live.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01] And it does have a warning message, or you're now listening to the X show or whatever it's going to be.

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, because the show begins with CBS clearly introducing the programme. The announcer tells listeners they're about to hear Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre performing a dramatised adaptation of H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds. So anybody listening from the very beginning knew exactly what this was.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_01] So if you were listening and you see people running outside panicking, you're like, what are they doing? Yeah. I just want to listen to my show.

[00:46:32] Yeah.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_03] My problem. However, Adam, there is a problem. Because while Orson was getting started, people over at Arrival Station, NBC, were listening to the enormously popular comedian Edgar Bergen. They were catching the tail end of his show. So if you intended to tune into Orson's show afterwards, they would have missed that very important beginning. Get this. The Edgar Bergen show was a radio ventriloquist act.

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_03] How does that work? Exactly. Like, it's the easiest scam in entertainment. You could literally have completely two different men standing on opposite sides of the studio and nobody would know what was going on. It's weird. That man sounds awfully like a woman. Yeah, he's very good. Literally his wife. So that comedy skit ended around 8pm. And then it went to music. People kind of straggled along. I mean, the intro is very, very short, right?

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_03] A lot of people would have missed it even by just a couple minutes. A bunch of people linger around before tuning into Orson Welles on the hour. But because of the change in format, they weren't listening to anything remotely close to what they'd come to expect from Orson's shows, right? The broadcast itself began with a weather report. After that, the announcer introduced a musical act and handed over to a hotel ballroom where Ramon Roquello and his orchestra were supposedly performing live.

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_03] The music plays for a few minutes and then another announcer interrupts. And he explained that an observatory had detected explosions on Mars. It was unusual. But it was presented calmly and listeners were then asked to remain tuned, which I think is an interesting term. Remain tuned. Just remain tuned. Then the music returned, making the bulletin obviously feel very contained. A couple minutes later, the music was interrupted again.

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_03] This time, the announcer said that a flaming object had crashed into a field on Grover's Mill in New Jersey. And the announcer then handed over to a reporter. He described how police officers, scientists, curious onlookers had all gathered around this huge metal cylinder that had crashed into this field. Then suddenly, as they gathered around, the top of the cylinder started to move. So you can kind of jam-jam in the toilet.

[00:48:52] [SPEAKER_03] In the background, you could hear kind of the atmosphere and the sound effects supporting everything that the audience was hearing, right? Very authentic. The lid of the cylinder then falls away and something begins to emerge. And the reporter starts to describe tentacles, a body glistening like wet leather, black eyes and a mouth dripping with saliva emerged from the cylinder.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_03] Again, imagine that Morrison report from the Hindenburg disaster and what that would sound like. That's how he's describing it. So there's a franticness to it as well. I know I've said it very sultry and slow, but yeah, there's a bit of panic there.

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER_01] Sure, and is he crying at this point when he sees the alien or is that later?

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_03] I think it comes later. It evolves. The crying comes, right? And as the reporter described what he was seeing, he hesitated. He struggled to continue and then he begins breaking down in front of the microphone. And then the creatures started attacking. The heat ray gun that these aliens had started sweeping across the field, killing the people who'd gathered around the crash site. Then you hear the reporter screaming and then the transmission cuts out.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_01] So actually the actors are going, ah! Yeah. And then what are they using as the heat ray sound then? Who knows? Probably ingenious things. Yeah. Okay, so that does sound quite scary.

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_03] From this point, the gaps between the bulletins become shorter and shorter. We then heard reports of more cylinders landing across the country in like Chicago and St. Louis. The National Guard was then mobilized with artillery and bombers sent towards New Jersey. And of course they're reporting on all of this. But after they arrived and started fighting back, the Martians completely annihilate them by flooding the landscape with like clouds of poisonous gas.

[00:50:38] [SPEAKER_03] Reports begin claiming that more than 7,000 soldiers were now dead. Yeah. Then Kenneth Delmar, he's the Secretary of the Interior, right? Sounding remarkably like President Roosevelt. He comes online and he starts kind of telling the country about what's happening and that everyone should remain calm. They've got it under control. They're trying their best. They have not got it under control. Exactly. But he's been reassuring, right?

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_03] But as he says that, the Martians begin then advancing towards New York City. Uh-oh. Another reporter describes people collapsing in the streets. He was really affected by what he was seeing. You could kind of hear his breathing become strained. He then starts coughing and spluttering because the gas is kind of overwhelming him at this point. And basically what people were hearing was he was dying live on air.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_01] Oh God, okay. Yeah. Right.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_03] So you can get a sense of if you believe this is real, this would freak you out.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, if you believe this is a real news bulletin, absolutely.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_03] By now, anybody who had joined late had heard scientists, police officers, military commanders, government officials and eyewitness reports. They had heard that thousands of soldiers had been killed and that New York was now going to be overwhelmed by these aliens.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_01] This is like the first Cloverfield.

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah. So imagine here and now, right? If you've missed the beginning and you're wondering what you're listening to, A, the first thing that you'd probably do would be to change a channel to see whether or not any other stations were maybe reporting on the same story, right?

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_00] Mm-hmm.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. If they weren't, you could reasonably be sure that this was just a TV show. Sure. Or a radio show. But apparently some people didn't do that. To add to this, 30 minutes arrived and the usual scheduled pause at the half hour mark came and went. The expected identification of the show, that this was fictional, just didn't arrive as people expected. So people who might have suspected this was a show were now suddenly no longer sure because they were like, well, I wasn't sure before.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_03] If this was a show, I was expecting a break at half past and they didn't come. So now I'm freaking out. And so Adam, at 8.32 p.m., that's when calls started coming through to the station. Dozens of calls are flooding CBS from people asking whether or not the reports were actually real or not. And according to John Houseman, he later described CBS supervisor Davidson Taylor starting to panic. He ran out.

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_03] He orders the production to interrupt the broadcast immediately and announced that the episode was actually a drama. But here's the problem. By the time that message reaches production, they had literally just two minutes left before the ad break was coming anyway at the 40-minute mark.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, right. Okay.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_03] They were just like, we just need to wait for those reporters to finish dying. Don't want to interrupt his dying. Yeah, exactly.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_01] He's practiced real hard.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Being a good sport about it. Eventually he dies. The broadcast fades and the CBS break eventually arrives. The announcer explains that listeners were hearing a dramatized broadcast of HG Wells, The War of the Worlds. And so it was a little late, but it did arrive and probably reassured a bunch of people. Reasonable people, right?

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_01] But what about the rest of the people? Yeah, not everyone.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_03] Because by this point, people had apparently fled their homes. They were starting to panic across the country. They weren't just calling CBS now. Others were calling the police and other newspapers all wanting to know whether or not this was actually happening or not. There were even reports of people, especially around New York City and New Jersey, trying to make a run for it, like leave the town. So roads were gridlocked. Of course, CBS didn't know at the time that any of this was supposedly happening.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_03] It was responding to the calls that the station was physically receiving themselves, right? Which to them was already serious enough. In fact, to quell the concerns, CBS issued further clarifications at 9pm, 10.30pm, 11.30pm and then at midnight. And the announcement said, basically,

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_03] For those listening who tuned into Orson Welles Mercury Theatre on-air broadcast from 8pm to 9pm tonight and did not realise the programme was merely a modernised adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, we are repeating the fact. Which was made clear four times on the programme and while some American cities' names were used, as in all novels and dramatisations, the entire story and this incident were fictitious. And then they repeated that two more times up until midnight.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01] I love the fact that it's two multiple times. Like, as we said earlier, alright? Yes. Just calm down. It was a dramatisation.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, that's it. Now, by midnight, Adam, an illuminated headline peered above the New York Times building in Times Square. And the headline was, Orson Welles Causes Panic. Which actually must be an incredible thing to see written above New York, right? Especially if you are Orson Welles.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_01] This is like perfect PR. One for the station, because they're like, okay, we're going to get a bit of heat. But actually, everyone's talking about our show.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_01] And yeah, Orson Welles, well, he's like now a controversial filmmaker. No, audio playmaker. Audio playmaker.

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_03] Or professional.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_01] Artist. Artist. Artist.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, artist is better. But like, at the same time, how, what's the word gratifying or validating is it? To spend weeks believing that the programme is going to be boring? Half the production team literally hates it. You arrive at the last minute, you change everything, like, down to the wire. You go live, you walk outside to discover that actually you've destabilised an entire country.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_01] That's good. That is, yeah. You can sleep well tonight.

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Well, he doesn't, unfortunately.

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_01] Does he not?

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_03] No. No. Yeah, because it got a lot of heat on him, right? So, of course, the following morning, the story is being reported from literally coast to coast. But it wasn't being reported as a misunderstanding. It was now being positioned as a deliberate attempt to deceive. Throughout the night, reports had circulated about people frantically calling police and newspapers. The Associated Press reported that one man came home to find Adam, his wife, Catatonic, holding a bottle of poison saying, I'd rather die this way than like that.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I did wonder if anyone took drastic measures to end their lives or their family's lives.

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_03] On the other side of the country, in San Francisco, police received calls from a man who wanted to know what he could do to volunteer to fight back against the Martians. At the epicenter around New York and New Jersey, reports came in that highways were grinding to a halt as people were trying to escape the city. There were also reports of people showing up at police stations begging for gas masks to protect themselves from poisonous gas. Calls came through to utility companies asking them to turn off the lights so that the Martians

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_03] wouldn't be able to see cities or towns. Like, there was also reports of a woman in Indianapolis, Adam, who interrupted a Sunday church service and was yelling that New York had been destroyed and that everyone should go home and prepare to die. Like, Adam, it's pretty big.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_01] How long did this go on for then? Because it doesn't feel like it ended at 10 o'clock at night or whatever.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_03] It sounds like it just went on for a few hours. Yeah. People almost killed themselves. So it's pretty damn serious. And not everyone was really angry at him. Like, over the next few days, Orson does receive more than 1,000 letters. I think like 1,400 letters. Many people praised him for how believable the broadcast had been. But there were many letters literally berating him for being really irresponsible. Like, if you were one of those angry people, what would you have written to Orson Welles?

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_01] You made me slap my dog. I don't know.

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_02] Okay.

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_01] You need to calm down. They all need to calm down.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02] Like, you could have said anything. You could have been like, dear Mr. Wells, you made me believe that Martians were invading New Jersey. Why would you give me such false hope?

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_03] Do you know what I mean? Or like, I ran out of Sunday dinner because of you and I didn't get to enjoy my pot roast. I'll now have to wait till next Sunday to enjoy it. I hope you're ashamed of yourself. Yours furiously. Do you know what I mean? Like, it could have been anything. It could have been anything. But no, I slapped my dog. But I am really amazed by the reaction that all of this caused, right? It's so wild.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I think, I don't know. I don't feel like he was there to deceive anyone, really. Like, they had the announcement, this is the show beforehand. Mm-hmm. Wasn't it not the actual company or the broadcaster's fault for not saying, like, to these timelines? They didn't properly check that. So...

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_03] And I don't think it was a hard rule. I just think it was just like, well, this is what we do. And this is what people came to expect. And the mixture of everything else, just the fact that the half hour break was delayed, just fed into the hysteria.

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_01] I think it's one of those things, like, now everyone's quite creative or they want to try and make something sound believable. But obviously, we know, you know, it's all film or TV or radio or whatever. But back then, I guess, this was pretty new territory.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_03] Very new. Yeah. New medium. That's important. But it seems that as this all unfolded, this had become the biggest news story in the country. And it all happened apparently because a 23-year-old actor with a very deep voice and a foley team crouched around a toilet bowl with a jar of jam literally caused this hysteria. And so the following morning, CBS arranged a press conference to explain what had happened. Of course, Orson was panicking now too, because obviously he hadn't slept all night.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_03] He could sense the impending trouble that was coming for him. And when he arrived at the press conference, reporters, angry members of the public, they all demanded to know whether or not he'd intended to deceive them. He was also, Adam, remember, facing serious questions about whether or not he'd broken some serious, very important broadcasting rules because he came very close to the wire with the whole President Roosevelt impression, right? I see, yeah. And remember, he was also a man at the top of his game. So I imagine he must have been really anxious about what was going to potentially happen

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_03] because, like, he's got a long way to fall if he gets in trouble for this. There was also a moment where he seemed to be prepared to accept that he was now cancelled because he told John Houseman, if I'd planned to wreck my career, I couldn't have done it better, basically. So he was genuinely worried. Of course, Orson repeatedly denies everything. But people find it difficult to accept. To them, he was a man who had built his whole career by manipulating audience expectations, like with Voodoo Macbeth and fascist Julius Caesar, right?

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_03] So to them, they honestly believe this is all just a publicity stunt. The question is, was this a stunt? Did he do this deliberately? What do you think?

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_01] Well, obviously, he wanted to make it believable. But I don't think he was...

[01:01:06] [SPEAKER_03] It's not premeditated with that intention in mind, I don't think.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, he wanted to make people, like, gripped and kind of in fear whilst they're watching, I guess, in a sense, to, like, you know, yeah, believe it. But I don't think he was waiting for people to, like, drive out of town or, I don't know, run to the police station for gas masks.

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, exactly. And I mean, this story has become law, right? Like, this incredible moment where a radio broadcast caused panic across America. It was all over the newspapers. It was one of the biggest stories. And we're still telling the story 88 years later. It's wild. But that's not what happened.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, so it was intended? Nope. Then what?

[01:01:39] [SPEAKER_03] It wasn't intended. And it didn't cause mass panic. Oh, what? This is a whole lie? Should we get into it? So, honestly, I think it's possible that some people did panic. And I can see why. The broadcast was hyper-realistic. It went against the grain of what people expected to hear that evening. All of that is true. But there were elements outside of Orson's control that I don't see how he could have foreseen. So, straight away, I don't think that he would have intended to do this. For one, how could he have known that the Ventriloquist Act would have overrun, causing people to miss the start of the broadcast? It's out of his control.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_03] So, I don't think he would have done this deliberately because he can't control that, right? Agreed. It didn't help that the scheduled pause at 8.30 was delayed by 10 minutes. That break could have provided reassurance. For some listeners who needed it. But it did arrive 10 minutes later. So, we are expected to believe that the moment where you're sure that something might be wrong would be at the half-past mark. And so, between half-past and the 40-minute mark, there's a 10-minute window.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_03] Are we expected to believe that this mass hysteria flared up within that 10-minute period? Because that is where a reasonable person would freak out, right? Because they missed the break. Like, hang on a minute. I don't think this is a story. There's been no break. It sounds like a new story. Let's freak out for 10 minutes. And then the break comes. All that happens in 10 minutes. And we're talking millions of people.

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_01] They'd have to, like, fled their homes and not continue listening to the radio to go away.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_03] Or talking to anyone. Yeah. So, don't buy that. But I do think it could have caused a momentary tizzy. But I think what made the situation far bigger than it needed to be was actually the three announcements that came between 9pm and midnight. Like, people hearing those announcements, including the media, might have thought, wow. For them to feel the need to keep reassuring people that this was fictional, this must have caused some serious concern. The station, in my opinion, should have just completely ignored it.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_03] And so, off the back of those repeated announcements, the media probably picked up on that as well and went, actually, there's probably something there. This probably makes a really decent story. They start reporting on it. Other people started jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe fictitious stories started coming out. Different kind of accounts got exaggerated. And, of course, it probably fed into itself and probably just snowballed from there.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_01] Right. So, you're saying, like, there was maybe a little bit of hysteria, some calls, a few people contacted the police, some people were leaving the town? Or was that a bit true?

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_03] Well, let's, we'll go on to that in a minute. Like, the announcements made the confusion seem more serious. That encouraged more calls and reporting. And that growing coverage then made the panic appear much larger than it actually was. Like, consider this, right? Orson Welles is the hottest celebrity alive at the time. It was bound to make a good story if it was true. Or even if you could kind of just bend it in a way. 23-year-old genius fools a nation and causes chaos. That's enough of a fragment to turn into a massive story.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_03] And we know this because many of the reports being published couldn't actually be backed up later by actual factual evidence. Like, there were no confirmed deaths in the story. The rumors of attempted suicides were investigated and found to have either been exaggerated or completely made up. Researchers also canvassed hospitals, but there were no observed increase in patient emissions as a result of this broadcast.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, and so, and no one was like trying to flee town or anything like that?

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. So like, you would expect, like, if this had caused panic, there would have been an increase in at least hospital emissions, right? Yeah. So while it might have caused some panic, it wasn't all our hysteria. There is also strong evidence to suggest that many people didn't even listen. There's a company called CE Hooper Ratings, which would, like, ring households and survey people about what they're listening to on a particular day. That night, the company had called 5,000 households.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_03] It turned out, Adam, that only 2% of people were actually listening to CBS that evening. And so when you extrapolate that upwards, those numbers come nowhere near the scale needed for mass hysteria. And remember, not everyone who listened to their show would have missed the beginning half. They would have heard the beginning half. And so, yeah, so it's a small amount. Of the 2% of people who listened, even a small amount would have tuned in late. And so the numbers just don't add up for it to be a mass hysteria.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_01] So is it the media that's made it a hysteria? Or is it, like, the network that's kind of gone, oh, we can play and get, like, like I said, this is kind of great PR, right, for people and the show?

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_03] It's a perfect storm of all those things. Yeah, I don't think the network had too much to do with this. I think they were just literally trying to fight fires here. They've gotten a few anger calls. They put out that statement three times. The media picks up on that. And then they ran with it. And then it snowballed from there. But they do have a vendetta against radio. And I'll explain that in just a second. But that is how we know that it couldn't have been this mass hysteria because this CE Hooper

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_03] rating company ranked 5,000 households and only 2% of people were listening that night. Can you imagine, like, Disney Plus calling you up to find out what you were watching?

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01] No, they can go to hell.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_03] And also, how many people would actually be honest? Like, how many people would actually admit to, like, watching The Real Housewives of New York City? I'd be like, I was watching a really hard-hitting documentary about the genocide in Cambodia, actually. Yeah, yeah. Real Housewives. Never heard of it. No. Oh, the last time you called, I was watching Real Housewives of New York City? No, that was porn. I meant real sexy Housewives of New York City.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_01] You'd rather admit to that.

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a guilty pleasure of mine. I do love the show.

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, wait. Porn or Desperate Housewives?

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_03] Desperate Housewives. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, also... They probably also know as well, don't they?

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, Disney Plus knows. Yeah. They don't need to call you up. No, exactly. They know exactly when you stop, when people, like, pause the shows.

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_03] When they're not even looking at the TV screen. That's creepy. That is creepy. It's going to get that way. There's that TV that should be released. It's free. You buy it, but it's got, like, another LED strip at the very bottom of the TV. Quite big. And it just plays adverts. And it knows when you are not looking at the screen. And so it will pause the advert until you then look back. Yeah. And it's free. You can get it.

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_01] And this is so you can have a free TV. Yeah. No, thanks. Yeah.

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_03] No.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_01] Crazy. Yeah.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_03] The point is, Adam, if this really caused widespread hysteria, more people would have reported listening to that broadcast. Now, there is a theory that the hysteria was actually manufactured by newspapers to push for tighter censorship on radio. Because at the time, radio was expanding massively. And newspapers were now losing readers as a result. Newspapers saw radio as a threat. And a couple of years earlier, like, you can see a lot of this kind of peddling on these news stories.

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_03] In one example, the New York Times wrote an article saying, radio is new, but it has adult responsibilities. It has not mastered itself or the material it uses. So newspapers were already actively attacking radio. And the Awesome Wells broadcast just presented a new opportunity to do so.

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_01] If they were going to be worried about radio, then they had no idea what was coming.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. With TikTok and Instagram and things like that. Right. And because many newspapers across the country relied on the same wire service reports to kind of get their news, the same handful of dramatic stories began appearing everywhere. So it looks as though dozens of newspapers had independently confirmed a nationwide panic, when actually many of them were just simply repeating the same anecdotes from the same Associated Press article that was published on The Wire.

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_03] But once the story started happening everywhere, you suddenly had a ton of people who now also wanted to be part of it. And so the whole thing just snowballed. People were like, yes, I also listened to the broadcast. And yes, I was freaked out too. Here's my story.

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_01] Just people want to like get some column inches and be part of history, I guess.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. You suddenly have millions of people claiming they'd also tuned in that night. There was also a study conducted by a Princeton psychologist named Hadley Cantrell. Great name. Which the media later used as evidence for pushing this kind of agenda of theirs for tighter controls on radio. And at the time, the psychologist was studying the power of propaganda. And as part of his work, he decided to pivot in the light of the story. And he interviewed a group of people who'd been affected by the broadcast.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_03] His eventual findings, however, suggest that radio could pose a serious threat when it came to shaping public opinion. And so naturally, the newspapers with already a staunch agenda just ran with that. However, it is now widely recognized that his findings were actually skewed because he only interviewed 135 people around the New Jersey area. So the epicenter of where this all happened and people who said that they were the most scared. Nobody who had listened without being affected was actually interviewed.

[01:10:23] [SPEAKER_03] So it's not a proper sample size, right?

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_01] No, it's bias. You know, you're not taking a fair representation of everyone.

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. Basically, what he's saying is that if it was hysterical here, it was hysterical everywhere.

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, yeah.

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_03] The interviews also took place, remember, weeks after the story had ended. By then, loads of people wanted to become part of the story, right? They had their own anecdotes. They'd heard the story being peddled all over the place. And they were like suddenly, yeah, also tuned in that night. But as you know, only 2% of people had. And so that doesn't really extrapolate up to mass hysteria involving millions of people.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, exactly.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_03] There is one extreme verifiable story that came from all of this. And that involved a couple called John and Estelle Pultz, who, like many, they missed the very beginning bit of the broadcast. When they heard what was happening, they knew it was likely to cause a rush of people trying to flee. So they decided to get ahead of it. And they tried to leave the city by train and started heading for Hartford in Connecticut. Now on the train, they told two college students what they'd heard. This ended up attracting a bit of a crowd around

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_03] them. And eventually, one of those people in that crowd went, oh, this sounds like Orson Wells. And that's when the penny drops for Estelle, who realized, oh, this must have been one of his productions, right?

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_01] But she felt silly.

[01:11:34] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. Now, she's an extreme case who ended up fleeing before, obviously, that settled in. But the point is, everyone who knew Orson Wells, and many people did, had come to expect something like this from him. It was just unfortunate that she was in a situation where she had missed the beginning. And it had obviously run over its regular break slot. And it just so happened that it all sounded very real.

[01:11:59] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I guess this is just one of the rare instances where someone did act, but it's just taken out of, you know.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. No reasonable person would have believed it was real for long and certainly not on the mass scale, right? Yeah. If we only know that 2% of people tuned in, it's only going to be a very small subset of those people. They're genuinely freaked out. But then also, you've got to remember, sure, you're hearing something like this for the first time. The first thing you would do is check other stations to see if they were also reporting on it. If they weren't, then it's probably not a major news event, right?

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_03] Also remember, there were four very clear disclaimers. One at the beginning, one before the break, yes, it came late, one after the break, and then one at the very end. But then also the three announcements leading up to midnight. And honestly, I believe it was those three announcements that came after the show that caused the press to jump on that bandwagon. If you were genuinely that concerned, you would have stayed glued to your radio, right? And you would have eventually heard those warnings. The whole event was clearly exaggerated by

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_03] the press, partly as a way to run a novel story. They saw an opportunity, but also partly an opportunity to attack radio.

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_03] And so it makes sense to that lens, doesn't it? In the fallout, it's also worth mentioning that the Federal Communications Commission did not introduce any new regulations whatsoever. If it truly had been a national disaster, you would expect them to have done something about it, right?

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I would have thought so. But I guess that just kind of shows it wasn't a big deal. Why is everyone like just calmed down?

[01:13:33] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. The only thing they did ask was radio networks to agree to not use fictional news flash formats again in the future. Yeah. But it was just like, guys, just in case, right? The public, they're going to be a bit stupid.

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I guess that lasted for so long, but now it's obviously kind of a common thing within media.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. As for Orson Welles, Adam, nothing happened to him. If anything, he just became even more famous. Before the broadcast, the radio program didn't have any sponsors. Afterwards, listenership skyrocketed and there was literally a queue of sponsors lining up around the block. Eventually, Campbell Soup came on board and they ended up renaming the show to the Campbell Playhouse,

[01:14:17] [SPEAKER_01] which... Oh, they even did that back then.

[01:14:19] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah. And so there really is no such thing as bad publicity. All eyes were on Orson and he really did turn this into an advantage. Like it's been 88 years since this all happened and technically people are still talking about it.

[01:14:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. So for him, like life carried on, right? Next show the following week. And then what did he go on to do?

[01:14:40] [SPEAKER_03] Well, I mean, this ends up opening doors for Hollywood. Like Hollywood were like, do you know what? This guy's done amazing stuff in theater and in radio. Why don't we welcome into Hollywood? And I guess when you look at this whole story as a whole, this is kind of one of the earliest examples of a story going viral. Not because everybody experienced the original event, but everyone heard the increasing dramatic version of it afterwards. And that's what kind of caused it

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_03] to snowball. But like I said, he goes to Hollywood and that is where he goes on to make Citizen Kane. As we said earlier on, this is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. But on top of that, remember his first film is 26 years old and he gets final cut privilege, which means no questions.

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_01] Wait, so this was his first movie and he smashes it out of the park? Yeah. With one of the greatest films. Wow. And then he has, yeah, he has no studio like interfering with... No, he's saying like, oh, this movie could do with a monkey wearing a hat. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, he's kind of like Tarantino in that respect, I guess. Very much like... People don't question. Yeah. He has control. I think, I'm pretty sure he has like pretty much most control over his movies.

[01:15:55] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I mean, I find that very rare for that to be the truth nowadays. I even find it rare for that to be the case back then because these studios in the studio system back then, they were very strict, right? Very much wanting to control over everything.

[01:16:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[01:16:08] [SPEAKER_03] Very much believing that they knew what was right, what was wrong. And as we saw with a huge pioneers like Madeleine Munro who come in and say, no, I know better. They don't let her be the creator that she needs to be. But when she finally does get that opportunity, she smashes out of the park and she wins all these awards.

[01:16:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I guess it is him. He's got this way of storytelling that they're like, well, let's just see what he, you know, let him run with it. He could create that for us. Yeah. And he did. And again, he's 26. Yeah. Overachiever.

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And at the time all of this was happening, HG Wells himself, the guy who wrote War of the Worlds, he was still alive. I think he was like in his seventies at the time. And when he heard about the broadcast, he thought it was just a little bit tacky and actually he was a little bit angry by it. And I guess it's because no one likes to know that their work has been kind of adapted from what the original intention was. Yeah. People get mad about that. Yeah. But a couple of years later, almost to the day of the broadcast, the two men were

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_03] unexpectedly brought together during an impromptu on air conversation in Texas. And Adam listening to him together is really something because HG Wells, his voice is this really light. He's also obviously British while Orson has got this booming voice that sounds like someone's just opened a door to a cathedral. And so listening to the contrast between the two men, that really stands out. It's pretty impressive. But it's during this broadcast that HG Wells finally goes, okay, I get it.

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_01] This guy's pretty incredible. So he comes to like respect him in that way.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And the end of it, he starts to lovingly refer to Orson Welles as his little namesake, because of course they have the same name.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And it makes him more like famous as well. Probably gets him more in right.

[01:17:47] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. Yeah. I mean, at that point he's 70, probably doesn't care. I'm already famous. Does he get any paychecks? Does he get any royalties from this? Maybe, maybe. Maybe. Apparently Orson Welles kept the original director's copy of the script that he used back in 1938. And in 1994, it was auctioned at Christie's in New York and ended up selling Adam for 32,000 bucks, which is not bad for 1994 money. Do you want to hazard a guess who bought it?

[01:18:12] [SPEAKER_01] It's got to be like a famous director, like Spielberg. Correct.

[01:18:16] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steven Spielberg bought it. And as we know, he went on to create his own adaptation of The War of the Worlds in 2005, starring... Oh, yeah. Tom Cruise. I didn't realize he was the director. Yeah. And I think it was like set in Brooklyn, was it? Because I remember the Brooklyn back gardens.

[01:18:33] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I remember like the little girl Tom Cruise was protecting his daughter. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it was any good. I can't remember. I think it was all right. It's just not maybe one of the movies that stood the test of time. But for the time, it was, you know, it was fun.

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. That's it. And Adam, that is the story of Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

[01:18:55] [SPEAKER_01] Wow. So I didn't know, yeah, there was this hysteria and then there wasn't this hysteria. And then also just Orson Welles, just how, I guess, just how talented he was. What a child prodigy he was. Yes, he really was.

[01:19:09] [SPEAKER_03] Your first movie that you make and it becomes one of the greatest movies ever made? You can't really, like, he must have did, like, I don't know. Did he do anything better after this? Oh, I don't know. I don't know too much. All I know is that he died in 85. Probably it's something useful. He does win a few awards. There is like, there's another instance where he pulls like a bit of a Marilyn Monroe where he's in a film. With a white dress? No. I think it's called like The Third Man. I can't be sure. But he's in it for like

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_03] 10 minutes. He completely steals the show. And that's what he kind of like becomes renowned for. Like coming in and like completely transforming the presence of a film. Just with very short, like a cameo. Ah, okay. Marilyn Monroe famously done something very similar with one of her first films where she just completely stole the show. She was only in a flight of 50 seconds.

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Pretty impressive. Well done, Orson. Yeah. You make me feel like, I feel inspired. Or inadequate. Both.

[01:20:04] [SPEAKER_03] It is such a wild story because of how it is remembered after all these years as him causing this panic. But actually, it's not what everyone seems. Like it wasn't as big of a panic as people thought it was. And it goes to show how the papers can actually shape public opinion. 88 years after, people still believed it. Because the reporting is real. The reporting was there. But when you look at the data, when you go and do the research, when you look at the hospitals, when you look at the rating data, was it a big panic? Nah.

[01:20:34] [SPEAKER_01] Ah, let's just sell papers now. We'll worry about that later.

[01:20:37] [SPEAKER_03] Exactly. I mean, we see that time and time again, don't we? So Adam, do you fancy running the outro for this week?

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_01] Let's do it.

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_03] And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

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[01:21:19] [SPEAKER_03] We drop new episodes every Tuesday. And until then, remember, sometimes the real illusion isn't the broadcast, it's the reaction to it. We'll see you next time. See ya.