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Speaker 1: Hi there, everyone, It's me Josh. For this week's select

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Speaker 1: I've chosen our episode on the War of the World's

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Speaker 1: myth from November twenty twenty. One of the great myths

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century is that Orson Wells nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: eight War of the World's broadcast set off a mass

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Speaker 1: panic in the United States, as roobs from all corners

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Speaker 1: of the country grabbed their shotguns and ran senselessly through

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Speaker 1: the streets and prayed death would be swift. Well, it

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Speaker 1: turns out America is less gullible than that. Instead, we're

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Speaker 1: gullible about the idea that we're gullible. Think about that

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Speaker 1: one as you enjoy this episode.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryan over there. It's just the two

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Speaker 1: of us batching it up without you.

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Speaker 3: Oh man, I.

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Speaker 4: Think Jerry's inclusion. We're still batching it up. How do

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Speaker 4: you mean, I mean, does she really ruin the batch

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Speaker 4: scene for us?

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Speaker 3: Sure? She's very maternal and Judge's true.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you were headed down a kind road for

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Speaker 4: a second.

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Speaker 1: I was with Jerry. Yeah, that doesn't sound like me.

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Speaker 1: So for all of you who are just tuning into

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Speaker 1: the first time Welcome, this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 1: To everybody else who's tuning in for the multiple times Welcome,

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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we never do that.

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Speaker 3: Some shows do that what they welcome new listeners.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and kind of say what they do. And I

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Speaker 4: mean we've literally never done that.

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Speaker 1: That's fine, that's lame. Hi wis who does that? Any

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Speaker 1: friends of ours?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean the guys on the Flop House. They've

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Speaker 4: been podcasting as long as we have. In every single episode,

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Speaker 4: they say who they are and what they do.

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Speaker 3: No, okay, well do you want to do that this

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Speaker 3: one time?

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Speaker 4: Well, I'm Chuck Bryant and this is Josh Clark, and

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Speaker 4: this is a podcast where we explain things in a

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Speaker 4: lighthearted and fun and sometimes even funny way.

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Speaker 3: I disagree with all of it.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, So what we're going to talk about today

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Speaker 1: because I think we need to talk about this one

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Speaker 1: in a slightly somber tone. Chuck, it's a blemish in

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Speaker 1: the history of America really, if you think about it.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, and you know what, I've never actually had

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Speaker 4: listened to it until this week, same here, and it was.

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Speaker 4: It's a lot of fun to actually listen to. I

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Speaker 4: would recommend it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in a dark room where that's all you're

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Speaker 1: concentrating on, not like a second screen kind of thing,

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Speaker 1: like where you're really listening to this radio play.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and try to put yourself there a little bit

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Speaker 4: like what it must have been like in well, not

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Speaker 4: eighteen ninety eight, that's when the book came out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but in nineteen thirty eight.

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Speaker 1: I mean what forty years later, Just in that forty

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Speaker 1: year stretch, I mean, think about the difference between nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty and twenty twenty. Not ridiculously different periods, it's just

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Speaker 1: gotten eighteen ninety eight exactly. Oh yeah, it's gone downhill.

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Speaker 1: And don't think that had nothing to do with Reagan's

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Speaker 1: election in nineteen eighty. But the difference between eighteen ninety

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Speaker 1: eight and nineteen thirty eight, yeah, are It's just like

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Speaker 1: two different worlds, man, two different worlds. Comma War of the.

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Speaker 4: So, I guess we should start with the book written

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Speaker 4: by the great HG. Wells. It was the very first

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Speaker 4: alien invasion story to hit the bookshelves, and that's a

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Speaker 4: pretty remarkable thing. It was a serialized thing at first

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Speaker 4: in magazines and Pearson's and the UK, and then Cosmo

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Speaker 4: here in the US, and then they finally slapped all

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Speaker 4: those serialized versions together into a book and it sold

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Speaker 4: pretty well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's never been out to print since that first

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Speaker 1: edition in eighteen ninety eight. That's pretty respectable. I expect

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Speaker 1: that as much for our book as well.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure it'll be still being published in forty

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Speaker 4: years or one hundred years. Yeah, one hundred and forty years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's hope.

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Speaker 1: So in this book, and like you said, first alien

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Speaker 1: invasion story ever published, which is you know, just the

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Speaker 1: fact that this is a completely new premise, new conceit

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Speaker 1: made it, you know, kind of scary.

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Speaker 3: But in the book, HG.

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Speaker 1: Wells describes like this, this alien invasion, and part of

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Speaker 1: the thing that was so scary about it, at least

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Speaker 1: at the time, from what I can gather, is that

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Speaker 1: it was about like the breakdown of society. And we're

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Speaker 1: talking like Victorian era England society, where like rigid social

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Speaker 1: rules and customs and mores and guidance for all behavior

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Speaker 1: at all times was like the norm. So the idea

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Speaker 1: of that breaking down was scary on in and of itself.

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Speaker 1: I think that made the book kind of scary to

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Speaker 1: contemporary readers. Would that be right readers back then? And

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Speaker 1: that was one big theme that Wells explored. Another one

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Speaker 1: that he explored in that at least I think whoever

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Speaker 1: wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica article on it said that the

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Speaker 1: main point of this, the main subtext, was learning how

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Speaker 1: humans dominion over animals can be, you know, cruel and thoughtless,

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Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, with these alien invaders who

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Speaker 1: were just wiping us off the map, we were like,

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Speaker 1: you know, domesticated animals to them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so the shoe was on the other hoof, and

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Speaker 4: sure it caused or at least it was intended to

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Speaker 4: cause people to take kind of a hard look at

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Speaker 4: pre animal farm to make sort of a social statement

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Speaker 4: about how we treated animals. Yeah, And so that was

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Speaker 4: in eighteen ninety eight. If you flash forward to Orson

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Speaker 4: Wells and his Mercury Theater version, he this is, you know,

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Speaker 4: like you said, we're right in the middle or we're

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Speaker 4: in the Great Depression and we're headed towards war, and

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Speaker 4: it's sort of an uneasy feeling in the United States

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Speaker 4: as a whole. So he thought, perfect time to go

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Speaker 4: in there, put a fresh coat of pain on this

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Speaker 4: thing and scare the bejeebis out of the American public

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Speaker 4: by doing really something that they had never heard before,

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Speaker 4: which was sort of a Verita style production.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean it's easy to overlook today, but

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Speaker 1: radio was still rather new at the time in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight. It was like a you know, cutting edge

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Speaker 1: technological medium, and it was not fully defined. So the

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Speaker 1: idea of creating this, I guess hoax broadcast is the

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Speaker 1: best you can call it. This fictionalized version that was

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Speaker 1: what would you call it? Man, I hate that word

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Speaker 1: so much.

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Speaker 4: I know it's really taken on a bad tang here lately. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: I mean it's verite. It's, you know, of a faux

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Speaker 4: documentary style, right, thing that no one had ever heard. Like,

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Speaker 4: there's no way when people heard this they would think, oh,

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Speaker 4: this is you know, I know, Christopher, guess this is

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Speaker 4: sort of a scary version. I've seen Blair Witch. I

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Speaker 4: know what's going on here.

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Speaker 3: I recognize Lenny from Laverne and Shirley anywhere. I know

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Speaker 3: that's not real.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So they weren't prepared for this in nineteen thirty

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Speaker 4: eight when orson Wells, he was already a big name

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Speaker 4: in radio as the voice of the Shadow, which was

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Speaker 4: big hit, and his Mercury Theater was pretty pretty well

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Speaker 4: respected at the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a live stage theater. So they'd only

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Speaker 1: had this show for a few months by the time

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Speaker 1: October nineteen thirty eight rolled around. But their whole jam

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Speaker 1: was they were on CBS, and CBS had them do

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Speaker 1: our long radio adaptations of class like novels like Treasure Island.

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Speaker 1: They did around the world in eighty days, and so

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Speaker 1: since it was October, they wanted to do something spooky

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Speaker 1: around Halloween something, so they decided Yeah, so they were like, well,

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Speaker 1: what's the most boring scary book there is? And they said, HG.

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Speaker 1: Wells War the Worlds. So they decided to adapt it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so they got together, they're rehearsing. We'll talk a

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Speaker 4: little bit more about that in a sec. But there

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Speaker 4: wasn't a strong feeling among the cast and crew and

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Speaker 4: the production group that thought it was going to be

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Speaker 4: awesome because I think probably because they had never done

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Speaker 4: anything like this, they had never heard anything like this.

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Speaker 4: They thought, is this even going to be any good.

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Speaker 4: And a couple of different sources in the production went

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Speaker 4: to a radio critic ahead of time, it's like thanks

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Speaker 4: a lot, and they said, by the way, this is

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Speaker 4: going to be a real stinker.

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Speaker 1: They said, Apparently two different people in the production said

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Speaker 1: that this will put everyone to sleep. And I don't

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Speaker 1: have the impression that it's strictly because they didn't have

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Speaker 1: any frame of reference to judge it against, because no

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Speaker 1: one had done this before. From what I can gather,

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Speaker 1: the originally it was going to be really bad and

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Speaker 1: really terrible, and the production and the cast and crew

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Speaker 1: knew this. They knew that they were marching toward embarrassment

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Speaker 1: with the early versions of the of the script.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so orson, he's sort of distracted. He's got a

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Speaker 4: stage production going on. He's got his partner in his group,

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Speaker 4: the great John Houseman you all know from the paper Chase,

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Speaker 4: kind of a legendary actor. He was one of his

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Speaker 4: original partners, and he got together with Howard is it Kotch.

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Speaker 4: I never know if it's going to be a Cotra

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Speaker 4: Coke doesn't matter, all right, koc h. And he was

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Speaker 4: the writer who was adapting the novel and they were like,

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Speaker 4: we got to make this thing better. And one thing

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Speaker 4: I think we can do this was Houseman talking, I'm

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Speaker 4: not going to do with John Houseman, but everyone knows

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Speaker 4: how he's out right.

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Speaker 1: When I came across Shawn house and being involved, he

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Speaker 1: was like, I can't wait.

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Speaker 4: I don't even remember. I mean, he was just very

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Speaker 4: serious and sort of all I can think of his

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Speaker 4: paper chase and what was the TV commercial was it?

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Speaker 3: I want to say it was like Schwab or no,

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Speaker 3: Merily Lynch.

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Speaker 4: I think it might have been Merrill Lynch Maybe I

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Speaker 4: don't know. But one of those finance firms he did

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Speaker 4: he voiced for, well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was very famous for having a very high pitch,

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Speaker 1: squeaky falsetto voice, and he talked very very fast.

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Speaker 3: And actually I know who it was. It was FedEx

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Speaker 3: and Dunkin Donuts. He was well known for.

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Speaker 4: It, right, he was the time to make the donuts

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Speaker 4: guy right with the mustag. So Houseman and Cotch Coke

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Speaker 4: went in there and he said, one of the things

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Speaker 4: we should do, probably to make this a little more

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Speaker 4: scary and a little more believable that it's an actual broadcast,

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Speaker 4: is you know time passes in the book, and we

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Speaker 4: can't do that here, so let's just get rid of

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Speaker 4: all that stuff so it gives the appearance that it's

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Speaker 4: going down right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was enormously a huge change. And I don't

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Speaker 1: know if he did that to help the pacing move

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Speaker 1: a little faster or what, but that would pan out

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Speaker 1: to be a really important difference in the original script

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Speaker 1: that Howard Kay turned in and the one that they

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Speaker 1: ended up doing. And then even beyond that, some of

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Speaker 1: the other changes came just hours before broadcast, because apparently,

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Speaker 1: if you worked with Orson Wells, you should be on

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Speaker 1: the lookout for him to come in at the last

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Speaker 1: minute and be like, all the stuff we've been practicing

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Speaker 1: for a week or two, forget all of that, we're

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Speaker 1: doing this instead. And part of that, from what I

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Speaker 1: can tell, is that he was trying to shake up

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Speaker 1: the actor, shake them out of whatever complacency they'd work

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Speaker 1: themselves into with rehearsal, and to get this raw, more

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Speaker 1: terrified performance. And apparently it worked. I mean, I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine I didn't hear any rehearsals or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: I would have loved to have compared, you know, the

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Speaker 1: week before to you know, the actual podcast, but that

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Speaker 1: everyone delivered these really great, really great performances, and they

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Speaker 1: really nailed by showtime the realism in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: not just in the performances, but also in just little

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Speaker 1: details like they you know, they were they were doing

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Speaker 1: a mock radio program, which we'll talk about a little

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Speaker 1: more in detail in a second, but they were they

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Speaker 1: were pretending to have news bulletins break and so they

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Speaker 1: were they were doing the things that news bulletins did.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that stuck out to me was

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Speaker 1: one of the eyewitnesses. So it's an actor, but one

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Speaker 1: of the eyewitnesses is like being interviewed by a news

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Speaker 1: reporter on the scene and they started to talk, and

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Speaker 1: the news reporter goes, can you can you speak loud?

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Speaker 1: Speak more loudly and move into the microphone please, and

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Speaker 1: that the I think the actor actually says, how's that,

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Speaker 1: and the guy repeats himself, and then the actor has

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Speaker 1: to repeat himself what he was originally saying. So it

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Speaker 1: has like that veneer of you know, authenticity, just from

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Speaker 1: little details like that that, you know, really it stood

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Speaker 1: out to me when I was listening for him. But

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Speaker 1: if you're if you're not listening for him, you you

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Speaker 1: just it makes you buy into the whole thing that

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Speaker 1: much more.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and the other big change that Wells brought along

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Speaker 4: was stretching out the first two halves of the thing

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Speaker 4: such that it went past it went forty minutes, and

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Speaker 4: radio at the time, every thirty minutes, like on the

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Speaker 4: half hour, they would check in with a station id check,

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Speaker 4: and listeners, even though radio was new, were well honed

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Speaker 4: to this station break every thirty minutes. And so when

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Speaker 4: ten minutes passed, the half hour go by and there

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Speaker 4: ain't and there ain't no station break, that really makes

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Speaker 4: people kind of buy in to what they're listening to

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Speaker 4: is possibly real. And then you add to the fact

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Speaker 4: that there were no sponsors for this show. Yeah, so

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Speaker 4: they weren't cutting to a Casper or or me Undy's

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Speaker 4: as right, all of a sudden, they can't remember any sponsor.

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Speaker 3: Can you imagine John Housman saying made with Modall.

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Speaker 4: No, I thought it'd be made with Modell.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's a much better Housman. I had something

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Speaker 1: in my threat.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, there were no sponsors. So basically it really

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Speaker 4: came across as something that was super, super realistic sounding.

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Speaker 1: Right, So all that is to say that they had

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Speaker 1: really by the time this broadcast aired at eight pm

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Speaker 1: on Sunday, October thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight, they were not

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Speaker 1: going to be the laughing stock and this is not

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Speaker 1: going to be embarrassing. It was going to be pretty awesome.

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Speaker 4: Actually, should we take a break?

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Speaker 1: I think so, Chuck, and then we'll come back and

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Speaker 1: we will reveal the broadcast after this. Okay, so we've

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Speaker 1: reached showtime. Airtime, eight pm, Sunday, October thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight,

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Speaker 1: Mercury Theater on the Air began broadcasting its adaptation of HG.

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Speaker 1: Wells War of the World, and at the very beginning

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Speaker 1: it's introduced as much. There's an announcer who says that.

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Speaker 4: I think that's loss is probably to time somewhat, because

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Speaker 4: everyone probably thinks that they just tried to trick everyone.

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Speaker 4: But no, they actually introduced it as what they're doing.

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Speaker 4: And you know that this is a radio place at

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Speaker 4: one year in the future.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, And yeah, Orson Wells. So it's introduced by

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Speaker 1: an announcer. Orson Wells comes in, does the introductory essay,

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Speaker 1: and then they did something really smart and interesting, especially

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Speaker 1: for the time they went to a musical program that

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Speaker 1: was supposedly being broadcast from the Meridian Room in the

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Speaker 1: hotel Park Plaza. So if you were just tuning in

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Speaker 1: right then, you would have no idea that this was

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Speaker 1: Mercury Theater on the air. You'd have no idea that

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Speaker 1: this was a teleplay. You would think that you were

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Speaker 1: listening to something that was pretty regularly broadcast, which was

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Speaker 1: live music at some like ballroom in a hotel somewhere

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Speaker 1: in New York that they set up like a radio

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Speaker 1: transmitter to transmit out over the radio.

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Speaker 3: That was pretty frequent. But this was part of the show.

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Speaker 4: Like if you hadn't paused it, that is right right.

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Speaker 1: Exactly so, but that was a huge part of the

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Speaker 1: show because that lulled listeners into kind of complacency, and

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Speaker 1: listeners who tuned in late and missed that introduction thought

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Speaker 1: that this is what they were listening to. And then

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Speaker 1: the first news bulletin.

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Speaker 4: Hits yeah, and that's where things start to get really interesting.

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Speaker 4: They break in, you know, one of these interrupt your

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Speaker 4: previously scheduled programs kind of things, right, right, and they

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Speaker 4: come in and with these bulletins but they're not super

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Speaker 4: long at first because they treat it kind of how

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Speaker 4: it would be in real life. It's just sort of

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Speaker 4: a breaking story. Something's going together. It was fairly obtuse,

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Speaker 4: and they didn't like, you know, say, Martians are attacking

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Speaker 4: us right now everyone from the get go. I sort

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Speaker 4: of left it up to the listener to kind of

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Speaker 4: piece it together. Little by little. They would go back

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Speaker 4: to the Meridian room for a bit, and it wasn't

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Speaker 4: for very long, but because you know, they couldn't waste

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Speaker 4: too much time, but it was long enough. It wasn't

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Speaker 4: for like ten seconds. They did it for like a minute,

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Speaker 4: minute and a half, right.

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Speaker 1: It made it seem right then, like that was what

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Speaker 1: you were listening to, that that was the program, and

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Speaker 1: the bulletin was in fact the bulletin rather than the

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Speaker 1: opposite being true.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So eventually you start to piece together what's going on,

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Speaker 4: and you have this attack in New Jersey of all places,

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Speaker 4: and Princeton University they had like a Princeton astronomer on.

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Speaker 4: They have government officials, and they kind of dole it

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Speaker 4: out a little by little until about the seventeen minutes

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Speaker 4: seventeen and a half minute mark, and then that's when

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Speaker 4: it really kind of gets super scary and people really

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Speaker 4: see the full picture of what's going on.

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Speaker 3: So, Chuck, I feel like we should read a little

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Speaker 3: bit of the script.

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Speaker 1: There's this one part starting about the seventeen thirty minute

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Speaker 1: market think you said, where they as I like to say,

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Speaker 1: they tore the lid off the sucker.

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Speaker 4: Do you want to be announcer or Phillips?

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Speaker 1: I'll be the announcer, all right, okay, but I want

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Speaker 1: you to do Phillips as Sammy Davis Junior.

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Speaker 3: So here's the announcer.

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Speaker 4: Wait, hold on, I'm getting all my tap shoes.

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Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, you ready, canty ma'am uh.

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Speaker 4: Huh sure, bab, I'm not gonna do it that way.

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Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So.

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Speaker 1: Let me give you a little bit of background real quick.

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Speaker 1: So these news bulletin's up to this point have basically

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Speaker 1: said there's some weird thing that landed. They thought it

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Speaker 1: was a meteorite at first, that landed in Grover's Mill,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey, and then later bulletins said that, oh, actually

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Speaker 1: there's some weird technical like weird things emerging from this

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Speaker 1: thing we thought was a meteorite. So now we're back

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Speaker 1: at Grover's Mil. So I'm the announcer. We are bringing

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Speaker 1: you an eyewitness account of what's happening on the Willmuth Farm,

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Speaker 1: Grover's Mill, New Jersey. And that was kind of like

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Speaker 1: they were breaking in to let you know that. And

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Speaker 1: then they go back to more piano for some reason.

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Speaker 1: And then we now return you to Carl Phillips at

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Speaker 1: Grover's mil.

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Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, am I am I on, ladies and gentlemen.

360
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Speaker 4: Here I am back up a stone wall that adjoins

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Speaker 4: mister Wilmo's garden. From here I get a sweep of

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Speaker 4: the whole scene. I give you every detail as long

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Speaker 4: as I can talk, as long as I can see.

364
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Speaker 4: More State police have arrived. They're drawing up a cordon

365
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Speaker 4: in front of the pit, about thirty of them. No

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Speaker 4: need to push the crowd back now, they're willing to

367
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Speaker 4: keep their distance. The captain is conferring with someone we

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Speaker 4: can't quite see who. Oh, yes, I believe it's a

369
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Speaker 4: professor Pearson. Yes it is. Now they've parted. The professor

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Speaker 4: moves around one side, studying the object, while the captain

371
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Speaker 4: and two policemen advance with something in their hands. I

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Speaker 4: can see it now. It's a white handkerchief tied to

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Speaker 4: a pole, a flag of truce. If those creatures know

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Speaker 4: what that means, what anything means? Wait, something's happening.

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Speaker 5: Sh you can cut in anytime. Who can take a rainbow?

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Speaker 4: Oh wait, sorry, a hump shape is rising out of

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Speaker 4: the pit. I can make out a small beam of

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Speaker 4: light against a mirror.

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Speaker 2: What's that?

380
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Speaker 4: There's a jet there's a jet flame springing from the mirror,

381
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Speaker 4: and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes

382
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Speaker 4: them head on. Good lord, they're turning into flame.

383
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Speaker 2: Go go.

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Speaker 4: Now. The whole field's caught fire, the woods, the barns,

385
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Speaker 4: the gas tanks of automobiles, spreading everywhere. It's coming this

386
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Speaker 4: way about twenty.

387
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Speaker 2: Yards to my right.

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Speaker 3: Very nice and scene.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that was great, Chuck. So they they you mentioned,

390
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Speaker 1: or I should say Phillips. The reporter on the scene

391
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Speaker 1: mentioned Professor Pearson, and he's this he ends up being

392
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Speaker 1: the main character, and he's, uh, he's an interview he's

393
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Speaker 1: in an astronomer I's interviewed earlier on and then he's

394
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Speaker 1: on this scene as it happens, and the program just

395
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Speaker 1: keeps going like that like, there's another there's a main

396
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Speaker 1: announcer who I played. I thought rather well, thank you

397
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Speaker 1: and same to you.

398
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Speaker 4: But the future as a folly artist, if I may say.

399
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Speaker 1: So, thank you very much. I've been practicing. You want

400
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Speaker 1: to hear my machine gun? I've been doing that one

401
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:46,919
Speaker 1: since I was like six.

402
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Speaker 4: All right, how about walking through the forest? All right? Now,

403
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:58,359
Speaker 4: how about a good punch to the face. Oh wow,

404
00:21:58,520 --> 00:21:59,160
Speaker 4: that was good.

405
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Speaker 3: Thank you. I punched myself in the thing. I'm dedicated.

406
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Speaker 3: That's how dedicated to the art of folly.

407
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 4: Yeah.

408
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 1: So the announcer just keeps bringing in more and more

409
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Speaker 1: news as this thing goes on and unfolds of like,

410
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Speaker 1: now these things aren't just in New Jersey, They're in Chicago.

411
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Speaker 3: They're like out west.

412
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Speaker 1: They're starting to invade everywhere, and they're killing people left

413
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Speaker 1: and right. That you said there was a government official

414
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Speaker 1: that reads a statement is actually that they say that

415
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Speaker 1: it's the Secretary of the Interior, which I thought was

416
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Speaker 1: particularly genius because I mean, probably not that many people

417
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Speaker 1: were familiar with the Secretary of the Interior.

418
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Speaker 3: It's on Harold.

419
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Speaker 1: Ix, but they had him sound like FDR so that

420
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Speaker 1: it would kind of play on everyone's I guess unconscious

421
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: or I'm sure there were people who are like the

422
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 1: sounds just like FDR. But at the very least, it

423
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Speaker 1: would kind of evoke that government authority, the reality of

424
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Speaker 1: like a government figure.

425
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Speaker 3: You know.

426
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Speaker 4: Yeah. So meanwhile, on the other stations, there's one that's

427
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:07,880
Speaker 4: running opposite, which is a really really popular radio show

428
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 4: at the time, probably the most popular, Chase in Sanborn Hour,

429
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 4: which had the very very famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergan and

430
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Speaker 4: his dummy Charlie McCarthy.

431
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: And we talked about that on our Ventilaquism episode. Remember

432
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Speaker 1: that they started out on radio.

433
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Speaker 4: Yeah, which is hysterical. I don't even know why they

434
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Speaker 4: would even bother with the dummy part, just due.

435
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 3: To you wouldn't even know that's what he did.

436
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: You wouldn't even have to wear pants, No, sit around

437
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 1: in your spaghetti stained undershirt and yeah, naked from the

438
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 1: waist down, maybe some socks. Doing a couple of voices

439
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:46,720
Speaker 1: is your contract?

440
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 4: Edgar Bergen, what do you think about that? Charlie, don't

441
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,639
Speaker 4: get me started, like that's it. I could be a

442
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 4: famous vinchiloquist on the radio.

443
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 3: You just you just did it. I think I think

444
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 3: Hollywood's going to come with calling.

445
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 4: But the real sort of interesting factoid here, I think,

446
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,239
Speaker 4: is that people were channel surfing back then when you

447
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 4: cut to commercial, just like we used to do when

448
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 4: we didn't have pause buttons and fast forward buttons.

449
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 3: And what is this pause button? You keep mentioning, I've

450
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 3: never heard of this.

451
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 4: You've never paused television? No, wow, you need to.

452
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 3: I don't believe I've ever paused anything in my life.

453
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 4: It's funny. We were Emily and I have been watching

454
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 4: that German sci fi series Dark, which is very challenging

455
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 4: to follow. And uh, there's a lot of rewinding like wait, wait,

456
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 4: who is that? What did they just say? And we

457
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 4: rewinded a bit and do that again, and or you know,

458
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 4: of course I got to go to the bathroom. Let

459
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 4: me just pause it. And I was thinking about how,

460
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 4: not too long ago, you just if you missed something,

461
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 4: you missed it.

462
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 3: You just peed the count, or you ped yourself on

463
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 3: the couch.

464
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was no clear like, let me go back

465
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 4: and clear this up. It's like, what did he say?

466
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 4: I have no idea. I guess we'll never know. There's

467
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 4: no internet ended up.

468
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: I guess I should probably stop watching this show altogether

469
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: and you go walk up to the VCR and presson Jack.

470
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 4: But at any rate, back then, let's say Charlie McCarthy

471
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,479
Speaker 4: goes to break and now I'll word from Mark Doncher

472
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 4: and they flip it over to War the Worlds. At

473
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 4: this point in the broadcast, when the s is hitting

474
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 4: the fan and it's going to scare the pants off

475
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 4: of people in nineteen thirty eight.

476
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, even more than I think that they would

477
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: have dialed over even before that, so they might have

478
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: caught like a news bulletin and then maybe some of

479
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: that music from the Meridian Room, so it really would

480
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: have caught them. And there were supposedly a substantial number

481
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: of people who did dial over and were like, wait, wait,

482
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: what is going on here? And now we come to

483
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: the reaction, the response, because if you picked up the

484
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: paper the next day in America, just about anywhere in

485
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: any major city, you're going to find huge, blaring headlines

486
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: like the one that the New York Daily News printed

487
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: in tall bold letters. Fake radio war stirs terror through

488
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: the US.

489
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 4: Yeah, stories of shock in hysteria, stories of people taking

490
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 4: their own life, stories of people dying from heart attacks.

491
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 4: The API said a man in Pittsburgh found his wife

492
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 4: with poison in her hand and said, I'm gonna I'd

493
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 4: rather die this way than like that. And you know,

494
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 4: talking to Wells afterward, in the aftermath of this, he

495
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 4: apologizes publicly says they didn't intend to do this, we

496
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 4: didn't know it was going to cause a panic. And then,

497
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 4: you know, if you look over the years more interviews,

498
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 4: it sort of seems like Wells is a little more like,

499
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 4: you know, we thought it would be pretty fun to

500
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 4: scare people, and I didn't know if it was going

501
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 4: to cause a panic, but we definitely intended it to

502
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 4: have this effect on people, whereas Houseman and Kotch were like, no,

503
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 4: we really didn't mean it. So it of conflicting reports

504
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 4: from the production on what they thought was going to

505
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 4: be the result.

506
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: Right, And I read an interview with John Landis, the

507
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: great director who worked with Wells on a project that

508
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: never got made towards the end of Well's life, and

509
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: he didn't say that Wells admitted to him that he

510
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: meant to, but he got to know him enough that

511
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: he was like, yes, if you watch this initial press

512
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: conference where he's apologizing, because the whole country was ripped

513
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: apart in chaos, and we're running wild in the streets

514
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: and like nearly rioted because of his broadcast.

515
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 3: He is not at all.

516
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: He's just as happy as a lark that this all happened,

517
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: even though he's pretending to apologize, and he said that

518
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: was just that's his source of wells.

519
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 4: Did you just say apologize.

520
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 3: It's a new version I'm testing out. I like it.

521
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: It's kind of yeah, it's at least as good as apologize.

522
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 4: So this was just a couple of days in the news.

523
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 4: It wasn't the biggest deal in the world, even though

524
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:08,479
Speaker 4: it was fairly sensational story writing for newspapers. And it

525
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 4: might have just gone that way had it not been

526
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 4: for a Princeton University social psychologist a couple of years

527
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 4: later named Hadley Cantrell. And Cantrell released a book on

528
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 4: the real effects of this thing and basically said that

529
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 4: you know, people were praying, crying, they were frantically trying

530
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 4: to escape death from the Martians. Six million people listen

531
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 4: to this thing, and at least one six of them

532
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 4: were frightened or disturbed. And I have the evidence right here.

533
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, the evidence that he had was based on a

534
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: series of interviews with one hundred and thirty five people.

535
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: Almost all of them were in New Jersey, which remember

536
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: that's where the crux of the invasion and destruction being

537
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: described took place. Because Grover's Mille, New Jersey, is actually

538
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: a real town in Jersey. So he went to Jersey

539
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 1: because he was in Princeton. So he went where he

540
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: was and interviewed one hundred and thirty five people, and

541
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: he said, were you scared by this broadcast? And the

542
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: participant would say yes, and he'd say, you're in my study.

543
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: And he'd ask the next one, were you scared? Were

544
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 1: you scared by this broadcast? And they would say no.

545
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: He'd be like, you're not in the study.

546
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 3: That's crazy.

547
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: And so yeah, he said in the in the methodology

548
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: that he selected one hundred out of the one hundred

549
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: and thirty five because they had been scared by the broadcast.

550
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: And so he took this, these interviews of people in

551
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: New Jersey and he extrapolated it to the rest of

552
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: the country and he said, yep, this is this is real.

553
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: This is a really great example of people being fooled

554
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,719
Speaker 1: into terror and panic. And you know the response is

555
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: when this happens, like we saw after the World that

556
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: we're the world's broadcast. People will run out into the street,

557
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: they will flee the city, They will call their friends

558
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: and neighbors. They may attempt suicide, they may die of

559
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: a heart attack, like the New York Times reported twenty

560
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: or so people in New York alone needed to be treated.

561
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 3: For shock in hysteria.

562
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: This is what happens when somebody toys with the public trust.

563
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's pretty nuts. The end. Yeah, that was

564
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 3: the end of Hadley's Headley's book.

565
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, not the end of this episode. So this

566
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 4: is what this specific study is. What if you've ever

567
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 4: taken a mass media or a communications college class, you've

568
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 4: probably studied War of the Worlds largely because of this study. Basically,

569
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 4: it might have just come and gone if it weren't

570
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 4: for this academic paper that were put out and all

571
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 4: of a sudden. For decades and decades, it's reported on

572
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 4: as like a cautionary tale almost of responsibility and meet

573
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 4: even fictional media. And you know, as recently as twenty

574
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 4: thirteen PBS American Experience documentary said this was the case.

575
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 4: Our old pals at Radio Lab in two thousand and

576
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 4: eight did an episode about this where that was the case.

577
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 4: But there were a few problems with this paper. Beyond

578
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 4: the supremely bad methodology behind just getting scared New Jersey

579
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:28,239
Speaker 4: people to go in there and give their report. Was

580
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 4: they found up that they ended up finding real ratings

581
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 4: for this thing, and not a ton of people even

582
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 4: heard it.

583
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 3: It turns out, so his six million estimate was way.

584
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 4: Off, way way way off. And they did a survey

585
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 4: during the program that said two percent of respondents said

586
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 4: that they were listening. And some markets, like big cities

587
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 4: like Boston even preempted this thing for local programming. So

588
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 4: it wasn't a ton of people. It wasn't a ton

589
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 4: of people being scared and like literally losing their minds

590
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 4: with fear and panic and things swing so far the

591
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 4: other way that the narrative became. You know what, no

592
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 4: one was really scared at all, And what newspapers really

593
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 4: did was they put out hit pieces on a competing

594
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 4: medium like radio and how you shouldn't trust it anymore.

595
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: So what happened over the last within sometime within the

596
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: twenty first century, but sometime in the twenty tens, the

597
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: myth that America lost its mind went bonkers and ran

598
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: wild in the street because they were panicked by the

599
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: War of the World's broadcast was shown to be a

600
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: myth that it didn't happen, And that was the new

601
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: understanding for a little while, just a few years, until

602
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: another guy came along and said, you know what, they

603
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: actually both both are right and both are wrong in

604
00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: a lot of ways.

605
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 4: Should we take a break and talk about the truth

606
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 4: always being somewhere in the middle? Mm hmm.

607
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 2: To still all.

608
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 4: Right, I said, the truth is always somewhere in between.

609
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 4: That's not always the case with everything in life, obviously,

610
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 4: but that's that's a saying for a reason.

611
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 2: Uh.

612
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 4: And that's definitely seems to be the case, uh, in

613
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 4: this case with a gentleman named a Brad Schwartz, he's

614
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 4: a probably the leading War of the World scholar. And

615
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 4: he went back and he went and investigated the letters

616
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 4: and the cables that came in. They were at the

617
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 4: University of Michigan archives and these are the letters that

618
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 4: actually came in to Wells and the Mercury Theater in

619
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 4: the days after the broadcast. And what he contends, and

620
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 4: I agree, is that this is what you need to

621
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,959
Speaker 4: be reading, is what people were really thinking at the time,

622
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,399
Speaker 4: that weren't just cherry picked in the town that got

623
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 4: attacked in New Jersey who were obviously they were going

624
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 4: to be freaked out more than anyone in the country.

625
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 3: Right.

626
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: So one of the things that he points out is,

627
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: you know, everybody been, you know, since around twenty ten

628
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: or maybe a little earlier. Everyone had been wailing on

629
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: Hadley Cantrell for his terrible, terrible methodology, but they, the revisionists,

630
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 1: were also kind of doing the same thing. They were

631
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: making all sorts of suppositions, like the idea that the

632
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: newspapers had basically conspired to target radio its rival to

633
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: show how irresponsible it was and how it shouldn't be

634
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: trusted with the news. There's really newspaper that should be

635
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 1: handling the news, and maybe you can listen to little

636
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: Orphan Annie on the radio. But that's about it. That

637
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: that was all supposition. That was as much supposition as

638
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: Hadley Cantrill extrapolated his findings in New Jersey to the

639
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,320
Speaker 1: rest of the country. And a Brad Schwartz one of

640
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: the reasons I think he's doing in good jobs because

641
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,479
Speaker 1: he's saying, no, if you actually sit down and read

642
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: these letters and these cables that were coming in in

643
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: the days after. They really probably paint the most accurate

644
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: picture anyone's ever found to this point of how it

645
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,800
Speaker 1: was actually received. Like you can see almost in real

646
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: time at the time, what people were saying about this

647
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,959
Speaker 1: by in their letters to orson wells, into the Mercury Theater,

648
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: on the air.

649
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was a range of feelings. It was

650
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 4: everything from people who said, you know what, we knew

651
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 4: it wasn't real, but it was really scary and super awesome.

652
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 4: I don't know if they said things like super awesome.

653
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 4: He said that number people wrote in who actually made

654
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 4: fun of the people who fell for it and said that,

655
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 4: you know, they're gullible, they're rubes. And one writer even

656
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 4: said they should be sterilized and disenfranchised.

657
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they'd shown that in an actual emergency they

658
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: were undependable. They would just run around like chickens with

659
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: their heads cut off in the streets.

660
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 4: Yeah. And Swartz sort of draws a line between what

661
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 4: was going on back then to us today with this

662
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 4: whole fake news hoax garbage that we have to listen

663
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 4: to day in and day out, and basically said this

664
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 4: was the first viral phenomenon in media was the War

665
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 4: of the World's broadcast, and it was a mixed bag.

666
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 4: Some people loved it, some people did think it was

667
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 4: real and panicked, but it certainly was not this widespread

668
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 4: panic across the country like you were talking about.

669
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, less than a quarter of the letters

670
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: described what he would consider panic. But even most of

671
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: those weren't actually angry when they were writing the letter.

672
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 3: A lot of them are thrilled he did, right.

673
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: But he did say that, yes, there are cases that

674
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: you see in these letters and cables that describe people panicking.

675
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: So that did happen in some cases. Most of it

676
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: seems to have been isolated in New Jersey. So if

677
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 1: Hadley Cantrill had not extrapolated his findings and had you know,

678
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: interviewed more people who had different reactions to the broadcast.

679
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: But if it had just been like an investigation into

680
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: the reaction in New Jersey, that study or that book

681
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: would have been much more useful. But the fact is,

682
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: he just screw the methodology up so badly that it's

683
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: it's basically useless. But he wasn't. He didn't make up

684
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: the panic that he described necessarily he may have exaggerated it, who.

685
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 3: Knows, but it did.

686
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: It does seem to have actually happened in some cases,

687
00:37:56,920 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: but it was sporadic, fume far between, certainly not organized,

688
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: and certainly not seen across the rest of the country

689
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: like it was reported on by the papers the next day.

690
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, which sort of leads us to the story of

691
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 4: the poor pulses of Manhattan. This Manhattan couple, they did

692
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 4: fall for it. They were very scared. Apparently, as the

693
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 4: story goes, they got their last six dollars together and

694
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 4: got on a train to get the heck out of

695
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 4: New York. Assuming not going west into New Jersey, they

696
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 4: went north toward Connecticut, got as far as they could

697
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 4: on what little money they had, get off the train,

698
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 4: and you know, there's a bunch of other passengers that

699
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 4: they're telling, you know, they're warning everybody of what's happened, right,

700
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 4: And this one guy there goes over and gets there,

701
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 4: and a just picture of this in the movie is like,

702
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 4: no one's listening to this guy. And he picks up

703
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 4: the newspaper basically the TV guide.

704
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 3: It's the dunkin Donuts guy.

705
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 4: He says, hey, guys, it says right here, war the

706
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 4: world's broadcast is supposed to be on at that hour,

707
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 4: Like it just says right here in the newspaper, it's

708
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 4: a it's a radio play. Everyone no one, everyone, no one, nobody, okay.

709
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 4: And then he just goes and gets on a train

710
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 4: and leaves. But they feel bad for them that the

711
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 4: other people that were you know, that had gathered together,

712
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 4: they loaned them or gave them I guess some money,

713
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 4: and she chipped in and got them back to New

714
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 4: York City. And then later Estelle Paltz wrote a fifteen

715
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 4: page letter the next day to Orson Wells that was

716
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 4: very admiring and said how thrilled she was. But I

717
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 4: can't imagine what else is in that fifteen page letter.

718
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 4: It's a lot of page.

719
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.

720
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: Hell of a story, I think, is what whis kept

721
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: just over and over and over all. Right, So so

722
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: that was one of the letters that Abrad Schwartz turned

723
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 1: up in that trove, and like it very clearly describes

724
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,800
Speaker 1: a couple panicking because they mistook the War of the

725
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: World broadcast. But again, the this was not like across

726
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: the nation like the papers reported, and Schwartz actually explains

727
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,919
Speaker 1: to the papers basically as a combination of a couple

728
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: of things. One is a bias. I can't tell if

729
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: it's selection bias, volunteer bias, or confirmation bias, but the

730
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 1: bias is as follows. If you're in a newsroom and

731
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, your phone starts ringing off the hook,

732
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: and you're getting one hundred and fifty percent more calls

733
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: that night, and all of them are people asking about

734
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: this Martian invasion and what's going on and is this

735
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: real or is this a hoax? Or have you guys

736
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: heard anything about this? And some of those calls are

737
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: even from the local police who are also getting similar calls,

738
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: and now they're calling you to find out. Then it

739
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 1: seems like there's a lot of people calling and freaking

740
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: out about this Martian thing. But if you step back,

741
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 1: if you zoom out and look at that number of

742
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: people that actually called the newsroom, it's just this minute

743
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: fraction of the population of whatever town it is, So

744
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: it wasn't a bunch of people freaking out. But to

745
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: the people answering the phone in the newsroom, who are

746
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,800
Speaker 1: getting swamped with calls, way more calls than usual, it

747
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: did seem like that. So that combined with anecdotal reports

748
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 1: that no one followed up followed up on from the

749
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: wire services that people were attempting suicide or having heart

750
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:18,399
Speaker 1: attacks or whatever.

751
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 3: That just being.

752
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: Reported and relaid as fact led everybody to believe that

753
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: this was actually happening out there in the country, that

754
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: people were running. Well, maybe not my town, because I

755
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: stuck my head outside of the newsroom and I didn't

756
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: see anything. But I hear they're going crazy in Chicago

757
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: right now, or I hear they're really going nuts in

758
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: Milwaukee or whatever. And that's how it got reported, and

759
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: that's what everyone thought happened. People who lived through this

760
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: thought that this happened the next day. Orson Wells thought

761
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: his career was in jeopardy the next day because he

762
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: accidentally made America go berserk. And that's how that myth began,

763
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 1: and that's how it stood. And A Brad Schorts basically

764
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: traced it back to lazy, lazy reporting.

765
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 4: So myth busted thanks to A. Brad Schwartz and US.

766
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 3: And US for sure, I'm glad you included us.

767
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 4: So there's an interesting footnote here, though, because this actually

768
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 4: did kind of play out that way. Eight years later

769
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 4: and night. Was it eight years later? Yeah, nineteen forty

770
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 4: eight in Ecuador, So this is in Quito, Ecuador. These

771
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 4: broadcasters recreate the orson Wells radio play, and they did

772
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 4: a version that went a lot further than his did

773
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 4: and got other radio stations to join in and add

774
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 4: to the reporting, which really pretty brilliant move there to

775
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 4: increase like you turn the station and it's happening over

776
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 4: there too. And this really did scare people. They really

777
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 4: did take to the streets and panic. There was, you know,

778
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 4: public panic going on. And then the crowd finds out

779
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 4: that it's fiction and they get angry and actually turned

780
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 4: into an angry mob and burned down the local newspaper

781
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 4: building that had the radio station inside of it, killing

782
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 4: six people.

783
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, six people died, fifteen people were injured. Like they

784
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: knew that the staff was in that building, and they

785
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: set the building on fire to try and kill them.

786
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: A bunch of people escaped out the back, but a

787
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't escape, and the two people who

788
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: were responsible for the broadcast, including Ecuador's most beloved and

789
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: trusted presenter, were indicted for it. Like they're more safer basically, yeah, exactly,

790
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: and they were. They were indicted for their role in this,

791
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: like people died because of it. And this actually does

792
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 1: seem to have happened in Ecuador.

793
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 4: Amazing.

794
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there you go.

795
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: The idea that America fell into chaos and panic after

796
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: the war the world's broadcast in nineteen thirty eight is

797
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 1: largely myth. Go forth and spread the gospel everybody, unless

798
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: you're an Ecuador and then you're like, no, it's actually

799
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: happened here. And since I said that actually happened here,

800
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 1: I think Chuck is for this to mo mat.

801
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 4: So this is from Tom in the UK.

802
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 3: Did you see this email? I don't think so.

803
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 4: It's great. It's one long sentence and I'm going to

804
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 4: try and read it in how I think Tom speaks

805
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 4: as as Tom from the UK, because just the way

806
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 4: he wrote it, I think Tom probably talks a little

807
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:25,360
Speaker 4: bit like this.

808
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: This isn't Tom from the UK, who was our tour

809
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:31,359
Speaker 1: manager when we did our UK tour, is it now?

810
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 3: Well, shout out to that Tom.

811
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: Yeah in the UK.

812
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 4: This is an engineer and this is what you have

813
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 4: to say, all right, Suck, Josh and Chuck Tom engineer

814
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 4: from the UK. Stoke on Trent, big fan of the show.

815
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 4: Been binging for about two years and got through all

816
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 4: of them. All of you lot, even Jerry, have got

817
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 4: me through a lot these last couple of years, and

818
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 4: I put a few people onto your podcast. Wanted to

819
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 4: email you lot for a while, and finally managed to

820
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 4: get right to emailing a load of things to people

821
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 4: about stuff that really doesn't matter. Emailed a TV show

822
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 4: about one of their actors, a particle physicist, about using

823
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:15,320
Speaker 4: a light year of lead as a frame of reference.

824
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 4: The company Supernoodles for the excellent job they've done with

825
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,800
Speaker 4: their supernoodle pot, but I'm not much for the peas.

826
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 4: And I just wanted to say, I know you like

827
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 4: the Japanese mayo, but you really need to try the

828
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 4: Polish mayo. Spot on all the best.

829
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: Tom boil Boy, Tom, that was great, And Chuck, that

830
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: was a fantastic stoke on trent accent, the most accurate

831
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: I've ever heard.

832
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,959
Speaker 3: And the first Tom that was a great email. You're right, Chuck,

833
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 3: I love that email so much.

834
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 4: I had so much fun.

835
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:52,399
Speaker 1: You were right to choose that one, So thanks Tom,

836
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: Thanks for writing in. Thank you for including us in

837
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: your list of people you harass via email, and keep listening.

838
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 3: Okay, keep writing in. Maybe we'll make this a regular thing, Chuck.

839
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 4: I would love that.

840
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Tom, write in again. And if you want

841
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 1: to write in too, we want to hear from you.

842
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at

843
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com.

844
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

845
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 4: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

846
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.