Orson Welles then and Opie & Anthony now: The decline of
shocking entertainment

By C.T. Rossi
web posted September 2, 2002

The true power of the modern mass media was revealed on
October 30, 1938. The specific medium in question was radio -
more specifically, the CBS radio network. The small group of
men and women rammed through boundaries heretofore
unbroken. They were the members of the Mercury Radio
Theater - their leader, a brash (and rash) young genius, Orson
Welles. What Welles and company did that night was stage a
radio drama, namely The War of the Worlds, which launched a
mass hysteria in a nation-wide listening audience.

The technique that made Welles' broadcast adaptation so
terrifyingly effective in paralyzing audiences with fear was a mock
reality. Though Welles provided a disclaimer in the prologue to
the story, once the actors began the story, it sounded like an
actual news report and those who tuned in late to the broadcast
heard 40 minutes of "news" before the next disclaimer was read.

In that first portion of the program, listeners thought that they had
tuned into the music of Ramon Raquello and his Orchestra from
the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, but soon enough the
dance music was interrupted by an "emergency news report"
from the most unlikely of places - Grover's Mill, New Jersey.
While many people in the New York/ New Jersey metropolitan
area had never heard of Grover's Mill, soon all of America
would "know" that this small town near Princeton was the staging
ground for a Martian invasion of the Earth.

What was described to the listening audience that night sounded
as real as the description of the Hindenburg crash, which
coincidentally (or perhaps not) occurred in New Jersey less than
18 months before the broadcast of The War of the Worlds. By
Halloween morning, the New York area newspapers were filled
with reports that thousands of people had placed calls to
newspapers and police seeking advice about protective
measures that could be taken against the poison gas used by the
Martians. The New York Times alone received close to 900
inquiries from concerned citizens.

But while most media outlets were content to report the
aftermath of Welles' product, most journalists did not have the
perspective to stop to realize that a seminal moment had been
reached in the history of mankind. One did, however.

Writing about Welles and his troupe in the New York Tribune,
Dorothy Thompson understood the full implications. She noted
that "few effective voices" convinced the general public of the
"totally unreasonable." She likewise realized that the effects of
the broadcast "demonstrated beyond a question of a doubt, the
appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness of popular and
theatrical demagoguery...". Thompson rounded out her brilliant
analysis by comparing radio reports of Hitler's army, which
terrified Europe a month before, to Welles who "scared
thousands into demoralization with nothing at all."
The dangers of "popular and theatrical demagoguery" are still
present today though the techniques are used more for cheap
carnival antics by "shock jocks" than the skill displayed by
Welles.

Recently, WNEW-FM in New York cancelled the Opie and
Anthony Show when it was learned that a Virginia couple, who
had been arrested for having sex in New York's St. Patrick's
Cathedral, were enticed into the act in order to win prizes from
the radio show. The "world" created by radio entertainment
which Orson Welles used to terrify a nation for an evening is
now under the control of people base enough to use the medium
to suborn public sexual acts that are both illegal and sacrilegious.
Given today's "reality entertainment" culture, WNEW executives
displayed uncommon good judgment in holding the shapers of
the media-created fantasy world responsible for the actions of
those they influence.
 
After the broadcast of The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles
found himself the center of great public controversy. CBS,
hearing that an FCC investigation might be forthcoming, even
contemplated canceling the Mercury Theater. The broadcast
also raised the ire of censorship advocate U.S. Senator Clyde
Herring of Iowa, who saw radio as a demoralizing force on
American society and was advocating that all radio broadcasts
be subject to government review.

While Welles' critics overreacted to what was essentially a piece
of brilliant hoaxical theater, people at the time did have salutary
fears that any mass medium has inherent dangers in its
application. As the "fourth wall" between drama and the
audience is slowly destroyed by "reality television" and
interactive shock jock contests, no longer does anyone seem to
see the danger in confusing what makes good entertainment and
what is real.

C.T. Rossi writes on contemporary culture and politics for the
Free Congress Foundation.

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