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Mars Attacked, 65 Years Ago Today
Jodrell writes "Forget solar flares, and the upcoming Halloween festivities - tonight marks the 65th anniversary of the broadcast of Orson Welles' radioplay version on The War Of The Worlds."
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That's because they only issued a warning saying it was fictional at the beginning and the end of it. There were no warnings while it was playing, so of course people thought it was real.
You can get the audio for the show here. Not the best fidelity, but still...
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble... can't we just go to Starbuck's for coffee?
You were fooled by our insidious language, which makes it virtually impossible to distinguish between simple past tense and passive voice.
What the headline said was:
Mars attacked [Earth], 65 years ago today.
What you thought it said (and what it actually might have said if Slashdot were a newspaper) was:
Mars attacked [by] Earth, 65 years ago today.
Bloody hell..and they call this a language?
H.G. Wells was *not* Orson Welles' father. (If nothing else, notice the difference in the last names.) See http://www.bway.net/~nipper/biobirth.html.
Something that contributed to this was the fact that most of the people who missed the beginning did so for the same reason that advertisers try (at times) to make their comercials entertaining.
This night of the week was popular on the radio for a couple of shows on competing networks. People would listen to the begining of the program, which was nearly always entertaining, decide the next part was dull, and retune to another station.
If you have not listened to the radio drama, there are a few segments where there is some so-so ballroom dance music being played, that apparently was just good enough that people decided to listen. This got interupted with what sounded at the time like a very reasonable public service anouncement that got them.
Personally I think this would be the equivalent of tuning in to the latest episode on Survivor, deciding watching the first segment, deciding to see what else is on, see that a couple of well known stars are being interviewed, and seeing the interview be pre-empted by what appears to be a news story about the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and the George Washington Bridge's all being hit by simultaneous terrorist strikes. If your first move isn't to check CNN, or HNN to see if they are covering these stories, you might be forgiven for believing that you were seeing real events.
-Rusty
You never know...
Well, here's their whois entry, but I suspect the contact information is out of date:
Registrant:
Yoyodyne Software Systems (YOYODYNE-DOM)
19772 Rawhide Road
Sonora, CA 95370-8002
US
Domain Name: YOYODYNE.COM
Administrative Contact:
Bigboote, John (JSB) jbigboote@yoyodyne.com
Yoyodyne Software Systems
19772 Lizardo Road
Sonora, CA 95370-8002
US
(209) 532-6030 fax: (209) 532-0541
Technical Contact:
McMahon, John J (jm757) fuzzface@IO.COM
YLMI
46883 RabbitRun Terrace
Sterling, VA 20164
US
Voice 703-450-8092 Pager 703-219-6058 fax: 703-450-6793
Record expires on 08-Mar-2008.
Record created on 07-Mar-1991.
Database last updated on 30-Oct-2003 18:00:11 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.ADELMAN.COM 198.137.202.66
NS2.ADELMAN.COM 206.111.107.35
Yes, and you can download an MP3 of them conversing in 1940: http://www.unknown.nu/mercury/ (scroll to bottom)
Actually, there was a disclaimer between the two acts. But the first act ran uninterrupted for a long time. The broadcast is one of the reasons why broadcasters have to self-identify at least every 15 minutes.
Also, most people missed not only the disclaimer at the beginning, but also the opening monologue, tuning in at the fake weather report or later when people turned the dial away from Charlie McCarthy. It is the first documented incident of channel switching. Listeners were so gripped that they never switched back.
And congrats for getting the date right. Many people mistakenly think the broadcast was October 31st, 1938. It was indeed October 30th, 1938.
Also, 50 years ago, the George Pal movie The War of the Worlds opened in theaters.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Yes, and you can download an MP3 of them conversing in 1940: http://www.unknown.nu/mercury/ (scroll to bottom) No idea why this was modded down. (I've already posted to this thread, otherwise I'd mod it up.)
Opration Lune AKA Dark Side of the Moon
A pity that The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension got the date wrong.
But then so did the TV series War of the Worlds (transcribed script). The series attempted to establish that the 1938 broadcast was an actual invasion, but was a scout force sent in advance of the 1953 invasion depicted in the movie. They suggested that Orson Welles and men from the government came by following that attempted invasion and concocted a panic-inducing script to cover up what really happened.
Except the radio broadcast was on the 30th and the eyewitnesses had it occuring on the 31st. Meaning Welles (and not Howard Koch) wrote the radio play in at most -1 days, probably less. Now that's a neat trick.
The site is mine, and I need to resume updating it. It's written from the perspective of the series, and so incorporates the mythos, yet also serves as a collection of tellings of the story, including comic books and arcade games. It suffers from a lack of airing of the TV series. I just haven't been able to keep up my own interest in it.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'm surprised nobody has linked to official website, where you can listen to the entire broadcast.
They're offering a transcript, MP3 files and a Real Audio stream as well as in-depth background information.
In God We Trust, Others We Monitor