The War Of The Worlds Essay

At a time when America was recovering from The Great Depression and facing the introduction of World War II, chaos could break out at any minute. The day before Halloween in 1938, a simple broadcast of entertainment launched the country into panic(History.com Staff 1). By announcing that Martians were invading Earth on the air, The War of the Worlds, radio adaptation by Orson Wells’ that seemed “too realistic to be fake,” would be the cause of this havoc in the north eastern region of the United States. H.G. Wells’ book, The War of the Worlds, was written in 1898, and later transformed into a radio broadcast in 1938 (Fetzer 193 ). “In 1938, his famous Halloween radio production of H.G. Wells’ novel, The War of the World's, frightened many listeners by convincing them that the Martians had actually invaded New Jersey”(Fetzer 193). It was not actually intended to be a public hoax, or a scare, just a broadcast for Halloween from the CBS studio(History.com Staff
“When the news of the real-life panic leaked into the CBS studio, Welles went on the air as himself to remind listeners that it is just fiction” (History.com Staff 4). Orson feared the consequences of the production by scaring an estimated two million people alone in the the North Eastern region(History.com Staff 4)(Heyer 1). The broadcast was even investigated by the FCC to see if any crimes were committed, but they didn’t find any crime to be broken, but the CBS studio agreed to be more careful about how they would broadcast (History.com Staff 4). Little did Orson know that his broadcast would actually help him gain publicity. “In fact, the publicity helped land him a contract with a Hollywood studio and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced a starred in “Citizen Kane” - a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made” (History.com Staff