[78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight, too) [FWD]

[Michael Biel]

As I mentioned in my early posting, several years ago Elizabeth did a
great explanation about the slightness of the panic by reminding us that
if 1.2 million people were noted as being "upset" or "Disturbed" by the
broadcast, the population of the U.S. was 130 million - so less than 1%
could have upset, let alone panic.  

By the way, you CAN'T blame Nelson Eddy for the tune-outs.  He OPENED
the program.  He starts singing at about 2:15 into the show after a
little banter between Don Ameche, Charlie, and Judy Canova.  He finishes
just after 6:30 when Charlie McCarthy and Bergen join Amache and Eddy. 
While his second song "The Canadian Logging Song" is not as exciting as
his first one "Song of the Vagabonds", even this at 4:30 in the show is
much earlier into the program than everyone thinks would grab new
tune-ins.  So people stayed with Bergen & McCarthy at least until 15:00
into the show when Dorothy Lamour is introduced to sing "Two Sleepy
People".  So is Dorothy Lamour singing a NEW HIT to blame????  You can
blame Lamour if you consider that people tuning into a comedy show do
not want music, but just about every comedy/variety program had music,
including Fred Allen and Jack Benny. BUT Amache does an ad around 19:30
followed just after 21:00 by a rather dull dramatic scene from "There's
Always Juliette" played by Madelene Carrol and Amache.  THIS is the
tune-out, but it is about 20 minutes into the program. 

Unfortunately the BBC closed comments for its article, but the
ill-informed had a chance to tell us that there were no national
stations in the U.S. except for the Mexican border stations, and that
the government and FCC passed laws because of this broadcast.  Of
course, no laws or rules were passed (although NOW there is a rule
against hoax broadcasts, but that is relatively recent), CBS programs
were heard nationwide simultaneously (Boston withstanding!), and that
Orson Welles had been commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation to
study the possibility of using radio to spread fear and war propaganda. 
  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight,
too) [FWD]
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl at midcoast.com>
Date: Mon, October 31, 2011 3:45 pm
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>

Precisely -- the Mercury Theatre was unsponsored because 8 to 9 pm time 
slot on CBS was considered, for all intents and purposes, to be
unsalable 
since the Chase & Sanborn Hour on NBC was at that moment riding high as 
the most popular program of the week. Chase & Sanborn was averaging
about 
37 million listeners each Sunday, compare to about 6 million, tops, for 
Welles. No sponsor was going to want a piece of that unless something 
happened to bring unusual attention to Welles.

THere was indeed no West Coast rebroadcast for the Mercury Theatre
series 
-- sustaining programs rarely, if ever, did a second show for the Coast.

So if it was heard at all out west, it was heard around suppertime. 

As for announcements in the program, there was Dan Seymour's opening 
announcement, an announcement following the theme music introducing 
Welles, a regularly-scheduled station break at approximately 40 minutes 
past the hour, a post-station break announcement thirty seconds later, 
Welles's closing speech, and a closing signature. Although it's 
occasionally been written that various stations along the network broke 
in locally, no positive documentation exists to back that up. 

Elizabeth



on 10/31/11 2:50 PM David Lennick wrote:

>No commercials..which was related to the lack of listeners, since the show 
>was 
>"highbrow" and couldn't land a sponsor until after the notoriety, at which 
>point it became the Campbell Playhouse. If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't even 
>done a second time for the west coast, which means that whatever stations in 
>the west carried it (and I believe LA didn't) ran it at 5pm. Some local 
>stations are thought to have done a line check and run it later. I've 
>heard a 
>number of different transfers of this broadcast (Longines, a dub off Orson's 
>own lacquers, a 16-inch set of discs dubbed from another set of 78 lacquers) 
>and the only "You are listening to.." occurs about 2/3 in.
>
>dl
>
>On 10/31/2011 2:40 PM, Rodger Holtin wrote:
>> Some were truly panicked. My dad's family was happily enjoying Nelson Eddy 
>when the old man in their upstairs apartment came downstairs in tears 
>blubbering about the end of thw world. They spent the rest of the hour 
>scanning the radio dial looking ion vain for other stations that would 
>confirm or deny the situation and basicaly missed the rest of both Nelson 
>and Orson, including, I assume, Orson's announcement at the end, something 
>about "we couldn't possibly soap all your windows so we did the next best 
>thing."
>>
>> I have heard recordings of this, and they all run straight through, 
including 
>an LP from Longenes or somebody like that. I have read that there were at 
>least six announcements of the "only a play" nature of the broadcast given 
>during the hour, but I've never heard but the one I mentioned above. I 
>have to ask, too, if it was not broken up by commercial announcements? 
>This was an hour, after, all, and that seems a long time to go without "a 
>word from our sponsor " on a commercial station or network, right?? Had 
>they broken for commercials, that would have been a tip-off even to the 
>most unsophisticated listener.
>>
>> Rodger
>>
>> For Best Results use Victor Needles.
>>
>> .
>>
>> --- On Mon, 10/31/11, Elizabeth McLeod<lizmcl at midcoast.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Elizabeth McLeod<lizmcl at midcoast.com>
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight, too) 
>[FWD]
>> To: "78-L Mail List"<78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>> Date: Monday, October 31, 2011, 7:26 AM
>>
>>
>> People desperately *want* the GIGANTIC PANIC OMG! to be true in this case, 
>simply because it *is* such a good story. OTR fans want it to be true 
>because it's the basis for the entire Orson Welles Legend. And a lot of 
>media critics want it to be true because it makes an excellent talking 
>point for whatever agenda they happen to have.
>>
>> There's also a lot of people who want the "Nelson Eddy drove all the Chase 
>and Sanborn listeners over to Welles" angle to be true, because they can't 
>understand how anybody could possibly like Nelson Eddy, who may well have 
>been the most popular male vocalist in the country at that particular 
>instant in time. But that's a whole 'nother myth to explode.
>>
>> Elizabeth
>>
>> on 10/31/11 3:36 AM Mike Harkin wrote:
>>
>>> Never let the truth get in the way of a good story! [First Axiom of
>>> story-telling].
>>>
>>> Mike in Plovdiv
>>>
>>> --- On Mon, 10/31/11, David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> From: David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>>> Subject: [78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight, too)
>>> To: "78L"<78-L at 78online.com>
>>> Date: Monday, October 31, 2011, 3:12 AM
>>>
>>>
>>> What's this about War Of The Worlds not causing that much of a panic?
>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/magazine-15470903
>>>
>>> dl
>>>
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