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

[David Lennick]

On 10/31/2011 5:21 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> From: James Tennyson<jtennyson at sympatico.ca>
>>> When I first read about the panic when I was a teenager I asked my father
>>> if he had heard the broadcast. He said that in fact he HAD heard it. He
>>> turned the radio on mid broadcast so he hadn't heard the opening of the
>>> show. He said he thought" What the hell is is this? " and turned to another
>>> few stations which were doing their regular stuff and he realized
>>> immediately it was Orson Welles...AND it was Hallowee'en.  JRT
>
> If he knew it was Orson Welles, he was one of the probably fifteen
> people would have known who Welles was outside of the people in NYC
> broadcasting or theatre.  He was still a NOBODY at that time.  His
> Mercury Theatre program had been on for three months of low ratings, and
> all his earlier radio had been done without named credit.

In fact my dad was listening to Bergen & McCarthy that night, picked up by the 
CBC. CFRB was the CBS outlet in Toronto but I don't know if they carried 
Mercury Theater.

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.
>
> As I just posted (after your posting, however) Eddy finished singing at
> about 6:30 into the program and the Martians had not yet crawled out of
> their machine, let alone start to destroy the earth.
>
> What this shows is that even people who DO remember, don't always
> remember accurately.
>
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