Mars Invades

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Paul Mackin opines:
"Rather it was the latter day myth that just grew and grew about how so many people were d
eceived by the realism of the performance.
 
In the first place, it wasn't all that realistic IMHO and contained clues as to its nonre
alism all along the way.
 
Secondly,  I have NEVER run into a solitary individual (including
myself) who remembers thinking at the time that the Mercury Theatre production was anythi
ng other than theatre."

Well, it *did* happen--not quite meeting the massive mass hysteria that is
sometimes reported, but a whole lot of people were scared or nonplussed by the
thing--the point was that if anyone was listening to the broadcase (Oops! I'
d better explain that this is the notorious WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast on
the Mercury Theater of the Air by Orson Welles and co.)--where was I?

Oh, yes, if anyone listened to the broadcast from the start or caught the
commercial breaks, there was no illusion.  But many people were channel-surfing
(especially from the popular Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy show--what
a Pynchonian or Pynthonesque concept: a ventriloquist on radio!) and they
happened across what seems to be a new broadcast in progress.

I do know that even a thousand miles away from Grovers Mill, NJ, here in
MN some people believed!


Anyway, tour de force and cause de scandal that it was, check out the newly
issued 8-part tape of Welles's version of LES MISERABLES for a sense of his
real radio achievements (and it doesn't have Andrew Lloyd Webber, either!).

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)