Panic during The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds is a 60-minute episode in the series The Mercury Theatre on the Air and was presented as a radio drama during the Halloween season in 1938. The episode was aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network, during the time when radio had become the number one source of entertainment. After the depression, the people needed a form of entertainment that they didn't have to go out and pay a dollar for. Radio could sometimes be seen as propaganda and often included advertising and commercial breaks. Unlike the television we have today, radio allowed the imagination to run wild. Each person listening could be a set and costume designer, creating the scenery and costumes for each person talking. But anyways, during this episode of which a fake broadcast was done pretending that Martians were invading the Earth and that the world was ending as people knew it, people began to panic. Why? The first two thirds of the broadcast were done seriously without humor and presented without commercials as a simulated new bulletin. It seemed like a legitimate news report. Some described it as a cruel and deceptive thing to do. People actually fled their homes and the days following the broadcast were filled with panic and outrage. Those who had only turned on their radio briefly and heard the boradcast without knowing it was just a show especially fell for it because they mistook it as an actual news report. Jack Paar from The Tonight Show had to announce on the air, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?" But people thought he was lying to cover up what was really happening. After one month, the episode had become entirely famous, having 12,500 articles published about what had happened.