Large Fierce Mammal

Enfant terrible Orson Welles was hereby adjudged to be a bit of a shit, but he got over it.

On the night of 30 October 1938, channel surfing took a turn for the dark side. If you were listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy but decided to skip the commercial break by tuning to their rival station, you stood a good chance of landing on the infamous Orson Wells broadcast of War of the Worlds.

Unprecedented at the time, the show was scripted to provide what sounded like standard programming that came to be sporadically and increasingly interrupted by realistic newscasts from ground zero of a Martian invasion. Even better was the sombre address to the nation by a presidential sound-alike.

Hilarity did NOT ensue.

There have been quite a few documentaries put together over the years, many of which overplay the level of concern the broadcast caused, however tonight we’ll look instead at some lengthy but worthwhile documentation of the subject. War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary TV coverage 1988 is a 1 hour and 51 minute compilation of news coverage from the 50th anniversary of the broadcast gleaned from assorted networks in October of 1988, complete with the kind of commercials that will leave you, Goode Reader, fingering the channel selector yourself. And sweet Mother of God the hair. The glasses!

Timelines for content are:

• 00:00 Our World “Halloween 1938” aired October 30, 1986 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast and panic; Adolf Hitler; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
• 57:40 Entertainment Tonight 10-20-1988
• 1:04:22 CBS This Morning 10-28-1988
• 1:17:05 CBS 2 News October 1988
• 1:20:09 NBC News October 1988 1:24:45 Channel 10 News October 1988
• 1:26:48 News Report October 1988
• 1:27:40 50th Anniversary Special hosted by Jim Moore

Four Horsemen to wash this down folks.