American Experience: War of the Worlds

[FlyingPenguin]

Just watched this. The whole episode is available here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperie ... ds/player/

Very interesting. They explain why it was possible for so many people to believe that the broadcast was real. It was pointed out that the Hindenburg crash had recently happened, and that was broadcast live at dinner time - when most people listened to the radio. People were also used to hearing about all kinds of bad news concerning German aggression in Europe (this was 1938). Matter of fact, many people reported after the fact that even though the radio broadcast clearly mentioned a Martian invasion, they thought they heard (or just assumed) that it was actually a German invasion, and people were mentally prepared for that already.

Also goes into a great amount of detail into Orson Welles, his background, how he came up with the idea for the script, and the repercussions after the broadcast.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperie ... ds/player/