Author: Glenn Hauman

Sixty-nine years ago tonight, the radio program Mercury Theater on the Air presented Orson Welles’ production of H.G. Wells’ "War of the Worlds", a fictional drama about a Martian invasion in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The program sparked a panic among listeners who believed the play was an actual news broadcast. Of the six million listeners who heard the show, more than 1.7 million reportedly believed the story was true.

Those who were lucky enough to tune in from the start of the show were alerted to its fictional nature and were spared the fate of the others who went into nationwide panic over alien invasion. Most creative artists in the fantasy field only hope to convey the emotional reality of fictional circumstances. Welles was able to make those circumstances real, if only for an ephemeral hour and if only for a gullible few.

We salute you, Mr. Welles and Mr. Wells, for setting the standards of illusory paranoia, and giving the rest of us something to aspire towards.

If you’ve never heard it before, have a listen.

D’oh! We meant the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta, an incredibly talented actor in his own right. Besides voicing Homer (and Grampa Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, and Kodos) he’s also voiced the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin tv series, Scarface and the Ventriloquist in the Batman animated series, Doc Brown in the Back To The Future animated series, and even portrayed Harvey Pekar in a stage version of American Splendor.

He even played Homer Simpson in an episode of LA Law.

A happy birthday to the man who now co-holds the record for the longest running portrayal of a fictional character on prime-time American television. He has portrayed Homer Simpson on The Tracey Ullman Show and The Simpsons from 1987 onwards, beating the twenty-year record held by James Arness for Gunsmoke and Kelsey Grammer for Frasier Crane.

In the "gosh, nobody tells me anything" category: Dagwood’s is a franchise development and expansion company structured to become one of the fastest growing chains in history, built on the power of a brand that is famous across the world, and is synonymous with all things sandwich. Most of them are down south, so if anybody has actually been to one of these, let us know how they are.

(UPDATE 10/26 2:55: See below.) There’s a new show from Universal slotted for the Sci Fi Channel written by Rockne S. O’Bannon (Farscape, Alien Nation, Seaquest) and Jane Epsenson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica). The press release from SciFi.com – Warehouse 13 Green Lighted:

SCI FI Channel has given a green light to Warehouse 13, a two-hour pilot it describes as part The X-Files, part Raiders of the Lost Ark and part Moonlighting. The pilot for a one-hour drama comedy comes from Universal Media Studios and is slated to begin production in December, with an eye toward a summer 2008 premiere.

After saving the life of the president, two FBI agents find themselves abruptly "promoted" and relocated to windswept South Dakota, to a top-secret location called Warehouse 13: a massive, secret storage facility that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government over the centuries. The duo search the country for several missing objects while monitoring for reports of supernatural and paranormal activity that could indicate the presence of other objects they must retrieve.

Now compare that with this description from Steve Jackson Games for their GURPS RPG supplement Warehouse 23, a book originally published in 1999 that gave SJ Games the name of their online shop, with a very popular basement: (more…)