Martians Go Home by Fredric Brown

Author:Fredric Brown [Brown, Fredric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BUSINESS AS USUAL was our slogan within a week.

And in some businesses it worked, more or less. You can get used to driving a truck with a Martian sneering at the way you drive—or if you can’t get used to it, at least you can do it. Or you can sell groceries across a counter with a Martian sitting—weightlessly, if immovably—on top of your head heckling you and your customer. Things like that are wearing on the nerves but at least they can be done.

Other businesses did not fare so well.

The entertainment business was the first and hardest hit. Although filmed television shows were not interrupted that first night—except where technicians at the broadcasting stations panicked at the sight of Martians—every live television broadcast was off the air within minutes.

With the BUSINESS AS USUAL movement, live broadcasts were tried again but were speedily found impossible. The Martians loved live broadcasts; loved to heckle them, that is. A would-be dramatic show would frequently have more Martians than people on the set. Sometimes mocking the acting, sometimes merely making rude or even obscene remarks into the microphone, sometimes—if all else failed, if the actors persisted and at least pretended to ignore them—banding together in sufficient number to set up a howl that would simply drown out the voices of the actors completely.

Panel shows, they really loved. Especially panel discussions—and several were attempted—of the problem of the Martians themselves. What they did to those shows was something to see and hear.

All attempts at live broadcasting were out, completely; that was obvious by the end of the first week.

The filmed shows they didn’t bother. The broadcasters made a noble effort to continue business as usual using only canned entertainment and for a while it worked. But since no new shows could be filmed and no new movies could be made—for tire same reason that no live broadcasts could be used—it was sad but true that the same films would have to be shown over and over again as long as the Martians stayed. Forever, if the Martians stayed forever.

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