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Emergency Broadcast: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:tor warn 2789.jpg|frame|[[Oh Crap]]! [[Death From Above]]!]]
The Emergency Broadcast is a means of public warning and public annoyance alike. Hearing an '''Emergency Broadcast''' warning of actual danger may lead to [[Oh Crap]], [[Mass "Oh Crap"]], the need for [[Bring My Brown Pants|one's brown pants to be brought]] - in that way it may be the ultimate [[Brown Note]]. On the other hand, a test or a warning of something that doesn't affect you (e.g. a missing child warning, a flood when you're on high ground, a tsunami when you're 100 miles inland) may be a [[Berserk Button]] and lead to frustration with [[Crying Wolf]]. Another frequent frustration is when an actual alert has such horrible sound quality you can't understand what's being said. In many countries, [[Atomic Hate]] was the primary reason for the system's creation, and it eventually (and thankfully) ended up never being used for that purpose and being used for many others.
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{{examples}}
== Emergency Broadcast systems by country ==
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'''Russia:''' An old system of power-independent wire radio ("radiotochka") still exists for this exact purpose, for performing emergency broadcasts even during blackouts.
==
* An early issue of ''Epic Illustrated'' has a one-page strip in which a couch potato is lazing in front of his TV set with a beer. A voice from the TV announces a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The guy swigs a beer as the warning tone sounds, then starts to look uncomfortable and sweat, before finally writhing in agony and melting into a skeleton. In the final panel we see that the world outside has been incinerated. Meanwhile the voice on TV blithely announces "this was only a test."
==
* ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' features an Emergency Broadcast broadcast in English and Nazzadi languages.▼
* [[Truth in Television]], obviously. Examples of some accidental [[Apocalypse How]] alert activations when no disaster really existed can be found on the [[Mass "Oh Crap"]] page.▼
* Any time a car radio is on in a 60s or 70s TV drama, chances are good that an EBS test is being broadcast. That's because the text of the EBS test is a work of the federal government and therefore in the public domain, so producers didn't have to pay royalties or license fees if they used it. Eventually, though, Washington asked the networks to cut down on the practice so that prime-time TV viewers wouldn't become overly used to the noise and simply tune it out.▼
* There is an ad for a business in the US called Lumber Liquidators that uses a beep very, very similar to that of the EAS that airs on at least CNN.▼
* Radios and TVs air a number of emergency warnings shortly before the attack sequences in ''[[The Day After]]''. The broadcasts downplay the danger the public is in and are often ignored; one couple blithely sneaks upstairs to have sex as their young children watch an announcer struggle through an EBS alert. The last EBS announcement, broadcast as the sirens blare in Kansas City and residents downtown succumb to helpless panic, reassures listeners that there is no immediate danger but suggests that travellers in the metropolitan area take a moment to locate a nearby shelter. The first bomb explodes over the city in the middle of the broadcast.▼
* The Protect And Survive announcements in [[Threads]] as well as the attack warning.▼
== Film ==
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* Shown briefly in ''[[Film/Testament|Testament]]''.
== Live Action TV ==
▲* [[Truth in Television]], obviously. Examples of some accidental [[Apocalypse How]] alert activations when no disaster really existed can be found on the [[Mass "Oh Crap"]] page.
▲* Any time a car radio is on in a 60s or 70s TV drama, chances are good that an EBS test is being broadcast. That's because the text of the EBS test is a work of the federal government and therefore in the public domain, so producers didn't have to pay royalties or license fees if they used it. Eventually, though, Washington asked the networks to cut down on the practice so that prime-time TV viewers wouldn't become overly used to the noise and simply tune it out.
▲* There is an ad for a business in the US called Lumber Liquidators that uses a beep very, very similar to that of the EAS that airs on at least CNN.
▲* Radios and TVs air a number of emergency warnings shortly before the attack sequences in ''[[The Day After]]''. The broadcasts downplay the danger the public is in and are often ignored; one couple blithely sneaks upstairs to have sex as their young children watch an announcer struggle through an EBS alert. The last EBS announcement, broadcast as the sirens blare in Kansas City and residents downtown succumb to helpless panic, reassures listeners that there is no immediate danger but suggests that travellers in the metropolitan area take a moment to locate a nearby shelter. The first bomb explodes over the city in the middle of the broadcast.
▲* The Protect And Survive announcements in [[Threads]] as well as the attack warning.
== Music and Sound Effects ==
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* Prong used an EBS test message in the song "Test" on their 1994 album ''Cleansing''.
* The [[Insane Clown Posse]] album ''Bizzar'' opens with a news broadcast, which is upgraded into a nationwide emergency broadcast in its sister album ''Bizaar''.
== Radio ==
* Famously used as part of a radio show in the 1938 broadcast of ''[[War of the Worlds]]''. The broadcast was formatted as a series of news alerts, and many listeners (reportedly up to a quarter of them) thought that the show was reporting an actual alien attack. As a result of the chaos that ensued, it is rumored that CBS is, to this day, forbidden to use the words "We interrupt this broadcast" for dramatic purposes.
* Played for drama in ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'', where the intro sequence to the mission "Of Their Own Accord" is an emergency broadcast system alert containing evacuation instructions for residents of Washington, D.C and its commuter belt. It also warns citizens to "remain alert" because the Ultranationalist troops assaulting the East Coast are killing any civilians they encounter in revenge for the [[False-Flag Operation]] at the start of the game.▼
▲== [[Video Games]] ==
▲* Played for drama in [[Modern Warfare]] 2, where the intro sequence to the mission "Of Their Own Accord" is an emergency broadcast system alert containing evacuation instructions for residents of Washington, D.C and its commuter belt. It also warns citizens to "remain alert" because the Ultranationalist troops assaulting the East Coast are killing any civilians they encounter in revenge for the [[False-Flag Operation]] at the start of the game.
* Is played with in the ''Emergency'' series of PC games, as you are the one who has to clean up the mess.
* ''[[Silent Hill]]'' uses an air raid siren, which does a similar thing, but without anyone talking. [[Hell Is That Noise]] ensues.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oss18nLxJOk&feature=related Played for laughs] in the 1996 PC game ''[[Stay Tooned]]''.
== Web Original ==
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
* ''Freakazoid'' parodied the EBS in an episode shown in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfgZnBaHbt8 this clip].▼
* In ''[[Dexter's Laboratory|Dexters Laboratory]],'' Dexter's favorite show [[Show Within a Show|Action Hank]] was cut by a test of the EBS. Not knowing it was a test, Dex began solving every emergency he could find to get it to stop before realizing it was just a test.▼
* In one episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', Hamton imagines himself being subjected to 60 seconds of the Emergency Broadcast System as a form of [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]].▼
* The National Film Board of Canada short ''The Big Snit'' takes place during a nuclear war and a TV is shown playing a parody of nuclear attack warnings.▼
▲* ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' features an Emergency Broadcast broadcast in English and Nazzadi languages.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCwffUO4C5E This tribute] to ''[[Superfriends]]'' starts with a reporter in the middle of a catastrophe calling out for heroes.
* [[YouTube]] is full of uploads of EBS/EAS tests (as well as those for other systems outside the US.) There are also clips where the sound is used as a screamer, as well as plenty of parodies, remixes, mockups, and [[YouTube Poop]].
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** (Note. Not all of the above links are to recordings of real alerts. Most are for simulations).
▲* ''Freakazoid'' parodied the EBS in an episode shown in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfgZnBaHbt8 this clip].
▲* In ''[[Dexter's
▲* In one episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', Hamton imagines himself being subjected to 60 seconds of the Emergency Broadcast System as a form of [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]].
▲* The National Film Board of Canada short ''The Big Snit'' takes place during a nuclear war and a TV is shown playing a parody of nuclear attack warnings.
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