The War Of The Worlds H G Wells

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

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The War of the Worlds  is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series  The Mercury Theatre on the Air . It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel  The War of the Worlds  (1898). The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the  Mercury Theatre on the Air  was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage and panic by certain listeners, who had believed the events described in the program were real. The program's news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast. Despite these complaints, the episode secured Welles' fame as a dramatist.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

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1938 : The night Orson Welles panicked America

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H G Wells vs Orson Welles! Probably the most famous radio broadcast in history. The legendary 1938 production in which Orson Welles presented a radio drama after the fashion of a breaking news story, re-writing the H G Wells novel in order to move the action from England to the USA, thereby convincing the huge American radio audience that they were listening to a live news broadcast of a real invasion from Mars. Partly its impact was due to the fact that, back in 1938, no one had ever before presented drama in the form of a news report. Partly because of the absence of commercials in a 'sustainer'. But also because the one-hour play aired opposite a popular half-hour comedy on another network, so that much of the radio audience joined the broadcast when it was half-way through, thus never heard the opening announcement identifying it as a drama, and didn't hear the opening narration by Orson Welles. In an age when radio was the dominant form of entertainment in America, and the sole form of home entertainment, heard by literally everyone, this entirely novel type of drama had an unexpected impact on its huge audience. It certainly turned Welles into a household name overnight, and launched him on a glittering career.