The War of the Worlds (radio drama) The War of the Worlds (radio drama) "The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel "The War of the Worlds" (1898). It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938 over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode became famous for causing panic among its listening audience, but the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had
The War of the Worlds (radio 1968) reporters as actors. Other changes reflected the changing state of the industry: instead of the old-time radio programming fare of the 1930s, WKBW's "War of the Worlds" broadcast was interwoven into the station's top 40 programming. Initially, a script was written for the news reporters to act out; however, upon hearing the rehearsals, it was evident that the news reporters (except Irv Weinstein, a professional radio actor at the beginning of his career) were not adept at scripted radio acting. So instead, Kaye wrote an outline based on the events that were to occur, and the news reporters were then