The War of the Worlds (radio drama) the show in its "Leading Events of the Week" ("Tonight – Play: H. G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'") and published a photograph of Welles with some of the Mercury players, captioned, "Tonight's show is H. G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'". Announcements that "The War of the Worlds" is a dramatization of a work of fiction were made on the full CBS network at four points during the broadcast October 30, 1938: at the beginning, before the middle break, after the middle break, and at the end. The middle break was delayed 10 minutes to accommodate the dramatic content.
Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) free-flowing organic legs described in Wells' novel. They are also described in the prologues of the live stage versions as being modified versions of similar walking machines the Martians use on Mars. This interpretation of the Martian tripods also appears in the 1998 and 1999, video games based on the Jeff Wayne album. In Kevin J. Anderson' "The Martian War" the Martians use two type of tripods, the ones from "The War of the Worlds" and a smaller, "overseer" variant. In "Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds", the fighting machines are described as having legs that can telescope down allowing