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 Orson Welles Almanac Jazz Group (which Welles often called the All Star Jazz Combination or the Mercury All Star Jazz Combination) first performed on "The Orson Welles Almanac" on March 15, 1944. Its last performance was July 12, 1944, on the penultimate show in the series. The performances on Welles's show were so popular that the band became a regular feature, launched Ory's comeback, and was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz. On the morning of the fifth broadcast, April 19, 1944, Jimmie Noone suddenly died at home of a heart attack, aged 48. Welles telephoned Ory and told