The War of the Worlds (radio drama) leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. Nevertheless, the episode secured Welles's fame as a dramatist. "The War of the Worlds" was the 17th episode of the CBS Radio series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air," which was broadcast at 8 pm ET on Sunday, October 30, 1938. H. G. Wells' original novel tells the story of a Martian invasion of Earth. The novel was adapted for radio by Howard Koch, who changed the primary setting from 19th-century England to the contemporary United States, with the landing point of the first
Orson Welles after the success of the "Harry Lime" radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, "The Black Museum", which ran for 52 weeks with Welles as host and narrator. Director Herbert Wilcox offered Welles the part of the murdered victim in "Trent's Last Case", based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953, the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem "Song of Myself". Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", starring John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. Welles briefly returned to