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 Campbell Playhouse (radio series) The Campbell Playhouse (radio series) The Campbell Playhouse (1938–40) is a live CBS radio drama series directed by and starring Orson Welles. Produced by Welles and John Houseman, it was a sponsored continuation of "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". The series offered hour-long adaptations of classic plays and novels, as well as adaptations of popular motion pictures. When Welles left at the end of the second season, "The Campbell Playhouse" changed format as a 30-minute weekly series that ran for one season (1940–41). As a direct result of the front-page headlines Orson Welles generated with his 1938 Halloween production