Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater Presentation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”, first broadcast October 30, 1938

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One of the ironies of the mythology that has sprung up surrounding Orson Welle’s Mercury Theater broadcast of the War of the Worlds on October 30, 1938 — is that the idea for Mercury Theater on the Air to do this was not Welles at all. It was CBS Producer John Houseman who first suggested the idea — an idea which Welles initially rejected as boring. But it was the suggestion from Houseman, and the “it’s boring” reaction from Welles, that led Welle’s to engage his agile and creative mind in a thought process that would yield a format for the broadcast singularly panic-inducing moment in American cultural history.

It was Welles who thought — wouldn’t it be interesting if we unveiled the story via a series of bulletins that would interrupt supposed “regular programming”, giving it a sense of urgency and reality that would overcome what Welles felt was the tendency of the material to be a bit boring……

And so it was, that you might have been seated comfortably in your living room on the evening of October 30, 1938, a Sunday evening. Perhaps you went to the kitchen and missed the disclaimer at the beginning of the show, or perhaps you were channel surfing and missed the disclaimer that way, or perhaps you just weren’t paying attention during the moments the disclaimer came on — but one way or another, your attentionwas suddenly caught by:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, Central Time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the Earth with enormous velocity…”

A few minutes later, after a series of bulletins:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Carl Phillips again, out at the Wilmuth farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey…I hardly know where to begin…I guess that’s the thing buried in front of me, half buried in its vast pit.”

And then:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed…Someone’s crawling out of the hollow top…The whole field’s caught fire…It’s coming this way. About twenty yards to my right—”

And then there was silence — complete silence.

Pretty chilling.

WeEarth Global Radio Network is proud to be able to offer the opportunity to listen once again to Orson Welles “War of the Worlds”.