Tag Archives: halloween

The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series “Mercury Theatre on the Air”. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel, 'The War of the Worlds'. The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated “news bulletins”, which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the program's quality of realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. Because the program's oration included a segment in which “radio has a responsibility to serve in the public interest at all times,” the news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and some confirmed suicides. ————- The Full, Unedited 1938 Welles Production is brought to you in 7 parts: (Part One) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wf5TPVz56A (Part Two) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUBisKB5l98 (Part Three) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejt_aWUrEp8 (Part Four) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aYZPkHEp_s (Part Five) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wxLjcz1oE8 (Part Six) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fFLmXZ9Lmk (Part Seven) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuDdAe17OL0 ————— For more on “Yellow Journalism,” please indulge in the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism added by: jeffissleeping