re: Best radio dramas, past and present(?)

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The 17th episode of Orson Welles’ “Mercury Theatre on the Air” began on CBS Radio at 8 pm on Sunday, 30 October 1938 with a brief announcement that the program would be an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds.

Welles then read an introduction that closely adhered to the novel before returning to a seemingly typical radio broadcast of music. The programming was then interrupted with a series of news bulletins regarding events at Grover’s Mill, NJ, which quickly became eye witness reports of a Martian invasion.

Producer John Houseman recalled that the total broadcast time, “from the first mention of the meteorites to the fall of New York City, was less than forty minutes.“ “During that time, men travelled long distances, large bodies of troops were mobilized, cabinet meetings were held, savage battles fought on land and in the air. And millions of people accepted it—emotionally if not logically.”

Announcements that “The War of the Worlds” was a dramatization of a work of fiction were made 4 times during the broadcast: at the beginning, before the middle break (at 30 minutes into the broadcast), after the middle break, and at the end. Still, many listeners were fooled by the news-like structure of the drama and calls were made to local police across the country, and to the radio station. Police entered the building to stop the broadcast, but were not allowed into the control room.

After the broadcast, Houseman recalled, “hustled out of the studio, we were locked into a small back office on another floor. Here we sat incommunicado while network employees were busily collecting, destroying, or locking up all scripts and records of the broadcast.”

According to the head of CBS News, the 23-year-old Orson Welles “sat alone and despondent. ‘I’m through,’ he lamented, “washed up.’” The broadcast, of course, made him famous.

The news of panic caused by the broadcast have been debated ever since (with most historians concluding that the panic was exaggerated by the media, and subsequently by CBS itself to promote its network), and while Welles initially denied the panic, he ultimately contributed to the myth.

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The 17th episode of Orson Welles’ “Mercury Theatre on the Air” began on CBS Radio at 8 pm on Sunday, 30 October 1938 with a brief announcement that the program would be an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds.

Welles then read an introduction that closely adhered to the novel before returning to a seemingly typical radio broadcast of music. The programming was then interrupted with a series of news bulletins regarding events at Grover’s Mill, NJ, which quickly became eye witness reports of a Martian invasion.

Producer John Houseman recalled that the total broadcast time, “from the first mention of the meteorites to the fall of New York City, was less than forty minutes.“ “During that time, men travelled long distances, large bodies of troops were mobilized, cabinet meetings were held, savage battles fought on land and in the air. And millions of people accepted it—emotionally if not logically.”

Announcements that “The War of the Worlds” was a dramatization of a work of fiction were made 4 times during the broadcast: at the beginning, before the middle break (at 30 minutes into the broadcast), after the middle break, and at the end. Still, many listeners were fooled by the news-like structure of the drama and calls were made to local police across the country, and to the radio station. Police entered the building to stop the broadcast, but were not allowed into the control room.

After the broadcast, Houseman recalled, “hustled out of the studio, we were locked into a small back office on another floor. Here we sat incommunicado while network employees were busily collecting, destroying, or locking up all scripts and records of the broadcast.”

According to the head of CBS News, the 23-year-old Orson Welles “sat alone and despondent. ‘I’m through,’ he lamented, “washed up.’” The broadcast, of course, made him famous.

The news of panic caused by the broadcast have been debated ever since (with most historians concluding that the panic was exaggerated by the media, and subsequently by CBS itself to promote its network), and while Welles initially denied the panic, he ultimately contributed to the myth.

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They dramatized stories from the pulp SF "golden age" of the 1940s by writers like Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein etc.

While there are plenty of rocketmen and space travel stories, the most interesting episodes IMHO are those that prefigure the classic "The Twilight Zone" situation -- ordinary people caught up in fantastic situations. Stephen King once commented that Richard Matheson took horror out of the gothic mansion and let it happen anywhere, even the minimart down the street. That's what these shows helped do for SF -- although Twilight Zone would get the credit. I wonder how often Rod Serling listened to them.

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LINK ]X Minus 1



Zero Hour - Bradbury (notice a pattern here?). The ending is a masterpiece.

The Last Martian - Fredric Brown. This was later filmed as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents starring Steve McQueen. IMHO this radio version is superior.

Hostess - Asimov

Cold Equations

Venus Is A Man's World - not all that great an episode, but a fascinatingly prescient satire on feminism (from 1957!)

X Minus 1 also did two stories by a very young, little-known writer named Philip K Dick, "Colony" and "The Defenders". They're nothing special, although "The Defenders" is not a bad cold war allegory -- apparently a frequently-used device in SF of this period, at least judging by these two series.

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Quiet, Please! is an old-time radio fantasy and horror program created by Wyllis Cooper, also known for creating Lights Out. Ernest Chappell was the show's announcer and lead actor. Quiet, Please! was first broadcast by on June 8, 1947 by the Mutual Broadcasting System, and its last episode ran on June 25, 1949, by ABC. A total of 106 shows were broadcast, with only a very few of them repeats.

Earning relatively little notice during its initial run, Quiet, Please! has since been praised as one of the finest efforts of the golden age of American radio drama. The shows range from deeply personal human interest shows to some of the most original horror and science fiction stories ever written.

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