Science Fiction on Radio

Reviewed by Jerry Stearns.

This is a website mostly about the audio versions of the War of the Worlds, with reference to other mediums as necessary.

H. G. Wells published his original "The War of the Worlds" novella in 1898 to much critical acclaim. It is still considered by many to be the best of the invasion by aliens subgenre in science fiction. Others have done similar stories, notably Niven and Pournelle's 1985 novel Footfall, but none have quite reached that fine balance between horror and sense of wonder that Wells did.

The most famous radio broadcast of all time is still considered to be "The War of the Worlds", by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air, October 30, 1938. Produced by John Houseman, it caused a near-panic, and lots and lots of press coverage. It also spurred legislation banning the "news" format from radio drama for years following. And although Orson Welles himself said they had no idea they were causing such an uproar, he actually knew it was happening and was thrilled with all the attention. The script, by the late Howard Koch (who also won an Academy Award for the screenplay of "Casablanca"), was actually titled "The Invasion From Mars", but was based on H.G. Wells' novella.

The story goes like this: That October evening most Americans tuned in to the "The Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy Show", which was the most popular radio show of the time. Twelve minutes into the show they went to their usual musical break. At that point many people changed the channel, and came upon reporter Carl Philips in the field near Grover's Mills, New Jersey. By the time the break came, with the announcement that this was just a play, most of them had already gone off screaming. The "War" became famous, and the Bergen-McCarthy Show opposite it seems to have vanished.

"The War of the Worlds" story itself has been performed on radio many times since 1938, in a variety of formats. Gordon Payton claims to have 25 different audio versions of the story. The NBC Network anthology series Dimension X and X Minus One each offered a few alien invasion stories. (See "The Embassy", "The Seventh Order", "The Last Martian", and "Zero Hour", for example.)

About every two months I get the question "How can I get rights to perform the radio version of the War of the Worlds?" Rights are owned by the widow of author Howard Koch, and they are administered by Norman Rudman, in California. You can contact him at nrudman@mcn.org.

Here is a look at some of the audio versions of the Wells and Welles stories of The War.

• 1938: The Welles broadcast is available all over. I have vinyl of it, and it is available on compact disc in several collections. Look for The Smithsonian Collection of Old Time Radio: Science Fiction, or the Radio Spirits "60 Greatest Old Time Radio Shows from Science Fiction" selected by Ray Bradbury. It even appears occasionally on the radio, usually around Halloween. There are a few books about the broadcast event, and numerous radio and TV documentaries have covered it. There is a story that it was performed in South America (see below) with an even larger panic resulting, in which a number of people were killed, and an angry mob burned down the radio station that broadcast it.
  
  
  
• 1955: On February 8th, The Lux Radio Theater (NBC) broadcast the radio version of the 1953 George Pal film. Lux Theater had been doing radio versions of Hollywood movies since 1936. The Pal film had proven itself at the box office, and so was brought to the air with Dana Andrews playing the Gene Barry part of Professor Clayton Forester (where else have I heard that name? ), and Pat Crowley as Sylvia, the beautiful grad student. The setting, like the film version, was moved to California, the Professor's name was changed, and they tried to use nuclear weapons against the invaders. It was generally dumber than the intelligent Koch script, and inadvertently funny in places. (The movie did win Academy Awards for special effects and sound editing, however.) Cassettes are available from collectors and the usual Old Time Radio sources such as Radio Spirits.
  
  
• 1964: WPEN, Portland, OR broadcasts the Koch script, live, with no panic. The acting was really weak, but they had a lot of fun, and it made a good publicity stunt. Tapes only available in private collections, and deservedly so.
  
  
• 1968: WKBW, Buffalo, NY does their own script on October 30. With the story relocated to their own broadcast area, and done with real newsmen from the radio and television station, they updated the presentation as it would have been done by a news team of the late Sixties. They paralleled the Koch storyline up to the guy in the radio station dying while on the air, and left it there. Apparently improvised from a story outline for the actors, it is realistic in every aspect, and is one of the best I've heard.
  Despite weeks of promotion and letters to local public agencies to warn them of the broadcast, and numerous announcements on the air during the show, it still brought thousands of phone calls from panicked listeners and responses from police and fire departments, and even from a Canadian National Guard unit. Quite impressive.
  Check out their website at: http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/wkbwwotw71.html. There's a RealAudio compatible download there.
  
  
• 1978: Jeff Wayne releases his musical version of the H.G. Wells' story, with Richard Burton as the journalist/narrator. Burton is great on this, and the music is pretty good, too. This story harks back to the original, which allows for some confusion to those who's only experience with the story is the Mercury Theater version. It's now available on Compact Disc from Columbia. Featured artists include Justin Hayward from The Moody Blues, and David Essex who played Jesus Christ in the original Godspell.
  
  
• 1988: Otherworld Media presents the War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary Production. David Ossman, of the Firesign Theatre, reworks the Howard Koch script to make it sound like modern public radio, and succeeds. Produced by Judith Walcutt of Otherworld, using familiar public radio voices like Douglas Edwards, Terry Gross and Scott Simon, it is difficult to tell when the regular NPR programming ends and this show begins. These people are essentially playing themselves. Much of the recording took place on location, and the post production mixing was done at the studios of Lucasfilm's Skywalker Ranch with post-production supervised by Randy Thom. With actors like Jason Robards starring, and backed up by people like Steve Allen, Hector Elizondo and Phil Proctor, this is a spectacular production. It works. It's fun. Perhaps it's weakest point is the expressionless "note taking" by Robards as he reads into a tape recorder his observations and adventures as he makes his way through the countryside, trying to avoid discovery by the Martians. I would think they'd be rather emotionally charged adventures, myself. CDs are available through the Lodestone Catalog.
  
  
• 1994: L.A. TheaterWorks does a live production of the original Koch script. Featured actors include several from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Brent Spiner and Will Wheaton do a creditable job, as does Armin Shimerman ("Quark"). Leonard Nimoy, as Professor Pearson, seems to have a bad throat problem, so his voice is very hoarse and his energy level is low and unfocused. Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), as Carla Philips the reporter, is pretentious and stiff. It was directed by John de Lancie ("Q"), whom I have grown to appreciate as an actor. It was performed live before an audience as part of the L.A. Theaterworks regular broadcasts in November of 1994. This is a pretty good production, though not the best that the Theaterworks and producer Susan Lowenberg have done. Tapes or a catalog of their productions can be obtained by calling them at, 1-800-708-8863, or their website at http://www.latw.org/.
  
  
• 1995: NPR aired a six-part adaptation of the H.G. Wells story produced by the BBC in 1967. This is a fine production of the story, with close attention to details of the original story and atmosphere of turn-of-the-century England. Good acting is a hallmark of BBC Radio, which has a long tradition in radio drama that the United States has lost. This production is good listening and easily brings your imagination into it. I was sure tapes were not available in the U.S. until I found it on an Old Time Radio tape from a distributor in San Francisco.
  
  
• There are also a few parodies and take-offs of the WoW story.
  1. "Warp of the Worlds" by SHOCKWAVE, out of KFAI in Minneapolis. Written by Kate Worley and Jerry Stearns. Performed live at Minicon in 1982. The ending is a bit ambiguous, and it's aimed at the Fannish audience, so there are a few esoteric references. Otherwise it's language is it's best feature. I can get you a tape of it. (~21 minutes) You can hear an excerpt from this program in RealAudio about the Landing at Davis Corners, IA here.
  2. "They Came for The Candy", by The Radio Pirates out of Madison, WI. A wonderfully silly half-hour produced by Scott Dikkers and written by Jay Rath. Tape availability is unknown, but ask me and I'll check on it for you. (30 Minutes)
  3. And producer Tom Curley, of Bridgeport, CT did a wonderfully inventive take-off on the story as part of his 9-part series "A Half-Hour Radio Show".
  4. "Orson the Alien: The Untold Story Behind the War of the Worlds" - Two aliens hear the Orson Welles broadcast and believe it is a real invasion, so they set out to help save Earth. Written by Terry Bisson, Brian Smith and George Zarr for Seeing Ear Theatre, a website of the Sci-Fi Channel. Available on tape in the Seeing Ear Theatre's cassette series, Volume 3. Also available for download at www.audible.com.
     
     
• And finally, there is War of the Worlds, The Sequel, from Pharoah in New York. I have not actually heard this, but I've heard from someone whose opinion I trust on such things that it is horrific! It claims to be a "Fully Dramatized" story, and it is really a string of unfocused environmental and political raps, read by people with no acting ability or experience. Our advice, Avoid it.

World Wide Web Sites

There are a few sites on the World Wide Web that deal with the War of the Worlds in its various forms - book, radio, TV, films, games and others. Here are couple of the sites that have the most links to the others, and an educational tool for study of the story.

• The Complete War of the Worlds Website - http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/
  Yes, it really does have something about every aspect of the story, every version on radio, TV, film and books, and more.
  Includes listings of places to download most of them, including movie trailers and software. And a good looking site, too.
  
  
• Radio's War of the Worlds Broadcast (1938) - http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/wotw.html
  A giant page including lengthy articles about the Welles broadcast, excerpts from books, and e-mail messages. Even has a
  list of who played what characters, and a note that there are no women's voices in the entire program.
  
  
• EarthStation1.com's Radio Sounds Showcase: The 1938 "War of the Worlds" Radio Broadcast Wavs - http://www.earthstation1.com/wotw.html
  Has the entire Welles broadcast broken down into small .wav files (almost 50 of them), or the complete broadcast in RealAudio or TrueSpeech formats. And that's about all that's on this page, though they have links to plenty of other media info, including sound effects sound files.
  
  
• Mercury Theater broadcast, from AudioBooks - http://www.audiobooksonline.com/shopsite/4055.html
  It's the original Welles broadcast, on compact disc, uncut. This is the page to order it from.
  
  
• The War of the Worlds - The Script - http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/script.html
  The complete Howard Koch script in HTML format.
  
  
• War of Worlds - Koch Script text - http://www.genericradio.com/waroftheworlds.htm
  This is text file of the Koch script. This guy also has dozens of other OTR scripts available on the web at: http://www.genericradio.com/library.htm.
  
  
• War of the Worlds: An Historical Perspective - http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/.
  An impressive collection of information concerning Orson Welles, H. G. Wells, the radio broadcast of 1938, and links to many of the same sites on this list. John Gosling has assembled plenty of information, including images of original documents from newspapers of 1938, and info from books and magazines, and lots of stuff about Grover's Mill. Excellent research.
  
  
• War of the Worlds - Cover Art - http://www.best.com/~drzeus/wotw/wotw.html
  Seventy-six images of cover art for the book of the H.G. Wells story. Also a link to another set of images relating to the story, including, for example, a picture of Horsell Common where the first Martian cylinder landed. http://www.best.com/~drzeus/wotw/other/other.html
  
  
• WOW Home - Grover's Mill - http://waroftheworlds.org/
  The Official Grover's Mill, New Jersey web site celebrating the War that took place there. Judge for yourself how seriously these people take their fame and history. Actually very cool.
  
  
• WotW, Grover's Mill. Roadside America - http://roadsideamerica.com/attract/NJGROufo.html
  A listing of Grover's Mill as a tourist attraction. Some cool pictures of monuments you'll find there.
  
  
• Science Fiction and OTR - http://www.otr.com/sf.html
  A very brief mention on a page devoted to history of science fiction in Old Time Radio.
  
  
• Martians And Radio Quito, Ecuador (Shortwave) - http://www.swl.net/patepluma/south/ecuador/martians.html
  An article by Don Moore about the broadcast of a War of the Worlds program in Quito, Ecuador in 1949, where a number of people were injured, there was a riot, and the radio station was burned to the ground. Very exciting.
  
  
• INVASION! War Of The Worlds - http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/screen/invasion/essay2.html
  An article by Anthony Tollin about the Welles broadcast for Scifi.com. They have more links to variations on the theme at:
  http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/screen/invasion/index.html.
  
  
• WotW - article, includes RA sound - http://www.rense.com/general4/hg.htm
  An article about the old radio show, with several very modern images and a link to an online RealAudio download of the show.
  
  
• WotW: Why the Hoax Worked - http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/phenomena/war_worlds_hoax_991029.html
  A psychological discussion of the aftermath of the WotW broadcast, calling it a hoax, and discussion of why it worked so well. Also links to other similar articles, and a link to a page containing the entire H.G. Wells story online.
  
  
• War of the Worlds: Shared Illusion - http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm
  An article about the cultural significance of the WotW broadcast and its after-effects. Written for "Transparency", a web site offering media criticism and critique to help people see through and intelligently judge the world wide media. Orson would be proud.
  
  
• Museum of Hoaxes - WotW - http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/war_worlds.html
  Article discussing the broadcast from the point of view of a hoax. Not much to it, except a couple of otherwise rare photos.
  
  
• WKBW's 1971 War of the Worlds-REELRADIO - http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/wkbwwotw71.html
  Certainly the most realistic version I have heard. Performed with real newsmen from the radio and TV station. Dialogue improvised with guidelines about length and content. Wonderfully done. Tapes I heard came from Bob Koshinski, who did a TV report in 1989 or so about the 1968 broadcast. It's been repeated two or three times since then with greater ambition and excellent results.
  Bob's email address is listed on this page, and there is a RealAudio compatible streaming download of the show, too.
  
  
• Blackstone Audiobooks - The War of the Worlds, read by Robin Lawson - http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/audiobook.cfm?id=1513
  An unabridged reading of the H. G. Wells story on tape. Available on this site for purchase or rental.
  
  
• The War of the Worlds - The Movie - http://www.sciflicks.com/the_war_of_the_worlds/
  SciFlicks - A web site for science fiction cinema. Plenty of info about the George Pal movie of 1953, including hard to get sounds, good clear movie stills, cast and crew list, etc. Also lots of ads: you can buy the movie, related sci-fi movies and books, and some really annoying flashing ads for totally unrelated stuff.
  
  
• The new War of the Worlds movie being directed by Steven Spielberg - http://www.waroftheworldsfilm.com/, is supposed to be released in 2005. Starring Tom Cruise. They say they are sticking close to the original story by H. G. Wells.
  
  
• War of the Worlds - Movie Articles - http://scifi.thevines.com/leaf/AA0000367585/2/&article%5Bcursor%5D=1&article%5Bid%5D=AB0000001914
• "The Vines" appears to be a web site for visitors to participate in reviewing books, movies, TV, comics and other media entertainment. This is a review of the George Pal movie. Mostly reasonable review, synopsis, and cast list, with only minor grammatical errors.
  
  
• Reviews of WotWs - books, radio, movies, etc., by James Schellenberg - http://home.golden.net/~csp/cd/reviews/waroftheworlds.htm
  Mr. Schellenberg reviews the original book, the radio show, the movie, Jeff Wayne's musical version, the Rollplaying Game, and more. Very nice redesign of the page makes it a pleasure to read.
  
  
• The War of the Worlds: the RPG - http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Galaxy/3773/waroftheworlds/
  "This website contains notes for the purpose of running a series of roleplaying adventures based on the stories of H. G. Wells. Not only will these adventures cover the events of The War of the Worlds, they will also follow the alternative history resulting from the Martian Invasion."
  
  
• Study Guide for H. G. Wells': The War of the Worlds - http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fiction/warofworlds.html
  A college guide to reading and cultural background of the H. G. Wells book by a professor at Washington State University. Dated 1995.

And related books.

• The Complete War of the Worlds (book) - http://sourcebooks.com/catalog/wotw.html
  From Source Books, the story of the story. Includes the complete H. G. Wells story (illustrated), the complete Howard Koch script (illustrated), and plenty of info included on the web sites listed above. Comes with a compact disc including the Orson Welles radio broadcast, some other interviews with Welles and his post-broadcast press conference, and excerpts from the WKBW (Buffalo, NY) broadcast version, too. Quite an excellent book edited by Brian Holmsten and Alex Lubertozzi.
  
  
• In June of 1996 Bantam Books released War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches. The book is an anthology of short stories using Wells' war with the martians as the starting point, and ostensibly written by famous people of the time, such as Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, Jules Verne, Albert Einstein, Rudyard Kipling and others. Actually they are written by some of the leading SF writers of this time. Some of the stories are quite good and fun to read, while others are as dull as the ostensible authors would have made them. And many of them just cry out to be done on the radio. I think the idea began with Howard Waldrop's story of the Texas Rangers meeting the martians, Night of the Cooters. That is probably the best story in the book, and actually has been broadcast. It was performed live at Minicon 27, in 1992, and has been aired on KFAI in Minneapolis. I'd love to do some of the others sometime.
  These are a couple of reviews of this book:
  
  • Kevin J. Anderson: War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches - http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/anderson.html
    Review by Steve Silver.
    
  • War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches - http://camis.stanford.edu/people/kxl/WotW.html
    Review by Kevin Lauderdale.
    

WoW! That turned out to be more than I'd expected when I began it. But, like I said at the beginning, "War of the Worlds" IS the most famous radio show of all time, and it'll keep coming back as long as there is radio.

Back to Jerry's Science Fiction on Radio page.

Jerry Stearns is the producer of Sound Affects: A Radio Playground on KFAI-FM in Minneapolis, MN. He has written and produced science fiction audio and comedy for over twenty-five years. Ask about the recorded lecture on science fiction on radio for The Dakota Reader, Brookings, SD.

Revised November 21, 2004