"Hopelessly dated": Old-time radio listening, 30 October

Mercury Theater On the Air: The War of the Worlds (CBS, 1938)

And to think there are those who think this adaptation is going to be dull on the air because the fantasy on which it is based is forty years old and, as future old-time radio historian John Dunning would phrase it, “hopelessly dated.” Shows what they know.

Writer Howard Koch, who has been aboard since around the series’ adaptation of Julius Caesar, has actually panicked at one point that adapting it into a fictitious round of news bulletins was somewhere between difficult and impossible. Producer John Houseman has agreed to help Koch cobble it into shape; actor Frank Readick, who will play newsman Carl Phillips, models his interpretation of spontaneous distress on that of Herb Morrison, the reporter who has already made his bones with his incandescent spot report of the Hindenburg disaster.

And Dan Seymour, the regular announcer, signals the end of arduous rehearsal and the beginning of live broadcast by announcing, soberly enough, that the program is about to present an Orson Welles adaptation of that ancient H.G. Wells fantasy, followed—immediately after a fanfare from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1—by Welles himself offering a prologue that sets the program clearly enough in the none-too-distant future.

Then, the first bulletins and a quick enough weather report followed by a quick cut to a big band remote, with the program’s house orcherstra led by Bernard Herrmann portraying Ramon Racquello and His Orchestra, a performance interrupted by another bulletin. Something about incandescent gas explosions at regular intervals—on Mars. “Ramon Racquello” then slips calmly enough into Mr. Carmichael’s “Stardust.” Phillips is sent to the Princeton Observatory to interview Welles playing astronomer Richard Pierson. A cylinder landing on a chatty farmer’s field; a strange creature crawling out of it; an incineration of soldiers, field plots, and Phillips himself, apparently.

Thus goes underway what will be considered by many to be the quintessential old-time radio drama. Graduating Orson Welles from prodigy and mere leading man (in The Shadow) to outsize legend. To say nothing of one of the great sources for conspiracy theorists ever to waft up from American drama.

But you will probably be able to think of far worse praise than inspiring der Fuehrer himself to cite the actual or alleged panic it provokes as evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy. 

Additional cast: Includes Kenny Delmar, Ray Collins. Sound: James Rogan, Ray Kremer, Ora Nichols. Director: Orson Welles. Writers: Howard Koch, John Houseman. 

FURTHER CHANNEL SURFING . . . 

The Chase & Sanborn Hour: Trying to Figure Out Charlie (NBC, 1938)---Judy Canova isn't exactly alone in being unable to figure out the wherefore of McCarthy, with whom she wouldn't mind binding, and that's just for openers. Not exactly one of the classic installments, but the historical significance is profound in a way the show's staffers have no idea of knowing while they are on the air. (It's during a musical selection, following the first comedy round, that many listeners surf their way to CBS . . . and pick up the wrong impression from what Mercury Theater On the Air happens to be up to.)  Host: Don Ameche. Additional cast: Edgar Bergen, Dorothy Lamour, Robert Armbruster. Music: Nelson Eddy, Ray Noble and His Orchestra. Writers: Possibly Alan Smith, Joe Connelly, Bob Mosher, Royal Foster.

The Clock: Leon (ABC, 1947)---Fake seances are bad enough, without a seer's assistant trying to keep them up after the faker gets very dead. Gertrude: Jane Soho. Knobby: