The War of the Worlds (1968 radio drama)

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For other uses, see The War of the Worlds (disambiguation).
The War of the Worlds (WKBW radio)
GenreRadio drama, Horror
Running time
  • 78 minutes
  • (1968)
(11:00 pm – 12:18 am)
Country of originUnited States
Language(s)English
Home stationWKBW 1520 AM
Hosted by
Starring
Announcer
Created by
Directed byDanny Kriegler
Original releaseOctober 31, 1968 (1968-10-31) (original and subsequent versions rebroadcast every Halloween)
No. of series5 renditions (1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1998)
No. of episodes1
Opening themeNone (voiced over by Neaverth in 1968, Kaye in later versions)
Ending themeNone
Sponsored byAM&A's (1968)

The War of the Worlds was a

original radio drama aired by CBS
in 1938.

Danny Kriegler served as the director of the radio drama while Jefferson Kaye served as its producer.

The broadcast, its subsequent re-airings and remakes, and multiple airings alongside the original 1938 radio drama made Buffalo, New York the War of the Worlds Radio Capital of The World in a 2009 resolution by the New York State Senate[1]

Development

Background

WKBW program director

old-time radio programming fare of the 1930s, WKBW's War of the Worlds broadcast was interwoven into the station's top 40
programming.

Production

Initially, a script was written for the news reporters to act out; however, upon hearing the rehearsals, it was evident that the news reporters (except Irv Weinstein, a professional radio actor at the beginning of his career) were not adept at scripted radio acting. So instead, Kaye wrote an outline based on the events that were to occur, and the news reporters were then asked to describe the events as they would covering an actual news story. The results were much more realistic for its time, and this was the process used for the actual broadcast.

Broadcast

The play began a few minutes before 11:00 pm ET with a somber introduction by

the original broadcast
and the upcoming production. Neaverth later restated the forewarning of the broadcast's fictitious nature.

The initial part of the broadcast alternated from top-40 hits to news break-ins and back until 11:30 ET when continuous reportage and worsening situations on the ground take over. One by one, radio and TV newsmen are killed off, from Jim Fagan until Jefferson Kaye. After Kaye's character dies, Neaverth returns again with his closing speech taken from the novel's epilogue.

Cast

These personnel participated in the 1968 broadcast, listed as first heard on the play:

  • Top-of-the-hour newscaster – Joe Downey
  • Deejay
    – Sandy Beach
  • Studio anchors (continuous coverage, in successive order) – Joe Downey, Henry Brach, and Jefferson Kaye
  • Reporters – Jim Fagan and Don Lancer (WKBW-AM), John Irving and Irv Weinstein (WKBW-TV)

Aftermath and legacy

Reaction

Despite an exhaustive advertising campaign by WKBW for this show, several people were still convinced upon listening to it that the events unfolding in the show were genuine. Among those fooled included a local newspaper, several small-town police officers, and even the

Canadian military, which dispatched troops to the Peace Bridge.[citation needed] Although the public concern over the legitimacy of the broadcast was not as great as was alleged in 1938 (and even that may have been overstated due to an ongoing feud between newspapers and radio at the time), creator Kaye and director Dan Kriegler feared that they were going to lose their jobs as a result of the broadcast; Kaye claimed that he actually submitted his resignation, certain that he was going to be fired the next day. However, no one involved in the broadcast was fired and the resignation was not accepted.[2] Part of the reason for the elevated concern, even compared to the original, was that although the Welles broadcast aired on a little-heard program with no sponsors, WKBW was one of the most-listened-to stations in Western New York at the time, with a 50,000 watt signal audible throughout eastern North America during the broadcast.[3]

Disclaimers

During the broadcast, the show was interrupted every few minutes with commercials from AM&A's and other sponsors, ending with the disclaimer that it was just a dramatization. However, at four minutes before midnight, Jefferson Kaye interrupted the taped events to give this disclaimer, but not until after he threatened director Danny Kriegler that he would rip the still-playing tape off its machine and run along Buffalo's Main Street with it if he was not allowed to break in, as the number of calls received by the station from frightened listeners were getting out of hand:[2]

What you are listening to is a dramatization of

H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds on WKBW radio, 1520 on your Buffalo dial. I repeat, it is a dramatization; it is a play. It is not happening in any way, shape or form. What you are listening to is a dramatization of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds as being portrayed on WKBW 1520 Buffalo. The time is two and one half minutes before twelve o'clock.[4]

Subsequent remakes within and outside Buffalo

1971:

the original broadcast
, then in 1998 and 2001.

1973: Shane "The Cosmic Cowboy" was the opening DJ and the rest of the broadcast was identical to the version two years earlier albeit with Ron Baskin added as newscaster. However, this version was not a stand-alone broadcast as other WKBW-produced radio thrillers bookend the dramatization. Unlike the previous installments, the disclaimers of "This is a dramatization" has been placed before and after commercial breaks. WGWE rebroadcast this edition in 2012.

1975: Considered by many to be the weakest of the versions, this edition contained sloppy editing done to eliminate on-air talent no longer with the station, notably Kaye, who would later become

WPVI's Action News announcer until his death in 2012. Jim Quinn
served as the disk jockey.

1978: Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the original Orson Welles' radio drama, KSEI in Pocatello, Idaho adopted the 1968 WKBW version for their own staging of "The War of the Worlds", using their news department personnel.

1998: A totally new remake was produced by

Larry Norton, Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski and Mayor Anthony Masiello participated. This was rebroadcast in 2001.[1] It was rebroadcast a second time in 2018.[5]

Documentaries

Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the 1968 broadcast, The Making of WKBW's The War of the Worlds was broadcast on WNED-TV, hosted by Bob Koshinski. It featured Jim Fagan, Irv Weinstein, Jefferson Kaye and director Danny Kriegler. This was followed up by the documentary WKBW Radio's War of the Worlds, 50 Years later. It debuted on October 30, 2018.[6]

See also

Bibliography

  • Gosling, John. Waging the War of the Worlds. Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland, 2009 (paperback,
    ISBN 0-7864-4105-4
    ).

References

  1. ^ a b "WKBW's – War of the Worlds".
  2. ^ a b "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-09-30. Retrieved 2015-10-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ Pergament, Alan (October 29, 2019). "The Martians are coming! and another TV scare on the horizon". The Buffalo News. Archived from the original on October 29, 2019. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  4. ^ "Deep Ice: One outside Buffalo, one in Chicago (Jeff Kaye's War of the Worlds)". Blog.trenchcoatsoft.com. 14 January 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  5. ^ "NERW 10/15/18: After the Storm, Silence". October 15, 2018.
  6. ^ Pergament, Alan (April 26, 2018). "Documentary on WKBW radio's classic 'War of the Worlds' to premiere this fall". The Buffalo News. Retrieved April 26, 2018.

External links

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