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On months that have a fifth Friday we break from our normal schedule and produce something else related in one way or another to cultural democracy. In 2022 we will delve into radio archives to bring back some historical examples of serials and comedies that let us hear unfiltered aspects of the world as it seemed to our grandparents. 

In this episode we go back to Halloween night on October 31, 1938.

That night Orson Welles\u2019 and the Mercury Theater broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells\u2019 \u201cWar of the Worlds\u201d that stands as a vivid reminder of the power of the media and of the general public\u2019s vulnerability when it is gripped by fear. It also still stands as one of the great media hoaxes of the twentieth century.