Quiet, Please had its roots in the Campbell Playhouse (1938 - 1941), the successor to Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, who achieved notoriety with their 1938 adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds. Cooper was a writer for the Campbell Playhouse, and Chappell was the announcer. They became friends, though Chappell had little (if any) acting experience, Cooper imagined him as the star of a new radio program. Cooper's earlier Lights Out was famous for its gruesome stories and sound effects, but for Quiet, Please, Cooper would cultivate a subdued, slower-paced, and much quieter atmosphere that could still, at its best, match Lights Out for frights and thrills.