Posted on 12/23/2014 1:14:04 PM PST by BluesDuke
“We try,” co-creator Chester Lauck has told Radio Guide, “to make our program amusing through the situations we build up rather than through the ignorance or obtuseness of any character.” And if you’re looking for an individual episode that proves every word he said is true, even telling a story outside Lum & Abner‘s customary serial style, you’ll find one today.
The Pine Ridge philosophickers are just as good in leaving you to imagine a crawl through the worst of the rural winter as a potbelly stove burning and wares occasionally clacking and clattering inside the Jot ‘em Down Store.
You’ll feel and taste the snow and occasional brisk, slicing shaft of wind today when Grandpap (Norris Goff, who also plays Abner) asks Lum (Lauck, who also plays Doc) and Abner to drag through the snow with him, following the eastern star, bringing supplies for a couple expecting a child. And, to help them find another place to stay, when Doc reveals they’re in an abandones barn, the three waiting outside to toast the coming of 1939, as Doc arranges the supplies for the couple—a carpenter and his wife.
Announcer: Lou Crosby. Writers: Chester Lauck, Norris Goff. (Note: This episode would be repeated every year for a few years to come, usually on or around Christmas Day.)
The First Couple of 79 Wistful Vista (Jim & Marian Jordan) receive such a door bell as a Christmas present, which rings just right with them, as opposed to a little to-do with visiting Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) that makes someone want to wring someone’s neck. Classic bit: McGee and Teeny (also Marian Jordan) bantering when the little girl tries to sell him “miserabletoe.”
Mrs. Uppington: Isabel Randolph. LaTrivia: Gale Gordon. Telegram Man: Mel Blanc. Announcer: Harlow Wilcox. Music: Billy Mills Orchestra, the King’s Men, Martha Tilton. Writer: Don Quinn.
The Christmas spirit of a henpecked botanist (Peter Lorre) with a particular passion for experiments with home-grown orchids is compromised by his impatient wife, who has little use for his passion and less patience to get aboard their planned holiday cruise. This is an edgily pleasant yarn, probably characteristic to a fault of the early Suspense years, but taken on its own terms it won’t disappoint.
Additional cast: Unidentified. The Man in Black: Possibly Joseph Kearns. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Director: William Spier. Writer: John Collier.
Gildy (Harold Peary) has a problem the day before Christmas—hiding the presents in any spot in the house Leroy (Walter Tetley) hasn’t discovered first, assuming such a spot can be found. What you’d expect from this show, which isn’t a terrible thing at all.
Birdie: Lillian Randolph. Marjorie: Lurene Tuttle. Hooker: Earle Ross. Floyd: Arthur Q. Bryan. Peavy: Richard LeGrand. Announcer: John Laing. Music: Claude Sweetin. Director: Possibly Cecil Underwood. Writers: Sam Moore, John Whedon.
Reciprocating for a dinner invitation he received a fortnight earlier, Jack (Benny) invites Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita Hume Colman (as themselves) for dinner—assuming Colman gets over his trepidation about the evening and Jack can get the butler he hired for the night to take it all seriously.
In anyone else’s hands this would be mush. In this crew’s hands, it’s a charm.
Cast: Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Mel Blanc, Don Wilson (announcer). Music: Mahlon Merrick, Phil Harris Orchestra, Dennis Day. Writers: George Balzar, Sam Perrin, Milt Josefsberg.
The Sap of 79 Wistful Vista (Jim Jordan) usually prefers to give, not receive snow jobs, but he’s got a dandy on his hands when he can’t find a set of keys in the cold white stuff. And that’s almost as much fun in this troupe’s hands (anyone else would probably blow the whole thing in two minutes) as hearing Teeny (Marian Jordan, who also plays Molly), reprise her charming performance (with the King’s Men) of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
The Old Timer/Wallace Wimpole: Bill Thompson. F. Ogden Williams: Gale Gordon. Doc: Arthur Q. Bryan. Music: Billy Mills Orchestra, the King’s Men. Writers: Don Quinn, Phil Leslie.
It’s beginning to look a lot like a pain in the rump roast to find a few too many classic radio holiday episodes called, “Christmas Program” or “Christmas Show.” But here ’tis the week before Christmas, and all through the house, Sam (House Jameson) thinks Henry (Ezra Stone) is being solicitous enough of late to suggest an ulterior yuletide motive; Alice (Katherine Raht) thinks Sam’s being too suspicious for his own good; and, Hen-reeeeeee! really is maneuvering for a certain Christmas present—unaware that his parents think he’s angling for something else.
This is definitely for diehard Aldrich Family fans only.
Homer: Jackie Kelk. Announcer: Hugh James. Music: Jack Miller. Writers: Norman Tokar (who once played Henry when Ezra Stone went off to World War II, before he himself went into the Signal Corps!), Ed Jurist.
The cheerfully cantankerous comedian’s opening monologue does a subtly racy job of setting it up: some neighbourhood city kids who go from worrying about getting Santa into the house—when it has not chimneys but radiators—to being audacious enough to ask Congress for help.
God help them.
The kids: Butch Cabell, David Anderson, Joan Laser. Regular cast: Cast: Arnold Stang, Pert Kelton, Fran Warren, Ben Grauer, Art Carney, Jack Albertson, Joan Gibson. Announcer: Ben Grauer. Music: Bernie Green Orchestra. Writers: Henry Morgan, Carroll Moore, Jr., Aaron Ruben, Joseph Stein. (Note: the source file lists the wrong broadcast date.)
Doc (Arthur Q. Bryan) and his girlfriend Doris (Mary Jane Croft) pitch in to help trim the McGees’ (Jim & Marian Jordan) just in time for Christmas, which probably takes a lot of doing in the first place knowing the Slug of 79 Wistful Vista.
Announcer: John Wald. Director: Max Hutto. Writers: Phil Leslie, Bill Danch.
Very good lineup.
Thank you! I should have noted in the text that all these shows aired on today’s date back in the year(s) . . .
Thanks BD, I'll give a listen.
Of interest to the Big Broadcast gang!
If you like those, tune in again tomorrow, there’ll be more!
Can you put me on that ping list?
Thank you!!! I listen to Fiber McGee and Molly almost daily, via podcasts.
Those were some very hilarious and talented people. WAY before my time, but I love their humor and delivery.
Sure, welcome.
I remember when Jim (Fibber McGee) Jordan died at a rather ripe old age in the 1980s, it was announced on CNN by a young newslady, who was warmly reporting about this old show-biz personality having passed away, and thinking how it was pretty obvious that this lady almost assuredly had no idea who he was. At my young age, I probably shouldn’t have known who he was either, but I was already a big purchaser of old-time-radio on cassette tapes, and knew the “Fibber McGee and Molly” show pretty well.
What a great idea. When times were so much simpler....
What a great idea, thanks for posting these!
And since I was barely alive when classic network radio went onto life support, as it were, this isn't something I came to enjoy for the sake of remembering a time that wasn't mine, even if I do have vague memories of my grandmother listening to the last days of Pepper Young's Family.
The best thing about not being of the classic network radio generations is being able to listen not for the sake of clanking nostalgia but for living, breathing art. Approaching it that way I came to appreciate even more how the absolute best of classic network radio transcends its own time and place.
And can still make you laugh like hell.
Another thing I love is old black and white monster movies. The characters actually had dialogue and there were plots and storylines instead of superheroes with superhuman powers that do backflips, fall 5 stories without a scratch and fight cheesy CG generated characters in a 45 minute fight scene while barely dodging flying vehicles and absorbing punches that knock them 50 ft then get up unscratched ready to fight nonstop for minutes without ever loing their breath...: )
Bing Crosby Christmas internet radio. http://bingcrosby.com
Free too.
I remember when Jim (Fibber McGee) Jordan died at a rather ripe old age in the 1980s, it was announced on CNN by a young newslady, who was warmly reporting about this old show-biz personality having passed away, and thinking how it was pretty obvious that this lady almost assuredly had no idea who he was. At my young age, I probably shouldn’t have known who he was either, but I was already a big purchaser of old-time-radio on cassette tapes, and knew the “Fibber McGee and Molly” show pretty well.Specifically---and perhaps appropriately, considering his long-living character---Jim Jordan died at 91 on April Fool's Day 1988. (No, that isn't just a Fibber McGee joke . . . though it could have been!)
Marian Jordan died of ovarian cancer 7 April 1961. (She was 63, I believe.)
The Jordans are buried next to each other. (So, for that matter, are Phil Harris and Alice Faye.) But strangely enough, to the left of their plot is buried Sharon Tate, the actress murdered by the Manson Family.
Recommended reading about Fibber McGee & Molly:
Mickey Cohen (not the gangster!), How Fibber McGee & Molly Won World War II
Clair Schulz, Fibber McGee & Molly On the Air 1935-1959
Charles Stumpf and Tom Price, Heavenly Days: The Story of Fibber McGee & Molly
Recommended reading about classic network radio, period:
John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio
Leonard Maltin, The Great American Broadcast
Fred Allen, Treadmill to Oblivion
Henry Morgan, Here's Morgan: The Original Bad Boy of Broadcasting
John Crosby, Out of the Blue: A Book About Radio and Television (Crosby was the New York Herald-Tribune's radio critic and an excellent one.)
Paul Rhymer, Vic & Sade (A collection of selected Vic & Sade radio scripts.)
Goodman Ace, Ladies and Gentlemen---Easy Aces (A collection of latter-year Easy Aces scripts.)
Sally Bedell Smith, In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley (The best biography of the CBS founder.)
Michele Hilmes, editor: NBC: America's Network (Scholarly writings about NBC, particularly its early years in the radio era.)
Michael Leannah, editor: Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny
Abe Burrows, Honest, Abe! Is There Really No Business Like Show Business (Before he became renowned as a Broadway script doctor and writer, Burrows was the co-creator and original head writer for Duffy's Tavern, and wrote for other radio shows while also hosting his own witty music and patter radio exercise for a couple of years.)
Michael Barson, editor: Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show
Great stuff!! Merry Christmas and thanks a million for posting!
Nice work.
Lots more well organized old time radio here:http://free-classic-radio-shows.com/
Ad-free, legit, well organized public domain old broadcasts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.