Old Time Radio Christmas Shows MP3 : Old Christmas Radio

Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the dominant home entertainment medium in the 1950s.

During this period, when radio was dominant and the airwaves were filled with a variety of radio formats and genres, people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs. In fact, according to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. The end of this period coincided with music radio becoming the dominant radio form and is often marked in the United States by the final CBS broadcasts of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar on September 30, 1962. ....

Top comedy talents surfed the airwaves for many years: Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Bob Burns, Judy Canova, Jimmy Durante, Phil Harris, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Jean Shepherd, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn. More laughter was generated on such shows as Abbott and Costello, Amos 'n' Andy, Burns and Allen, Easy Aces, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Goldbergs, The Great Gildersleeve, The Halls of Ivy (which featured screen star Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume), Meet Corliss Archer, Meet Millie, and Our Miss Brooks.

Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of Lum and Abner, Herb Shriner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You Top This?, panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg and Bob and Ray. British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried The Goon Show in the mid-1950s.

Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-run The Aldrich Family (1939-1953) with the familiar catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!", followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!". Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan.

Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, The Gumps, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from 1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941-1942 comedy based on cartoonist H.T. Webster's famed Casper Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s.

The first soap opera, Clara, Lu, and Em. was introduced in 1930 on Chicago's WGN-AM. When daytime serials began in the early 1930s, they became known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, and The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other radio premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a box top from a breakfast cereal or other proof of purchase.

Outstanding radio dramas were presented on such programs as 26 by Corwin, NBC Short Story, Arch Oboler's Plays, Quiet, Please, and CBS Radio Workshop. Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre on the Air and Campbell Playhouse were considered by many critics to be the finest radio drama anthologies ever presented. They usually starred Welles in the leading role, along with celebrity guest stars such as Margaret Sullavan or Helen Hayes, in adaptations from literature, Broadway, and/or films. They included such titles as Liliom, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Lost Horizon, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was on Mercury Theatre that Welles presented his celebrated-but-infamous adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, formatted to sound like a breaking news program.

During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in films, repeated their characterizations on radio in both original stories and in episodes directly adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. None of the episodes in which Rathbone and Bruce starred in on the radio program were filmed with the two actors as Holmes and Watson, so radio became the only medium in which audiences were able to experience Rathbone and Bruce appearing in some of the more famous Holmes stories, such as The Speckled Band. There were also several dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories on radio without Rathbone and Bruce.

During the latter part of his career, celebrated actor John Barrymore starred in a radio program, Streamlined Shakespeare, which featured him in a series of one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare plays, many of which Barrymore never appeared in either on stage or in films, such as Twelfth Night (in which he played both Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch), and Macbeth. The program also enabled millions of listeners to hear Barrymore in his most famous Shakespearean role, Hamlet. However, it was not well-received by critics.

Lux Radio Theater and The Screen Guild Theater presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum Mysteries were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin, Carlton E. Morse, David Goodis, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Wyllis Cooper, Rod Serling, Jay Bennett, and Irwin Shaw.

Read the rest of the information from wikipedia.com


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keep everyone happy and entertained : Have a fun and festive Christmas Holiday Party How about some holiday games and activities. What will be your decor? How old are your guests?

Visit the OTRCat site and look at their Holiday shows on MP3. Walk the virtual aisles and choose what's right for you and your family, for your gift list, too. Some older CD players and car CD players may be able to read these discs. Check with the info on the site.

Please enjoy these Holiday-themed old time radio shows free to download. Read about each episode and listen to these special holiday shows!

Fun new collection of Christmas with George Burns & Gracie Allen

For a holiday shows already compiled, there's a Christmas Collection as well.

Christmas Crime stories
Do tough guys have respect for as they say "San-dee Claus"? Crime Christmas Crime still happens during the Holidays and Joe Friday, Johnny Dollar, Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, Richard Diamond, and Paladin will make sure that the grinches don't steal Christmas, St Nick, furs, or a statue of Baby Jesus.
Included is the old time radio classic Christmas Crime story Dragnet's "A Rifle for Christmas" and many other Christmas crime favorites from the golden age of radio.

Christmas on the Moon
This charming broadcast of Christmas on the Moon series follows the bed-time story of protagonist, Jonathan Thomas. The series played one episode a day in 1938 between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With the help of his teddy bear and man on the moon, Jonathan sets out to rescue kidnapped Santa Claus.

Christmas at War
Take a magical sleigh ride into yesteryear with this Christmas collection: 49 assorted holiday-in-wartime radio broadcasts. It's an auditory fruitcake of old time entertainment, studded with a little bit of everything: the madcap hilarity of comedians like Jack Benny and the duo Burns and Allen; carols from favorite crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby accompanied by pieces from popular orchestras of the day; spiced with a little mystery, drama and horror for complex seasonal flavor.

The Lux Radio Theater version of It's a Wonderful Life, with Jimmy Stewart is fun to listen to and many people don't realize that this is available in radio form, too.

New Years Collection
HONK and TOOT! It's New Year's Eve, and The Aldrich Family is throwing a party! Come join us, because Kitty brought some fine champagne. We have had quite a night already - Fibber McGee opened the closet to find some noisemakers and what a mess! Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve is hitting on Miss Brooks, and Jack Benny and Red Skelton are trying to outdo one another. Make a resolution to get this collection of fun and riotous New Year's themed shows.

Don't let this be another stressed out holiday season. Let these radio programs give you time to escape and relax.

Image and show descriptions from OTRCat.com

Old Time Radio Commercials

Bosco - Everybody Loves Bosco
Brylcream - A Little Dab Will Do Ya
Camel Cigarettes - 4 Commercials
Columbia Stereophonic Hi-Fidelity Phonograph
Dr. Lyons Tooth Powder
Duck And Cover (Atomic Bomb PSA)
Maypo - I Want My Maypo
Merita Bread - The Lone Stranger
Pepsi Cola - Pepsi Cola Hits The Spot
Salhapatica Laxative
Studebaker Lark Automobile
Sturdy Dog Food

Far too many to list here!

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Closed Fireplace - Dishwasher Cover

The glow of a fire is soothing and comforting like a warm blanket and can help to get you and yours though even the coldest winter nights.

Having company for the holidays and your old appliances aren't looking so great?? Now you can have that comforting feeling every time your in your kitchen with our closed fire fireplace panel cover. Like a yule log in the kitchen. :-)

You'll want to gather round to roast marshmallows and sing kumbya. Add new life to your kitchen at a fraction of the cost of a new dishwasher.

Available as vinyl with adhesive backing or a magnet. Comes with installation instructions. -- Manufacturer [More info on application, cleaning, etc on site.]

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December/Christmas Eve & Day: If we still get WGN Chicago, they have a fireplace but they play the audio of old time radio Xmas episodes behind it Xmas EVE! It was channel 33 in Sunnyvale in 2008.

The network, part of Tribune Broadcasting, will usher in Christmas by offering holiday programming from 9 p.m. Dec. 24 through 6 a.m. Dec. 25 using authentic presentations of classic radio programs set to the visual of the Yule Log hearth.

With new Yule Log footage (shot in HD) using the fireplace in Col. McCormick's (former Tribune president and editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune) office at Tribune Tower in Chicago, WGN America claims it will offer an alternative to the traditional Yule Log. While the flames burn, viewers will be hear timeless shows from the Golden Age of Radio.

Also on Wednesday, iN Demand Networks said it would be offering three Yule Log programs for Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to offer to their subscribers on-demand.

Classic programs which will air during WGN America's Yule Log: The Golden Age OfChristmas include:

-- It's a Wonderful Life (from the Lux Radio Theater 1947) A staple of Christmas television, an angel helps a compassionate but despondent businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed and stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

-- A Christmas Carol (Campbell Playhouse 1939) A holiday classic featuring miserly Ebenezer Scrooge who learns the error of his ways when visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve in this adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel.

-- Burns & Allen (1942) Featuring the comedy duo of George Burns and Gracie Allen.

-- Fibber McGee & Molly (1949) Fibber McGee and Molly were played by husband and wife team, Jim and Marian Jordan, with Fibber a brash, loudmouth while his ever-suffering wife, Molly, kept the peace with her sense of humor.

-- The Great Gildersleeve (1942) A spin-off from "Fibber McGee and Molly" featuring a pompous bachelor (Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve played by Harold Peary, and later Willard Waterman) who takes domestic charge of his young niece and nephew.

-- Jack Benny Show (1952) Jack Benny stars in this sketch comedy variety show, one of the longest running and most successful comedies in the history of radio.

-- Miracle on 34th Street (from the Lux Radio Theater 1947) Six year old Susan has doubts about Santa Claus, but after meeting a special department store Santa, Susan is given the most precious gift of all, something to believe in. Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwenn star in this heart-warming Christmas classic.

These classic radio programs were provided by Radiospirits.com and edited for WGN America by Victor Lisle at WGN Radio. Yule Log: The Golden Age Of Christmas will be presented in 60-minute blocks without commercial interruption.

"Yule Log: The Golden Age Of Christmas allows families to resurrect the innocence of a golden era and offers a nostalgic experience for viewers as they listen to memorable radio programs while opening presents, having dinner, and spending the holiday together," Sean Compton, Tribune Broadcasting senior vice president of programming and development, said in a prepared statement.

Read the Wikipedia article about the history of the televised Christmas Yule Log

Info and Image from Multichannel.com 2008


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