Old Time Radio Christmas

Old Time Radio

The Christmas season reminds us of sparkling Christmas trees, roasting chestnuts, delicious foods, and special time with family and loved ones. Next to a warm fire, cozy with loved ones and hot chocolate in hand, the holidays are one of the best times to listen to old time radio shows. This time of year is celebrated in the vast collection of old time radio Christmas recording. Many traditional Christmas stories and films were adapted to radio, including It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, Holiday Inn, Miracle of 34th Street, Gift of the Magi, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on radio.

There are many memorable Christmas old time radio shows. In Santa and the Wicked Pirate aired on radio December 22, 1942, George Burns and Gracie Allen worry that a knife sharpening neighbor fowl-napped that their duck, Herman. On the Jack Benny program, Jack Buys Don Shoe Laces For Christmas aired December 8th, 1946, the notoriously parsimonious Benny questions whether to buy Don plastic or metal tipped shoelaces. In the children's adventure serial Cinnamon Bear, the extra Irish bear Paddy O'Cinnamon takes a trip to Maybeland and meets a wonderful assortment of fantasy creatures including a dragon, a giant, a witch, a whale, a queen, a rhyming rabbit, a magician among others.

Christmas Old Time Radio shows are fine listening to nostalgic listeners who remember the shows for Radio's Golden Age as well as younger listeners in search of high quality Christmas entertainment. The holiday continues to evolve in many ways, but a general feeling of peace and goodwill to all remains central to the Holiday season.

Many influences shape what American's expect from the Christmas including classic Christian traditions and American media depiction of Christmas in films and old time radio shows. There are many old time radio Christmas shows that allow imaginative storylines within the theme and the setting of Christmas and are a far cry from the usually Holiday-theme fare. These are the enjoyable Christmas shows from the old time radio era because they reflect the social mores of the time and are quite unique stories in their own right.

Dragnet is best known for its realistic portrayal of police crime solving from paperwork to wild fistfights with gun toting criminals. In the first Christmas-themed Dragnet, the producers aired Dragnet Twenty-Two Rifle for Christmas on December 22, 1949. The overly somber show, aired three days before Christmas morning, features two missing boys thought to kidnapped from their neighborhood. When one of the boys returns home, he admits to opening his Christmas present, Twenty-Two Rifle, early to play cowboys and Indians with the new neighborhood kid. All goes awry when the new kid trip and shoots himself in the stomach only to die in a nearby cave. Luckily for the naughty boy who opened his rifle-gift early, he gets all of the dead kids Christmas gifts from the despondent dad, which perhaps is a strange lesson in forgiveness. Jack Webb offers advice at the end of the program, "Don't buy your kid a Twenty-Two Rifle for Christmas."

In Norman Corwin's show This is My Best, the evil figures of history in hell plot (committee style) to over throw Christmas in exceptionally evil ways. Some of the suggested plots include replacing candy canes with dynamite, assassinating Santa Claus, changing the traditional hymns to fast music, and convincing bureaucrats to pass a law to prohibit Christmas. To add to the entertainment value, the whole script is in rhyme even as they vote to murder Saint Nicholas to destroy Christmas and all its merriment.