Lux Radio Theater – It’s a Wonderful Life

When It’s a Wonderful Life was first released in 1947, it was not considered a Christmas film. In fact, it went into general circulation two weeks after Christmas on January 7th. Likewise, its radio broadcasts were not limited to the Christmas season. The first radio broadcast of the story came on Lux Radio Theater, just…

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Christmas in the 40’s

This 6-CD set was issued in 1995 (GSC Music 19222; the individual discs had separate numbers, with the Stewart-Reed disc being #18200). The material found on the CDs is very varied as can be seen from the listings below: The version of It’s a Wonderful Life included here is from the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast…

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The Gift of Christmas – Salvation Army

In late 1983, newspaper articles like the one below (The Indiana Gazette, Indiana, PA, November 15, 1983) began to appear: About a month later, this appeared in the Altoona News, Altoona, PA (December 17, 1983): One of the public service broadcasts on which Stewart appeared that year was the annual Salvation Army “Army of Stars”…

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Good News of 1938 (December 23, 1937)

Jimmy Stewart acted as the master of ceremonies for this program which was broadcast just two days before Christmas. Two different newspaper previews provided much of the information about the show. The first is from the Fresno Bee, Fresno, CA: The second appeared in the Freeport Journal-Standard, Freeport, IL: The two articles give the guests…

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The Big Sound – Christmas Greetings

If you haven’t read any of the other The Big Sound blogs, let me begin by telling you that this was a series of 12-inch, 33 1/3/ RPM records issued to participating radio stations in the early 1960’s. Each disc featured short spots delivered by film, TV, music and sports celebrities, which the station could…

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Christmas 1955

This 90-minute NBC Radio special was broadcast on December 23, 1955. Unfortunately, it is not available. We mentioned it in Jimmy Stewart on the Air, but will be updating that entry with scans from several newspapers. The article with the most useful information was published in the Pasadena Independent, Pasadena, CA, on the day of…

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