When Screen Guild Theater left the air at the end of May, 1951, there was no other program to take up its cause of supporting the Motion Picture Relief Fund. This was soon remedied. On December 13, 1951, Stars in the Air premiered on CBS and the relief fund had a new champion.
The premiere episode was It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in their film roles. Junius Matthews joined them, playing the role of Clarence Oddbody, Angel Second Class.
Newspapers at the time hyped the fact that this was the premiere show. The following is from the Bakersfield Californian on the date of the broadcast:
The program itself is very rare. When we wrote Jimmy Stewart on the Air, we had access to a copy and used that for the information we included. Since then, we have obtained a copy from, of all places, Australia. We will include the entire show here, edited into roughly two equal parts. As far as we know, this is the only place online where you can listen to the entire program.
Part 1:
Part 2:
