I'm spending Christmas Eve Day writing and hoping that Santa brings me a better ending for the piece I'm working on. But I have stuff here to post too, starting with these two items…
An old pal of mine, Steve Darnall, produces a very fine magazine called Nostalgia Digest, which is full of articles about old TV shows, old radio shows, old movies and the folks in them. He also hosts a weekly program of vintage radio shows broadcast live every Saturday from 1 to 5 PM Central Time on WDCB 90.9 FM in the Chicago area and at this website.
You can also hear each show a few days later on the Nostalgia Digest website and that's where at this moment, you can hear last Saturday's show. If you go there right now, it's the one labelled "Listen Now to Our Most Recent Broadcast." If you go there after next Saturday's show is posted, you'll have more trouble figuring out which one I'm calling to your attention.
On the episode I'm calling to your attention, Steve did a very fine reading of my oft-read, oft-plagiarized story about Mel Tormé. But he didn't steal it and I'm quite delighted with his presentation. If you want to hear it, it starts around 1:58:40. While you're there, look into a subscription to Nostalgia Digest. I always find much to enjoy in each issue.
Meanwhile, in this post I showed you excerpts from a 2014 staging that the Actors Fund did with live actors performing Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. What I didn't show you because I didn't know they'd done it again in 2019 with a mostly-different cast, are these excerpts from the 2019 production…
My buddy Bob Elisberg was the first of many to send me that link and he also sent this: It's a recording (audio only) of an overture to the cartoon special that was recorded in case it was ever released as a soundtrack album…which it wasn't. Someday, someone's going to wise up and mount a real, Broadway-budgeted musical of that special but for now, here's the overture…
More Xmas goodies later.