Island of Lost Christmas Specials: The Lady Next Door's Christmas Party 1930

 

Snippet of a newspaper photo promoting multiple Christmas broadcast. Image of Madge Tucker at the top with an illustration depicting her as "The Lady Next Door".
From Advertiser Journal, December 18, 1930. From Newspapers.com

The Lady Next Door's Christmas Morning Special 

December 25, 1930, 9:00am EST, NBC. Rebroadcast Annually for an unknown number of years.

The Hook: An early annual Christmas special from one of radio pioneering story ladies.

Margaret Berniece "Madge" Tucker (1897-1996) was the earliest known director of children's programming for the NBC radio network, and the beloved "Lady Next Door" of many children's hours in the Golden Age of Radio. 

Beginning in the late 1920s, Tucker began hosting an annual Christmas morning program from New York Station WEAF. This article details her Christmas Day 1930 party. 

All that is known are brief details from snippets in the Advertiser Journal which describes it as a Christmas morning party to be broadcast at 9:00am. Perhaps there were stories, songs and stories to accommodate small children after they would have opened their gifts and before a warm Christmas morning breakfast. 

The Christmas morning broadcasts were promoted for a few years into the mid 1930s. 

Island of Lost Christmas Specials: The Little Stranger on KFI Radio

 

The Island of Lost Christmas Specials.
An imaginary place where forgotten reels, discs, and U-Matics could be found in time for Christmas. 

The Little Stranger

Written by Forest Barnes, Sponsored by Bullock’s department stores.

Station KFI Los Angeles

Broadcast: Friday, December 22, 1939, Friday, December 20, 1940. Friday, December 21, 1941, Tuesday, December 22, 1942, Tuesday, December 21, 1943.

The Hook: A charming Christmas story sponsored by a west coast department store with many coincidences shared with an enduring Christmas serial.

A few years ago, I was researching Christmas radio legend Barbara Jean Wong (1924 - 1999) and her many performances as Arbadella on the Amos 'n' Andy Show, and her enduring performance as Judy in the Christmas serial "The Cinnamon Bear". It was in this research that I discovered she was advertised to have a lead role as a boy named Jimmy in the 1942 broadcast of "The Little Stranger", an annual Christmas play from KFI Los Angeles. 

Written by Forrest Barnes and sponsored by the Bullocks’ Department Store, "The Little Stranger" was the story of an orphan boy who is invited to his local church by a friend where he watches the Holy Christmas Story enacted. The story was broadcast over Los Angeles for 5 consecutive years beginning in 1939.

Ad for “The Little Stranger” from the Venice (CA) Vanguard. December 19, 1941. From Newspapers.com.

According to press releases, in the initial broadcast from 1939, the role of Jimmy was played by child actor Billy Cook (1928 - 1991). The supporting cast included Lurene Tuttle, Gale Gordon, Verna Felton, Theodore Osborn, and Howard McNear. All of these actors were part of the supporting cast of radio’s “The Cinnamon Bear” (1937). 

For the 1942 production radio's "Chinese Wonder" Barbara Jean Wong was advertised as “Jimmy”. Wong playing a boy named Jimmy is an amazing coincidence, since she is still heard annually as Judy Barton in the Cinnamon Bear; Judy's twin brother was named Jimmy. Also, one of her credited co-stars was Walter Tetley who was wrongly believed to have been the voice of Jimmy Barton for over 75 years.

Another coincidence with Wong is that like many of the Amos ‘n’ Andy Christmas Shows, the singing music was provided by the Paul Taylor Chorus.

Audio of “The Little Stranger” is not known to exist as of this writing, and beyond press notices for the 1942 version, it is not known if Wong performed this role for another broadcast. It would be nice to read its script in place of missing audio to get a since of this Christmas tale that was special to it West Coast audience.

For Further Reading:

Stewart Jr., James R. “Barbara Jean Wong: A Delightful Voice of Christmas Past”. Old Radio Times. November-December 2022. https://www.otrr.org/FILES/Times_Archive_pdf/2022_06%20November-December.pdf

Island of Lost Christmas Specials: Christmas Story with Patty Ann Gerrity

Snippet from a NTA Film Network Ad for "This Is Alice" with Patty Ann Gerrity.
Media History Digital Library. 

Christmas Story (1963) with Patty Ann Gerrity

The Hook (what makes it interesting): A Christmas special that was actually an episode of an rare and fondly remembered TV show for a short lived TV network, and that had a small landmark in Golden Age TV history. 

For those new to this blog, every December I add titles to the "Island of Lost Christmas Specials", a wishlist of lost or publicly unavailable Christmas media, episodes and specials from radio and TV. 

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In the 1958-1959 season American families were treated to a new series about a little "impish", "angel" "tomboy" girl named Alice Holiday. Titled This Is Alice, it was unique among all the Golden Age sitcoms with child characters for being one of the few with a little girl as the lead character. In fact it may have been the first American TV series with girl under 13 as the lead. Dennis The Menace with the late Jay North, Leave It To Beaver still have a strong syndication and streaming run today, but Alice has not been syndicated in decades and is mostly remembered by the generation that first saw her. 

Patty Ann Gerrity, image from TV Radio Mirror, April 1959. Media History Digital Library

9 year old Patty Ann Gerrity (1948-1992) was Alice, Phyllis Coates was her Mom, and Tommy Farrell played her father. Kathy Garver, who would become a household name with Family Affair auditioned for the lead but was cast as Alice's friend Sally. Already experienced in acting on film and dancing Gerrity also stood out with what could be her signature look; a combination of freckles, blue eyes and brown hair done up in two pigtails with ribbons.

This is Alice was the only child centered series from Desilu Productions. Gerrity was promoted in the press by Desi Arnaz as a "miniature Lucille Ball". The single season aired in first run syndication from 1958-1959 on the short lived NTA Film Network (1956-1961) and continued in American markets until 1962. That is the latest I could find it in American TV logs. The program also ran overseas. It was known as "La Travesuras di Alicia" in Argentina.

Snippet from the Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 24, 1964. From Newspapers.com

The series had a Christmas episode simply titled "Christmas Story". Based on TV listings, this episode was distributed as a stand alone Christmas special in some markets in 1963 and 1964. It seems to have had a very limited run as I could only find it listed in stations in Hawaii and California. Based on TV snippets it is was the story of Alice trying to sell Christmas trees while also helping an elderly woman

The Alice Christmas specials as broadcast the week of Christmas 1964 seem to be the very last times this series was broadcast on TV in the United States. 

The print for the original "This Is Alice" episode "Christmas Story" does exist in the UCLA Film and TV archives, as does the entire series.  The question is what changes were made to the print of "Christmas Story" shown in 1963 and 1964? If any? 

To date only 4 episodes of  "This Is Alice" are available publicly today thanks to the Moviecraft YouTube.

It’s A Charlie Brown Collection!

Today is the 60th Anniversary of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, which still doesn’t seem the same without a network TV rebroadcast or retrospective.

The Peanuts characters created by Charles Schulz 75 years ago remain popular and familiar to today’s children. It is interesting to look at how Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts cast have been marketed toward all audiences across that time. So here is a peak inside my not so rare but fun Peanuts collections:

A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of A Tradition, by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez.

Good Housekeeping June 1966 with photos and profiles of the voice cast from the upcoming Charlie Brown All-Stars, including Peter Robbins and Chris Shea from the Christmas Special.

Snoopy and Friends Sticker Fun 1987, and Hallmark books “The World According to Lucy” and “Snoopy’s Philosophy”.

Silent Child Stars in Color: Mary Ann Jackson 001

Mary Ann Jackson. Colorized from Exhibitor's Herald, May 26, 1928.

Of all the girls from the Our Gang and Little Rascals film series, Mary Ann Jackson (1923-2003) always stood out for her then current bob hair cut, face full of freckles, tomboy nature, and being a natural "tiny commediane".

In the above and below images, it may never be known what colors were originally on her dress.

Original Image

Prior to appearing in the Our Gang Comedies from 1928 to 1931. Mary Ann and her sister Charlotte "Peaches" Jackson were well known child actresses. At the age of 2, Mary Ann was already considered a possible successor to Baby Peggy Montgomery. Jackson was the baby star of The Smith Family Comedies from the Pathe Studios. She was rare for being a recognizable child actress before joining the Our Gang series.

The next set of images are from a photo of Mary Ann from 1927 that appeared in Motion Picture News and various other publications. It was described as a photo of her with a giant jar of candy that was gifted to her on her 4th birthday. First there is my attempt to colorize it. 

Snippet of Mary Ann Jackson from Motion Picture News, January 28, 1927. 

Image From Media History Digital Library

Now here is an original movie trade ad showing an artisit's rendering of Mary Ann from this photo:

Trade Ad For the Smith Family Series, from Moving Picture World, July 16, 1927. 

Image from Media History Digital Library.