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 Magic Christmas Window [Partially Lost Radio Series]

A snippet of a 1946 NBC Radio Press article on "The Magic Christmas Window"

The Magic Christmas Window [Partially Lost - Radio Series]

Syndicated series (25 episodes) 1944-1945, NBC Radio Recording Division.  

Cast: Susan Douglas, Julian Noa, Kim Spaulding, Jackson Beck, Henry Boyd, Jeanne Elkins, Ronny Liss, Bob Sherry (announcer)

Writers: Steve Carlin, Jack Barefield, Max Ehrlick, Jean Hytone, Arthur Scott.

Producer: Drexell Hines

The Magic Christmas Window was a syndicated fantasy radio series about two children who approach the window and are transported to a magical land of storybook characters and toys. At the end of the 15-minute episode, the children exit the window, and there is an invite to hear another episode.

Today this series is not as well known as "The Cinnamon Bear" or "Jump Jump of  Holiday House", possibly because it has not been heard in its entirety in decades. Also, the series may not have caught on as much since it does not sound like a fantasy adventure serial like those titles. 

The series was first promoted in the Fall of 1944 as having 12 episodes. In 1945, a review for Variety promoted the series as "strickly for kids" with 25 episodes for syndication. 

The lead writer of the series was producer Steve Carlin (1919-2003) later famous for creating and producing "The Rootie Kazootie Show" and the game show "The $64,000 Question". 1945 was a busy time for Carlin when he was writing the "Happy The Humbug" radio and comic strip series. He was later head of children's albums at RCA in 1950.

"The Island of Lost Christmas Specials" a mythical place where
lost shows, specials, and movies can be found.

Survival Status

Up to 12 episodes exist according to the Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs; episodes 01, 02, and 12 - 20. According to WorldCat, one audio cassette collection may have been released years ago with 4 episodes. At least two LPs exist in the Library of Congress. Four episodes are accounted for in the RadioGOLDINdex: "The Poor Prince", "Twas The Night Before Christmas", "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Brave Tin Soldier". 

From all of these sources episodes, 3 - 10 and 21 - 25 are still missing. Hopefully, the complete whimsical journeys into the Magic Christmas Window will resurface one day. 

For Further Reading:

"Magic Christmas Window". Variety. November 21, 1945. https://archive.org/details/variety160-1945-11/page/n157/mode/1up 

Steve Carlin, 84; Produced TV’s '$64,000 Question’ Quiz Show, 84. Los Angeles Times - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-07-me-carlin7-story.html