Last night at work, I listened to what I am convinced is one of the finest Christmas holiday shows I’ve experienced since I began this project at the beginning of the month. Originally broadcast over CBS Radio December 25, 1944, it was a two-hour “Christmas party,” an all-star extravaganza—sponsored by the Elgin Watch Company—featuring Barbara Jo Allen (as Vera Vague), Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Jack Benny, George Burns & Gracie Allen, the Charioteers, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, the Les Paul Trio, the Louis Silvers Orchestra & Chorus, Carmen Miranda, Ginny Simms, the Army-Air Force’s “Swing Wing,” and Joseph Szigeti. The always affable Don Ameche was master of ceremonies, and Ken Carpenter the commercial announcer.
Ginny Simms kicks off the festivities with a rendition of “Hallelujah,” and then tells m.c. Ameche that she was originally supposed to do the song “You’ll Never Know” with Jack Benny accompanying her on the violin but things went slightly awry. There is a flashback to a few hours earlier, with Rochester Beverly Hills
JACK: Come on in the living room, I want to talk to you…
JACK: Oh…oh…oh, yes…well, what do you know, we’ve got a rug in here…say, Rochester
JACK: Miss Simms?
JACK: Oh, well, why didn’t you tell me? I’d better get my violin and limber up…now, Rochester, you finish straightening up the house and get the rest of these things out of the living room…my shirt, my shoes, my socks, my garter belt…I mean, my garter and my belt…and my bathrobe…pick ‘em up and get ‘em out of this room…
JACK: Yes, but I want you to get all my things out of this room…
JACK: Oh, stop exaggerating…
JACK: Rochester
JACK: What note?
Next on the program, Don Ameche introduces the “Swing Wing,” a congregation of former big band musicians “caught in the draft”, so to speak. The group play two numbers, “Bugle Call Rag” and some selections from the opera Carmen, and Technical Sergeant Manny Klein is their spokesman:
DON: Now, before you boys wrap up another number…could you tell us where the men in the group come from?
KLEIN: Well, we took one from Harry James…one from Benny Goodman…and one from Jimmy Dorsey…
DON: I heard you also took one from Spike Jones…
KLEIN: Ah, we didn’t have to take him…he was glad to escape…
A song selection from the Charioteers (who were the resident choral group of Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall) follows (“Poor Little Jesus Boy”), and then we pay a visit to the “people who live in the Burns house, George and Gracie”:
GEORGE: Hurry, Gracie…we have to leave for the Elgin
GRACIE: George…um…before we go…promise me something?
GEORGE: What?
GRACIE: Well…uh…you’re terribly talented, you know…
GEORGE: Yeah…?
GRACIE: …and this is Christmas…
GEORGE: Yeah…?
GRACIE: So…promise me you won’t do your best today…
GEORGE: Won’t do my best…? With Bob Hope, Don Ameche, Bing Crosby and Jack Benny there?
GRACIE: Well, that’s why, dear…I wouldn’t want you to make them look bad today…
GEORGE: Oh, Gracie…
GRACIE: Well, this is Christmas…you know, goodwill to men…and practically all four of those fellows are men…
GEORGE: But, Honey…be sensible…if I had more talent than Hope, Ameche, Crosby and Benny…I’d be the biggest star in the world…
GRACIE: …and you will be someday…in fact, people can’t understand why you aren’t right now…
GEORGE: Really?
GRACIE: Sure! Why, every time we walk down the street together I hear someone say “I wonder what’s holding him up?”
GEORGE: I see…
GRACIE: Oh, you’re loaded with talent, George…I’m just afraid you’ll go down there today and embarrass those poor men…
GEORGE: Oh, honey…you just say that because you’re my wife…what if you were married to Bob Hope? What if you were married to Don Ameche? What if you were married to…
GRACIE: Wait a minute…I’d like to stay married to Don Ameche a little longer…
Ginny Simms does another number, her hit tune “Wish You Were Waiting For Me,” and then a dramatic sketch featuring Ameche, Joel Davis, Ann Stone and Tyler McVey is presented; a touching Christmas-themed story about a pilot on a dangerous flying mission whose thoughts drift back to last Christmas and his telling his son the story of the Star of Bethlehem. The sketch was included to promote a series called Keep Up With the World—what was apparently a dramatic anthology based on stories in a Collier’s column by Freling Foster (there wasn’t any information on this program in the Dunning book, and Jay Hickerson lists it as Keeping Up With the World).
The nice thing about this Christmas presentation is the wide range of musical talent; there’s something for every taste present, from Carmen Miranda (who does “Tico Tico” and a zippy, South-of-the-Border rendition of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”) to the Les Paul Trio (“Danger, Men at Work”). There’s also music for the highbrow crowd, as concert violinist Joseph Szigeti performs a few classical pieces. Szigeti had recently appeared alongside Jack Benny in the 1944 feature film Hollywood Canteen:
DON: I hope I’m not being forward when I ask if it’s true that most concert stars have some protégé…
SZIGETI: Yes, that’s true…
DON: …and you…do you know of some undiscovered, potential genius of the violin?
SZIGETI: I do…
DON: Oh…and is he talented?
SZIGETI: Amazing technique…
DON: Ah…and young?
SZIGETI: Very young…
DON: And what’s his name?
SZIGETI: Jack Benny…
DON: Ah, of course…you made your movie debut recently with Jack…that must have been fun, huh?
SZIGETI: Lots of laughs…
DON: At his jokes?
SZIGETI: At his fiddle playing…
Barbara Jo Allen, an actress-comedienne who portrayed the memorable man-chasing Vera Vague on The Bob Hope Show, also has some amusing moments with straight-man Don Ameche:
VERA: Thank you, thank you…and Merry Christmas. Mr. Ameche (giddily) oooh, Noel, Noel…oh, Christmas time, I don’t know…I’m so happy, I just love everybody…anyway, half of everybody…the male half…
DON: I suspected, Miss Vague, it was something more romantic than just the Christmas holiday that brought that sparkle to your eyes…
VERA: Oh, you’re so right, Mr. Ameche…only this morning my boyfriend Waldo told me that I’ll be the next cover girl of the country…
DON: Oh…really?
VERA: Yes…I suppose you’ve heard of Chili Williams?
DON: Oh, yes…of course…
VERA: Meet “Beans” Vague…
DON: Uh…Miss Vague…how did you meet your boyfriend Waldo?
VERA: Uh, Waldo? I didn’t exactly meet him…I overtook him…but he’s such a sweet boy, really…this morning, there he was waiting for me by the mantle when I came down…he says, “Look, Vera—your Christmas stockings are all filled with walnuts.” Made me so mad…
DON: But why…?
VERA: Oh, I was wearing them at the time…
The highlight of The Elgin Christmas Party are the appearances of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby—Hope warms up the proceedings with his I-don’t-leave-home-without-it monologue:
BOB: But everything in Hollywood is done in the spirit of Christmas…if you get hit by a car while crossing the street they send you home wrapped as a gift…I just mailed some Christmas packages back East…everybody else had to mail theirs December the 10th but I sent mine yesterday and they got there in plenty of time…thanks, Eleanor…and don’t think the manpower shortage didn’t hit the Santa Claus situation this year…I saw one Santa Claus at a department store hitting a little boy and I said, “That’s no way for Santa Claus to act.” And Santa said, “I can do anything I want…I’m this boy’s mother…”
Hope then introduces his friend Bing (“All you can hear on the radio this weekend is Bing singing ‘White Christmas’…he’s the only man who can entertain and give frost warnings at the same time.”), who warbles his big hit, “Don’t Fence Me In.” Then, the fun begins as the two of them engage in a fast-and-furious insult and ad-lib war (Bob: “We’re gonna look at the paper once in a while, aren’t we?”):
BOB: That was wonderful…maybe I’m just full of the ol’ holiday spirit, but you know…that didn’t sound bad at all…
BING: Thank you…
BOB: …for a man your age…
BING: You still considered yourself a boy when you were my age…
BOB: At least I never played “Ring-a-Round-the-Rosie” with Cleopatra…
BING: This is hardly the place…hardly the time or place to discuss what you played with Cleopatra…well, look…
BOB (ad-libs): He’s got Broadway Rose writing for him now…
(snip)
BING: You know, I’m doing a double act with Sinatra next year…
BOB: You are, really?
BING: Yes…we’re going out to play some of the camps…sing some songs, sing some duets…fine double act…
BOB: Well, I think it’s nice to have a fella from each generation…what are you, uh (interrupted by audience laughter) you’re going to do a double act with ol’ No Blood, huh? Well, tell me…what are you going (more laughter) it’ll be a nice act, No Blood and No Hair…
(snip)
BING: Say, Blub…no kidding…let’s be nice…Christmas only comes once a year…
BOB: I don’t think you should knock Sinatra…because I wanna tell ya, singers like Sinatra come once in a lifetime…
BING: That’s right…why did he have to come in my lifetime?
To close the program—well, what Christmas special wouldn’t be complete without Bing singing the classic “White Christmas”?
The Elgin Christmas Party is part of a ten-CD package entitled Christmas—On the Air! Volume 2 which is available from First Generation Radio Archives. To call this fine program a “special” is really damning it with faint praise—it just wouldn’t be possible to do this kind of program today without having to take out a second and third mortgage to put a down payment on the participants’ salaries. Of course, back then—every performer appeared on the show gratis, as the broadcast was prepared for broadcast over AFRS and shortwave for the benefit of those individuals then fighting overseas. Even some fifty years later, it continues to entertain and delight through the magic of old-time radio.
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