Wednesday, December 5, 2018

OTR Holiday Month Day 5: The Plot to Overthrow Christmas

Norman Corwin is very highly regarded among old-time radio fans, but if you aren't interested in radio drama you've probably never heard his name. There were basically two kinds of scripts he wrote: highly patriotic scripts about American values, and deeply silly scripts which often played out in rhyme. Such a script is "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas", which was broadcast several times over the years with various different casts.

The plot involves the greatest fiends in Hades deciding to "bump off" Santa Claus so that they can bring an end to all the goodness of Christmas. The rhyming dialogue is often apologetic for the extreme lengths it goes to in order to complete a rhyme.

The version of "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas" found at archive.org is dated as being from December 24, 1942. You can listen to it here.

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