Rudolph’s Tale: A 1964 Christmas
Vince Trani, Yukon Cornelius and Burl Ives; Sigrid Wise, Mrs. Claus and Clarice; Victor Barbella, Hermie; Laura Leopard, Rudolph; J.T. O’Connor, Santa, Fireball, and more; Sydnie Grosberg Ronga, director
To be totally honest, all five performers played ‘and more’, and there was an uncredited studio assistant who added tons of authentic radio theatre touches. That said, this one didn’t work quite as well as some other productions I’ve seen by this group—I think it’s because they were re-creating a TV show, so there would obviously be reminders of certain visual cues, which are not included in their usual radio re-creations. But that was a minor quibble.
In addition to presenting the classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” they also included renditions of TV commercials/jingles—Shake & Bake (“and we helped!”); Mr. Clean (including parts of the jingle that I didn’t recognize); and “Bewitched” (just to plug then-current-era TV shows?). Definitely enjoyable, especially the brief Agnes Moorehead and Paul Lynde impersonations.
More radio ads included the Jolly Green Giant (specifically, Niblets); Goldfinger (TV ads for movies?); Instant Folger’s; and The Addams Family (snap-snap!).
The actual story of Rudolph was created pretty much straight on, though as mentioned above, it was somewhat less effective than I expected. The one exception was Ms. Wise’s lovely, haunting presentation of “There’s Always Tomorrow”—it brought a tear to this jaded audience member’s eye.
Other commercials were for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes (“They’re Gre-e-e-e-at!”) and Easy-Bake Oven (with a jingle that was unfamiliar to me). The songs “Silver & Gold” and “Island of Misfit Toys/When Christmas Day Is Here” also managed to hit the just-right nostalgic note.
Another couple of ads—Alka-Seltzer (with a jingle) and Rice-A-Roni (with its hummable jingle)—preceded “Holly-Jolly Christmas.” I enjoyed the performance, though not enough for me to go back and see the second one on Saturday afternoon. I can highly recommend Gotham Radio Theatre—just not this edition, unless you’re a hard-core Rudolph fan. There was a sing-along of the title song at the end of the performance. I added a hearty, “Ho, ho, ho!” after “… Santa came to say … ”—why didn’t they think of that?
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