More on It's A Wonderful Life

Hello Hear Again Fans!

Just four more days until the Hear Again Holiday Hullabaloo! Join us all at Plays and Players this weekend to see Lux Radio Theater's It's A Wonderful Life!

Did you know that this radio episode was adapted from the classic holiday film? The film was adapted four different times into radio episodes, and every adaptation featured Jimmy Stewart, the star of the film. Three out of the four adaptations featured Donna Reed, who played Mary in the film.

Lux Radio Theater was dedicated to using the original stars in their adaptations of popular films and plays. They payed the actors $5,000 an appearance, which would be around $80,000 today!

Here's another fun fact: the radio premier of It's A Wonderful Life aired on March 10, 1947. In fact, only one of the four radio adaptations aired anywhere near the holidays (Screen Guild Theater's version aired on December 29, 1947). What we know today as a holiday classic is a good story any time of the year!

See you all this weekend!

It's a Wonderful Life

In preparation for our own Holiday Hullabaloo, where we will present Lux Radio Theater's It's a Wonderful Life, we found this article from the Washington Post about the actress who played Zuzu in Frank Capra's film. You can find the story HERE.

We hope to see you all at Plays and Players next weekend so we can share the season with you, our friends and family in radio.

Thanksgiving Specials From Radio Past

Hello America,


As you and your family are gathering for Thanksgiving, we at Hear Again Radio Project thought it might be nice to dig up a few vintage holiday specials for your listening pleasure while preparing for your holiday feast. Enjoy!


In this link you can listen to an episode of "Command Performance"  from Thanksgiving Day 1944. It was a variety/comedy show during WWII where celebrities would perform for the troops. This episode features Dinah Shore, Harry von Zell, and Wally Brown.

In the "Elgin Thanksgiving Show 7th Annual" in 1948 - Dean Martin was introduced as a "new star" and part of a night club duo with Jerry Lewis. The following year the Dean Martin And Jerry Lewis Show was on the air. The Elgin Watch Company sponsored 7 Elgin Holiday Specials for Thanksgiving from 1942 to 1948. These specials feature several celebrities. They made Christmas specials as well.

On a 1939 episode of "The Answer Man" titled "Who Ate The Most at the First Thanksgiving" Albert Carlyle Mitchell, The Answer Man, discussed some important questions about Thanksgiving. In 1939 there were two different Thanksgivings in America, and The Answer Man explains why.

As always, you can find tons of OTR content at OTRR.net

We will be back on the air on Dec 10 &11 at 4pm and 7pm with Lux Radio Theater's It's a Wonderful Life. Buy your tickets now.

Support Plays and Players "10 for 100" 10 day Fundraising Drive

Hello America,

If you have enjoyed the programming that the Hear Again Radio Project   has provided since 2010, won't you please consider participating by donating just $10 to Plays and Players Theater's "10 for 100" campaign.

When the Hear Again Radio Project was searching for a home, the first place we thought to contact was Plays and Players. The dedicated team of artists and theater professionals have made wonderful hosts, and enabled us to bring the wonder and drama of Old Time Radio to life on stage for the good people of Philadelphia for the past 2 seasons.

We could not do it without their support. Please part with your pennies to keep us on the air.

Details on how you can participate can be found here: 

Between 11/23/11 and 12/2/11, please donate $10.00. We are working hard to make our goal of $10,000 to be matched by the Wyncote Foundation. If we can make this goal before the end of the fiscal year we will ask them to raise our match to $20,000.

To donate just mail your contribution to: www.playsandplayers.org 
or http://playsandplayers.tix.com/ActSelection.asp?OrganizationNumber=2275 (direct link.)

If you choose to submit directly, tell 'em the Original Old Smoothie sent you.

Read All About It!

Halloween Spooktacular!

Halloween Spoooktacular gets write up in the Philly Metro!

Philly Metro - Sounding Out a Spooky Halloween!

Saturday, October 22nd 4PM & 7PM!

Sunday, October 23rd 4 PM & 7PM

Don't be scared - join us for an evening of Slurp! Slurp! fun. 

Because things are so much nicer when you're Hear Again!

Lights Out for Halloween Spooktacular

Hello America,

It...is...later...than...you...think.

For our Halloween Spooktacular Oct 22- 23 at 4 & 7pm this year, we here in the Hear Again Radio Project sound labs decided that we would use the Halloween show this year as a chance to explore one of the most influential and pioneering radio programs from the golden age of radio, Lights Out.

Lights Out was a series created by Wyllis Cooper in the fall of 1933, and later taken over by Arch Oboler in 1936. Full details on the history of the popular anthology series can be found here. In addition to the taut and engaging stories, one of the other things that drew audiences to this series was the interesting and creative sound effects that the show featured. In researching the effects we stumbled upon this image of an article highlighting the stars and the foley artists from the series.

For our Halloween Spooktacular, we will be featuring one script by each writer. First, Slurp! Goes the Amoeba by Wyllis Cooper which is a spooky tale about a lab experiment that goes horrifically wrong. It is tasty! We follow that with one of our favorite Arch Oboler scripts, last performed in the inaugural Hear Again performances for the 2009 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, entitled Special to Hollywood. As always, we have many treats for our audience, including Halloween candy and a special give away courtesy of our friends in Old Time Radio, the Old Time Radio Researchers group. Please visit their terrific site: http://otrr.org/

Look for us on The Face Book: http://www.facebook.com/HearAgainRadioProject

National Archives raided by ex-employee

Hello America,

We were on our way to rehearsal this morning for the Hear Again Radio Project's Halloween Spooktacular, and I almost drove the car off the road when I heard this story on NPR. In short, an ex-employee of the National Archives stole recorded archive material and sold it on eBay. As a group that is dedicated to the idea of finding a new audience for Old Time Radio, we are horrified that someone would be so callous as to steal any of the source recordings from the Archive and rob future generations a chance to hear the original broadcast.

You can read and hear the story HERE.


Our Halloween Spooktacular will be at Plays and Players, and will feature two episodes of Lights Out! (Oct 22 & 23 at 4pm & 7pm). More details can be found HERE and on The Face Book HERE.