Christmas Seals have been a holiday tradition since 1907. Originally a campaign against tuberculosis, today they help the American Lung Association "make progress towards defeating asthma, lung cancer, influenza, tobacco use, air pollution and other lung diseases, including COVID-19."
During the 1950s, the Christmas Seals folks promoted their cause by sending special records to the nation's radio stations, with well-known personalities performing and asking listeners to use Christmas Seals on their greeting cards and packages. I'll have a few such programs for you this year, starting with today's selections, which date from 1954 and feature Julius La Rosa and Jack Benny. I recorded these from the original 16-inch transcription disk. Each program runs for 15 minutes.
The Julius La Rosa Show
Singer Julius La Rosa was at the peak of his career in 1954, just a year after being fired on-air by the dictatorial variety show host Arthur Godfrey, who claimed that Julie "lacked humility," a tactic that backfired badly. People were sympathetic to the 24-year-old talent, and the nation's comics were gifted with a new catch phrase - "he lacks humility." (Even the announcer for this program refers to it.)
La Rosa had already enjoyed his first hit record with "Anywhere I Wander," from Frank Loesser's score for the Danny Kaye television special Hans Christian Andersen. You'll hear it as La Rosa's theme song during this program. Russ Case is the bandleader, and the vocal group is the Wanderers.
This program was taped specially for Christmas Seals, which wasn't the case with a few other such shows that I will present later in the season. As you will note if you enlarge the label above, KTAR (a Phoenix station) aired the show twice in mid-December.
If you like La Rosa, last year my pal Ernie and I collaborated on a 15-song playlist of holiday tunes from the vocalist's long career, including several non-commercial cuts from a Navy LP. It's all well worth hearing.
The Jack Benny Show
Jack Benny was an enormously long-lasting radio and television performer who was on the air regularly from 1932 to 1965. His shows did evolve over time, but by the early 1950s they generally were in a sitcom format with both regular characters and recurring performers.
Jack's Christmas shows at the time usually had one of two plots. In one, Jack goes shopping and drives clerk Mel Blanc to distraction by dithering and changing his order repeatedly. The second involved Jack throwing a cast party. This show is from the latter species. It would seem to have been edited from the December 20, 1953 episode of Benny's radio program.
It's a fun episode, while not being as wacky or imaginative as some. As with the Julius La Rosa Show, there are two Christmas Seals spots. KTAR aired the Benny program once, in early December.
More from Christmas Seals
A few days ago I posted the 1952 Christmas Seals song, "One Little Candle," in Perry Como's excellent recording. This came from a special disk jockey copy that included a Como voice track for radio stations to play as an introduction. That post, on my singles blog, also includes Como's 1950 Christmas songs, together with the voice tracks that were used to introduce them on the air.
