The Sealtest Variety Theater was a musical and comedy radio program hosted by Dorothy Lamour that aired on Thursday nights for NBC from 1946-1949. Sponsored by Sealtest Dairy Products (mostly Ice Cream), each episode Lamour would sing the audience a couple of songs and perform sketches with her guest-stars of the week. Here, for the Halloween (1948) episode, Lamour welcomes Jack Carson and Boris Karloff for a few tricks and treats:
xx
Videos courtesy of OTRHALLOWEENHOLIDAZE.
There's several episodes streaming on YouTube and a bunch more available for free download at the Internet Archive. I've managed to get through about eight episodes so far and they're all just great. Lamour is a warm and welcoming presence with a hideously infectious laugh -- and since the sketches were pretty funny and tended to train-wreck she gets to laugh a lot. There's one particular viking sketch with Bob Hope that went off the rails so badly I thought my sides were gonna split open, and another with Abbott and Costello where Costello loses his place in the script and -- waitaminute. Why am I telling you about this? Just go and listen for yourselves. Trust me. And with that, we'll let Ms. Lamour sign us off:
"Well, I'm sad to say it's time to make our au revoirs.
This is Dorothy Lamour saying, goodnight, keep well,
keep happy ... and keep listenin'."
Awesome. I'm going to listen to these! I've been on a radio kick since Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear got me some OTR CD sets, and these shows look terrific.
ReplyDeleteDewwwww eeeeet. I've listed to about a dozen now. Some are better than others but there isn't a real clunker in the bunch. Again, highly recommend the Charles Laughton, Bob Hope and Dan Duryea episodes.
ReplyDelete