K.A.C. 2019 - T - 18 ...

     Hello and welcome back to our next entry in our Christmas For Your Ears series on the K.A.C. - today's story is a more traditional piece and probably my favorite entry of all the ones I'm putting up this year, because I remember hearing this one when it originally aired. I was happily surprised to find it again, having forgotten the name of the episode. But first some backstory ... 

      As I've mentioned before, radio drama began in the 1920s, then caught on and held the public's imagination through the 1930s and '40s, finally dying out in the 1950s with the advent of television. It seemed it was due to remain in the nostalgia trash heap, never to be revisited, until lo and behold, in 1974 it made a spectacular (and welcome) reappearance in a Big Way via the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Hosted by noted character actor E.G. Marshall and created and produced by Himan Brown (whose impressive radio pedigree included the Inner Sanctum Mysteries of the 1940s (he's listed as having a 65 year career and producing over 30,000 radio programs!)), the show ran weeknights from 1974 - 1982 and was a godsend to folks like myself who longed to hear radio drama back on the air. The stories ranged from suspense to horror to classics ... you never knew what you were going to get, but they were all well done, with classic stars, old and new, stepping up to the microphone to make your hair stand on end. 

E.G. Marshall

      Today's featured episode originally aired on December 24th, 1974, and is a variation on a more famous holiday tale: take one cold-hearted rich man, who's turned his back on his family, his workers and the world, add one determined young girl with a request who holds him to a promise, then throw in a threadbare Santa suit which may hold more than meets the eye and you have A Very Private Miracle. I was delighted to track this down again, and even more so to find it is an original broadcast, complete with holiday commercials, exactly as it aired over four decades ago! Try and find the time to listen to this one uninterrupted - you won't be sorry ... a bit weepy, perhaps, as I was, but not sorry. Enjoy!

      https://archive.org/details/CbsRadioMysteryTheaterChristmas/Cbsrmt7412240191AVeryPrivateMiracle_wbbm_rec_12_23_78.mp3

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     Want something a little less saccharin? Something not quite as maudlin? Something just out and out WEIRD? Well, say no more! The UK Christmas supermarket/retail store ad wars have ramped up for another year, and we'll start with the return (for the fourth year!) of Aldi's Kevin the Carrot ads. The 'Kevin Cult' is rather hard to describe if you don't live there, but he's become a phenomenon, with plush Kevin's in demand each Christmas. Not one to miss a merchandising beat, Aldi's has added Kevin's wife Katie and baby carrots Jasper, Baby Carrot and Chantenay to the stew, along with villains Russell Sprout and the Leafy Blinders Gang ... all set to a giant musical number! Enough with me trying to describe this madness - click on the link and see for yourself:

   
     https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/10283652/aldi-christmas-advert-2019-kevin-the-carrot/

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     Great, now I'm hungry - back tomorrow!