The Wilburn Brothers Show featuring Don Helms (1968)

The Giant Spider Invasion featuring Alan Hale Jr. (1975)

This is one of my all time favorite drive-in pictures and yes, a lot of it has to do with the fact it stars the Skipper from Gilligan's Island. The rest of it has to do with the fact it features a giant spider.

The Joey Bishop Show with guest star Danny Thomas (1962) - Footage Offline - 6/07/08

Here it is, the obscure Make Room for Daddy spin-off. Incidentally, the first season is now available on DVD - who would buy it other than me - I am not sure.

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Make Room for Daddy with guest stars Lucy & Desi (1959)

Make Room for Daddy with guest star Jack Benny (1957)

This a very funny and very interesting episode. It features a great cameo by Jack Benny and many great exteriors of 1950s Las Vegas. At the end of the show, we also get to see a big chunk of Danny Thomas' actual stand-up act (not a very easy thing to find these days), of course under the guise of Danny Williams.
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Make Room for Daddy (1957)

For years I wondered why Danny Thomas was famous. I never saw Make Room for Daddy (eventually re-named The Danny Thomas Show), but I saw Danny Thomas regularly appear as a song and dance, joke telling guest star on countless nineteen seventies variety shows. I knew his name from the credits of The Dick Van Dyke Show but that was about it. That was then and this is now. Since then I have grown to love his work. Make Room for Daddy is a truly funny (unconventionally so - compared to most of its competition on 1950s television) sitcom from the fifties that gave birth to a huge spin-off called The Andy Griffith Show and a small spin-off called The Joey Bishop Show. Here's a full episode of the show when the widowed stand-up comedian Danny Williams (incidentally, the same name as the current Premier of Newfoundland) finally proposes to a new woman.
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The Garry Moore Show with guests Allen & Rossi (1964) - Footage Offline 1/15/08

And next week a new(!) comedian Norm Crosby!

The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show presented by Tootsie Roll (1954) - Footage Offline 2/15/08

The Colgate Comedy Hour with Abbott & Costello - Christmas Episode (1952)

The Merv Griffin Show with guest Don Rickles (1985)

The Paul Winchell Show (1957) - Footage Offline 2/15/08

The Whistler - Two Christmas Episodes

Murder and dementia didn't slow down in the forties just because everybody else was gettin' sentimental. Two December episodes of one of the top shows in radio noir. The Whistler Christmas episode number one and number two.

A Fred Allen Christmas!

Listen to three Christmas episodes of Fred Allen's various radio shows: Here, here and here.

The Jack Benny Show: a Santa Sack Full of Christmas Episodes

Here's a huge onslaught of Christmas themed episodes of The Jack Benny Show from the thirties, forties and fifties. They're arranged chronilogically. Enjoy!

December 10th, 1938
Christmas Day, 1938
December 17th, 1939
Christmas Eve, 1939
December 22nd, 1940
January 5th, 1941 - Jack returns Christmas gifts
December 21st, 1941
December 21st, 1942
December 26th, 1943
Christmas Eve, 1944
December 22nd, 1946
December 21st, 1947
December 19th, 1948
December 18th, 1949
December 17th, 1950
Christmas Eve, 1950
December 23rd, 1951
December 21st, 1952
December 13th, 1953
December 20th, 1953
December 5th, 1954
December 11th, 1954
December 19th, 1954
December 26th, 1954

And a clip from the Jack Benny television show with Dennis Day and Richard Deacon.

Dragnet - Christmas Episode (1949)

This is easily my favorite episode of the Dragnet radio program. A child is murdered by another child, and Jack Webb's show includes a progressive theme for one time only. Listen to this classic Old Time Radio episode here.

ABC's Wide World of Sports profile of Evel Knievel (1974)

The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with guest Evel Knievel (1973)

The Porter Wagoner Show featuring Buck Trent (1972)

Family Feud: Gilligan's Island vs. Hawaiian Eye vs. Lost in Space (1984)

This has little to do with Christmas other than it being my present ot you. It's also one of Jim Backus' final appearances on television. He was already very sick at this point but his voice is still immaculate. Of course, all of these heroes of sixties television are being moderated by Richard Dawson who came from the same world as a cast member on Hogan's Heroes.

The Milton Berle Show - Christmas Episode (1947)

Sponsored by FEEL-IP-MORRRR-EEEEEES! Here's the Christmas episode of Uncle Milty's radio program. I'm pretty sure it originally aired in December of '47. Listen to the whole thing here.