Duffy’s Tavern (1941-1951) aired “Miracle in Manhattan, Christmas Show with Jeff Chandler” on December 22, 1948, as the 303rd of its 425 episodes.

Duffy’s Tavern was created and hosted by radio veteran Ed Gardner (1901-1963). Though the low rent tavern located on Third Avenue and 23rd St. in New York is owned by Duffy (who never appears), it is run by Archie the Manager, whose catchphrase is “where the elite meet to eat, Duffy ain’t here, Archie the Manager speakin’…” This radio sitcom often featured a celebrity guest, among them the likes of Boris Karloff, Dinah Shore, Gene Tierney, Mickey Rooney, Lucille Ball, Shelley Winters, and of all people Marlene Dietrich. Archie spices up each humorous situation he finds himself in—or has gotten himself into—with his comic malaprops, a linguistic device used to great effect by such as the standup comedian Norm Crosby ([1927-2020] “a standing ovulation” & “the pinochle of perfection” are two of his more memorable examples), and made a standard part of Archie Bunker’s linguistic antics on the long-running TV sitcom All in the Family. An interesting sidebar is that when this famous sitcom came to an end, a spinoff began with the title Archie Bunker’s Place. This show, while differing in certain respects from Duffy’s Tavern, is similar in setting (a working man’s bar in New York) wherein humorous situations occur weekly, and the guy who runs the bar is also named Archie, and both succeed in mangling the English language to great effect. Of possible interest is that while there were several regular characters in Duffy’s Tavern episodes, the actress portraying Duffy’s scatter-brained daughter was none other than Shirley Booth (1898-1992). Booth would go on to star in several Hollywood films (winning a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in 1952’s Come Back, Little Sheba, starring Burt Lancaster). Of course, most folks today remember her for the popular TV show Hazel, where she played a maid to the Baxter family. For the aforementioned 1952 film, her TV role as Hazel, and as the star in the 1952 Broadway play The Time of the Cuckoo, Booth would become one of the very few to win an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Tony award. Shirley Booth was married to Ed Gardner of Duffy’s Tavern fame from 1929-42. They remained friends, though they had no children.

For this year’s Christmas episode Duffy’s Tavern goes traditional, with slight variations to make the familiar story its own. It begins with Archie and a few friends trading light-hearted banter at Duffy’s just before Archie closes up for the evening, but before Archie can lock the door a stranger walks in. He is of a sociable nature and soon he and Archie are talking Christmas, with Archie more pessimistic and jaded about the holiday than this mysterious stranger. It soon is revealed that no one can see this stranger but Archie, which partly answers the question of how the invisible stranger is able to perform a few minor miracles as he and Archie walk down the street. We can all guess which Christmas story this episode is reinventing, and the low-key approach is well done and family friendly, reinforcing traditional values and offering hope for those otherwise soured on the holiday. Jeff Chandler (1918-1961) performs his role as the unnamed, invisible stranger-cum-ghost well, topping off this uplifting story oft-told at Christmas.

Play Time: 29:40

{This episode aired the Wednesday before Christmas in 1948, which was on a Saturday. The timing meant that the neighborhood gang was on Christmas vacation and so was up bright and early the next morning, plans already laid to meet at the nearby newsstand to hunt for their favorite reading material, which this trip found them selecting a wide variety of material. fantastic Adventures (1939-53) experimented with varying publishing schedules before deciding on a monthly schedule the end of 1947. It maintained this schedule until its final issue in March of 1953. The erratic schedule didn’t seem to deter its loyal fans, for the magazine had a nice run of 14 years. Jungle Stories (1938-54) began as a quarterly and ended as one, skipping only a rare few issues in its successful run. Part of its success was due to the popular Ki-Gor, Jungle Lord stories, an obvious nod to Tarzan. Super-Detective (1940-50) ran more or less standard detective fare for its ten-year run, bolstered in part with regular stories of Jim Anthony: scientist, businessman, and adventurer. His stories ran from 1940-43, at which time they had run their course and were discontinued. Though the magazine had a decent run of 11 years, it never hewed to a set schedule, some years managing but 2 issues while at least one year sporting 9 issues. 1948 was the year it managed only two issues.}

[Left: fantastic Adventures, 12/48 – Center: Jungle Stories, Winter/48 – Right: Super-Detective, 12/48]

To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.