I mentioned these Christmas episodes last year in my other blog before starting JHeroes.com, but ’tis the season… “Casey, Crime Photographer” was the radio version of a pulp fiction and movie character, and went on to have his own comic book and — briefly — TV series. More a detective series than a “journalism procedural,” it had memorable characters and drew a radio audience for a dozen years, off and on.

In this episode, pickpocket Fingers Fogarty is the one doing the Christmas Shopping… not exactly a case of journalistic detachment in the way Casey goes after a criminal in this 1946 episode, but at least a little bit of Christmas cheer.

A favorite line…

Annie: Maybe you need glasses.

Casey: I do; several glasses.

Next, this 1947 episode opens with the journalists and their bartender friend Ethelbert commiserating about working on the holiday. Later, there’s some depressed-at-the-holiday talk between Casey and Ann — perhaps even a bit of hard-bitten cynicism from Casey — on everyone’s way to a homily-filled Christmas story about faith and renewal, “The Santa Claus of Bums Boulevard.”

More Casey episodes: OTRR_Casey_Crime_Photographer_Singles

No Christmas in this tale, but it’s Casey’s 1938 movie debut, and I’ll include the opening scene here as a gift to December graduates: