A Christmas Carol: Richard Diamond, Private Detective (December 24, 1949)

“A Christmas Carol” is an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the old-time radio show, first broadcast December 24, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to Richard Diamond, Private Detective free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Richard Diamond adapts Dickens' Christmas Carol for a modern crime story set in New York. Miserly pawnbroker Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his dead partner Jacob Marley, who warns that three spirits will show Scrooge his past, present, and future to save him from damnation. Through these supernatural encounters, Scrooge confronts how his greed has hurt those around him, especially his employee Bob Cratchit and Cratchit's sickly son Tiny Tim.

New York City, a side street off Broadway; Scrooge's office and rooms above it; various locations visited by the spirits including tenements, the river district, graveyards, and Cratchit's home.

Characters: Richard Diamond, Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Fred (Scrooge's nephew), Fezziwig, Ghost of Christmas Past

Listen for: A comedic modern adaptation of the Christmas Carol with detective story characters; plenty of snappy 1940s New York dialogue and wisecracks; the spirits' supernatural visitations including Marley's ghost appearing in a door knocker; touching moments involving Tiny Tim and the Cratchit family; Scrooge's eventual transformation and redemption.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.