Twins Judy and Jimmy Barton crawled into their attic one December day and found a passageway to a place called Maybeland. They looked in all the dusty corners for any sign of the silver star that always sat atop their Christmas tree. Their search crossed the path of little Paddy O'Cinnamon, "The Cinnamon Bear," who had shoe-button eyes and a ferocious growl. He showed them a small hole through which the Crazy Quilt dragon had absconded with their star and invited Judy and Jimmy to pursue the rascal. Paddy would function as a guide and they'd chase the dragon throughout Maybeland. Paddy magically "de-grew" the twins so they'd fit through the attic tunnel, fired up a miniature airplane powered by soda pop, and flew the Barton kids into a startling and wondrous adventure.

So begins "The Cinnamon Bear," a delightful, one-of-a-kind children's series produced in 1937 by TRANSCO, the Transcription Company of America. Intended to be heard between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the series features twenty-six fifteen-minute cliffhanger installments. The program immediately hooks children because suspenseful fun is always present as each episode concludes with yet another obstacle for Paddy and the twins to overcome. The dragon eventually joins up with the trio but remains unpredictable and mischievous. Named "Crazy Quilt," he succumbs time and time again to his obsession with the shiny silver star.

To put it simply, "The Cinnamon Bear" is great radio entertainment. Excellent sound effects, charming background music, clever songs, well-drawn characters, sparkling dialogue -- they're all here in a blend of the very best talents and techniques from the golden age of radio. Here, fantasy and imagination reign as Paddy O'Cinnamon and his company cross a landscape featuring a singing tree, a looking glass valley, an icicle forest, a root beer ocean, an immense inkwell, a river of mud, a golden grove, and a multitude of other bizarre places and strange talking creatures. Familiar vocal artists - some of whom would later become radio legends - provide the voices: Elliott Lewis, Hanley Stafford, Verna Felton, Frank Nelson, Martha Wentworth, Howard McNear, Joseph Kearns, Ed Max, Gale Gordon, Elvia Allman, and many others. For some of these performers, it was their first enduring assignment on their way to radio celebrity in the years to come.

"The Cinnamon Bear" was written by Glanville Heisch, ably aided by his wife, Elizabeth. Designed for syndication to local radio markets across the US as a Christmas promotion, sponsors would insert commercials for toys and other children's products while the installments played out between the holidays. Recognizing a good thing when they saw it - and aided by a wide variety of low-cost promotional materials provided by TRANSCO - many big department stores introduced Paddy O'Cinnamon to their customers in 1937 and continued to sponsor rebroadcasts of the series annually for years to come. The Lipman and Wolfe Company of Portland, Oregon, for example, continued sponsoring "The Cinnamon Bear" annually throughout the 1950s. Kids visiting the store at Christmastime perched on the lap of an overstuffed Paddy O'Cinnamon and told him what they wanted for Christmas -- as a jealous Santa Claus sat nearby. (By the way, that original bear suit still exists.)

Even today, radio stations in Portland and other parts of the country continue to air the series during each holiday season -- although now as more a novelty than as advertising gimmick. Seventy years after the programs were produced, the series continues to win new fans with its enduring quality, charm, and timeless storybook characters. Some of these fans have, in fact, made it a point to research and publicize the series to others; Don Jensen and, later, Carolyn Kolibaba published a newsletter entitled "Bear Facts" from 1987 to 1991. Finding that their research had increased interest in "The Cinnamon Bear," they founded "The Cinnamon Bear Brigade," which in 1991 boasted four hundred members worldwide.

The Principal Players and the Music

Like many radio programs, "The Cinnamon Bear" series did not give on-air credit to the performers who brought the shows to life. Although some of the voices are obvious and well known - at least to fans of old time radio - much of the work necessary to identify the performers was done by collector Terry Black with help from actor Frank Nelson and series announcer Bud Hiestand. The full cast listing was first acknowledged in Chuck Schaden's "The Cinnamon Bear Book" (Hall Closet Publications, 1987) - the only book yet written entirely about the series. Larry and John Gassman of the Southern California-based SPERDVAC ("The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Radio Drama, Variety, and Comedy") cleared up the mystery of who played Queen Melissa -- an actress unidentified until just a few years ago. However, despite the best efforts of many fans over the years, the name of the young actor who played Jimmy Barton remains to be discovered.

The cast members of "The Cinnamon Bear" include:

Paddy O'Cinnamon: Buddy Duncan
Judy Barton: Barbara Jean Wong
Jimmy Barton: Unidentified
The Crazy Quilt Dragon: Joseph Kearns
Mother: Verna Felton
Wintergreen the Witch: Martha Wentworth
Queen Melissa: Rosa Barcelo
Weary Willie, the Stork: Gale Gordon
Penelope, the Pelican: Elvia Allman
Fe Fo, the Giant: Joe DuVal
Santa Claus: Lou Merrill
Captain Tin Top: Frank Nelson
Snapper Snick, the Crocodile: Hanley Stafford
Samuel, the Seal: Howard McNear
Indian Chief: Cy Kendall
King Blotto: Ted Osborne
Fraidy Cat: Dorothy Scott
Mr. Presto, the Magician: Elliott Lewis
Blotto, the Executioner: Ed Max
Narrator: Bud Hiestand

Many of the actors doubled in other roles as well. For example, Gale Gordon also played the Ostrich, and Howard McNear appeared as Slim Pickins, the Cowboy. Ted Osborne played Professor Whiz, the Owl, and Cy Kendall provided the voice for Captain Taffy, the Pirate. Director Lindsay MacHarrie voiced some minor roles too, including Wesley the Whale, and the Grand Wonkey, among other characters.

In addition to a notable cast of performers, "The Cinnamon Bear" features eleven songs written specifically for the show, including "Never Say Boo to a Crazy Quilt Dragon," "You'd Better Let the Bumble Bee Be," "The Candy Buccaneers," "The Cockleburr Cowboys," and "The Christmas Tree Parade." Composer Don Honrath wrote the songs and incidental music, with Felix Mills handling the musical direction and the Paul Taylor Quartet singing the lyrics.

The Audition Disc

A few years ago, the original 1937 promotional disc for "The Cinnamon Bear" series surfaced, providing a unique glimpse into how the series came to be -- and also how it was promoted. Direct mailed to radio stations, advertising agencies, and potential sponsors, the 12" disc - complete with specially created illustrated labels and sent in a festive paper sleeve with "Merry Christmas" emblazoned in red across the top - was TRANSCO's effort to provide the broadcast marketplace with a program series designed for "pre-Christmas running."

In this sixteen minute two-sided recording, the program's narrator and announcer John "Bud" Hiestand (Elizabeth Heisch's brother) introduces and interviews Lindsay MacHarrie, TRANSCO's production manager and the producer of the series. MacHarrie says he bumped into Glan Heisch one day on Hollywood Boulevard and invited him to lunch. He told Glan that he wanted a Christmas series "with all the charm and whimsy of the OZ books and 'Alice in Wonderland.'" MacHarrie told Heisch he desired a series of twenty-six fifteen-minute programs, designed to run from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Glan agreed that Santa Claus must play an important role in the series and that it should have a "growing Christmas feeling" as it approached Christmas Day. Agreeing to the project, Glan and his wife wrote the show quickly and the rest, of course, is history.

This "audition disc" runs approximately eight minutes on each side, with side two featuring a synopsis of the story spoken by Judy, Jimmy, and a cranky Cinnamon Bear.
Audition Disc Sleeve
Audition Disc Label - Side One
Audition Disc Label - Side Two

The Cinnamon Bear on Television

By the early 1950s, television had made considerable inroads into the broadcast markets formerly dominated by radio and retail advertisers began devoting more and more of their promotional dollars towards it. Recognizing the long-demonstrated ability of "The Cinnamon Bear" to attract children and their gift-buying parents to local department stores, a Chicago-based television station decided to produce a puppet version of the series. Apparently using the original radio recordings as a soundtrack, this visual representation of the series was sponsored by Wieboldt's Department Stores.

Very little is known about this production of the series - the programs were not known to have been recorded and no kinescopes seem to have survived - but evidence of it exists in a series of four 7" 78 RPM records containing the songs from the show, sold by Wieboldt's as a promotional item. These recordings offer an interesting audio footnote to the series, as the songs on these discs were not simply extracted from the radio series but, instead, transferred from the original 1937 music and vocal recordings made prior to the recording of the dialogue for individual episodes. Thus, we get the chance to hear the songs without any lead-in or mid-song dialogue - providing us for the first time with an "Original Cast Album" for "The Cinnamon Bear." The songs - nine in all - are included here in restored digital transfers from an original set of 78s, released by Gilwin Productions.

Never Say Boo to a Crazy Quilt Dragon
The Wailing Whale
Fraidy Cat
You'd Better Let the Bumble Bee Be
Lullaby
The Candy Buccaneers
The Cockleburr Cowboys
I'm Jack Frost
The Christmas Tree Parade
 

"The Cinnamon Bear" is, arguably, the best holiday series ever developed for radio. Containing all of the elements of a classic children's fantasy, combined with radio's unique ability to create vivid mental images in the minds of its listeners, it continues to delight both young and old. And now, for the first time, you can hear and enjoy "The Complete Cinnamon Bear" -- including all twenty-six original and unedited shows, the original 1937 promotional recording, and all of the songs from the series as transferred from an original set of 78 RPM recordings. Each of the programs has been digitally transferred directly from a set of original 16" broadcast transcriptions and painstakingly restored for outstanding audio fidelity - truly the best-sounding version of the series that has ever been released.

It's yet another triumph for Paddy and his band of travelers as, after seventy years, they once again carry on their magical search for the silver star.