Ep06 Clifton Webb Jimmy Durante

# The Big Show - Episode 6: Clifton Webb & Jimmy Durante

Step into Studio 8-H at Rockefeller Center as The Big Show opens its doors for an evening of unscripted brilliance and star-studded spectacle. Tonight, the incomparable Clifton Webb—Broadway's most elegant sophisticate—squares off against the vaudeville tornado that is Jimmy Durante, and the collision of these two comedic titans promises to be nothing short of electric. Webb's acerbic wit and impeccable timing meet Durante's explosive physical comedy and rasping, inimitable voice in a series of sketches that will have you roaring with laughter. Between their performances, expect the kind of musical interludes that only NBC's golden-age variety programming could deliver: orchestral arrangements that shimmer through your radio speaker, singers poised between pop and operetta, and the unmistakable electricity of a live audience drinking in every moment of pure entertainment.

What makes this episode a snapshot of radio's most glorious era is its very nature as live theater transmitted directly into American homes. The Big Show, running from 1950 to 1952 on Sunday nights, represented the last great gasp of the variety format before television would claim dominance—though this particular broadcast, recorded during the late 1940s, captures that transitional moment when radio comedy was reaching its absolute peak of sophistication and ambition. Webb and Durante were already legends, beloved across mediums, and their appearance together signals NBC's commitment to delivering nothing but the biggest names and broadest entertainment.

Tune in now and experience the spontaneity, the star power, and the sheer infectious joy that defined American entertainment in its most glittering age. This is live radio at its finest—where anything could happen and usually did.