DiscoverProject Audion: Classic Audio Dramas for Modern Times"Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan" tribute recreation of the 1940s radio variety show
"Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan" tribute recreation of the 1940s radio variety show

"Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan" tribute recreation of the 1940s radio variety show

Update: 2025-08-09
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You know Jimmy Durante, even if you think you don't -- the fellow was so famous for so many decades that just a caricature of his face was once enough to elicit a smile. His outsized "Schnozz" matched the outsized personality from the 1920s through the 1970s. Even today his catchphrases and songs endure. You can hear Durante singing in the "Joker" movie of 2019, imitated in the "Lion King," in Warner Bros cartoons, and  every year in beloved animated Christmas specials. 

In this Audion Original, Pete Lutz revisits this unique talent, imagining a brand-new late-1940s episode of the Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan with his on-air partner (and future TV host) Garry Moore, plus guest stars Sydney Greenstreet and Rose Marie. It's a half-hour of the kind of variety show that radio once did so often and so well. "Everyone wants ta' get inta de act!" and here they do, for a marvelous half-hour of mirth and music with:

Pete Lutz, in Texas, as Jimmy Durante
Bob Beaumont, in California, as Garry Moore
Scott McKinley, in New Jersey, as Sidney Greenstreet
Jessica Matthews, in Texas, as Rose Marie
Laura Mirsky in New Jersey, as Vera Vague
Sheree Whichard, in New York, as Florence Halop
Trevor Rines, in Ontario Canada, as Candy Candido
Andy Hartson-Bowyer, in Virginia, as  Verne Smith

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"Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan" tribute recreation of the 1940s radio variety show

"Jimmy Durante Comedy Caravan" tribute recreation of the 1940s radio variety show

Pete Lutz