Radio Play: The Plot to Overthrow Christmas

Overview
Norman Corwin's 1938 radio play "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas" is a whimsical yet pointed fantasia that pits the spirit of Christmas against a cabal of malice, cynicism, and bureaucratic cunning. Told in Corwin's playful, rhetorical prose, the piece folds satire, fantasy, and moral debate into a single broadcast-length fable that treats Santa Claus as both symbol and character. The play uses imagination and humor to stage a contest between joy and the organized forces that would smother it.
Corwin frames the story as a kind of parody of a conspiracy, complete with minute attention to motive and method. What begins as the assembling of sinister operatives quickly becomes a courtroom of ideas, a parade of unlikely emissaries, and a spirited defense of the small human habits , gift-giving, wonder, and neighborliness , that keep Christmas alive. The result is part moral alegory, part seasonal entertainment, delivered with a sly seriousness that respects its audience's intelligence.

Plot
A coalition of villainous figures gathers to devise a method for stopping Santa Claus from delivering toys to children on Christmas Eve. Their plan is not merely to steal presents but to unravel the very notion of Christmas by turning children and adults into disbelievers, consumers, or resentful skeptics. The conspirators imagine mechanical, legal, and psychological schemes , a mix of comic absurdity and dark efficiency , aimed at making the season powerless.
Santa, however, is not an inert target. Confrontations ensue that are less physical than rhetorical: the play stages debates, appeals, and demonstrations of why generosity and faith resist being bureaucratized or extinguished. Corwin gives weight to seemingly ordinary gestures and memories, allowing small acts of kindness and stubborn delight to undo the villains' logic. The resolution reinforces a conviction that Christmas endures through human choice and the persistence of wonder.

Characters and Themes
Corwin populates the drama with a vibrant roster of characters, some anthropomorphic embodiments of vices and others recognizable cultural types. The antagonists represent a gallery of haters: professional spoilsports, profiteers, and ideologues who prefer order, calculation, and control over spontaneous joy. Santa embodies continuity, folklore, and generosity; he is both a figure of myth and an agent of human warmth.
Major themes include the power of imagination, the resilience of communal rituals, and the critique of modernity's corrosive tendencies. Corwin interrogates how cynicism, commercialism, and organized bitterness can erode public life, but he refuses mere didacticism by celebrating the eccentric, the personal, and the generous. The play's humor undercuts despair while its earnestness resists cynicism, making its moral argument persuasive without being heavy-handed.

Style and Legacy
The play showcases Corwin's signature lyrical voice and mastery of radio's capacities: rapid-fire dialogue, narrative asides, and sound-rich staging that turns listening into theater. The writing balances satire with sincere affection, and it uses theatrical devices to make abstract ideas feel immediate and human. Music and sound effects punctuate moments of mischief and revelation, framing the intellectual contest as a theatrical delight.
Since its first broadcast the piece has endured as a seasonal favorite and as an example of radio drama's golden age: entertaining, timely, and thoughtful. Its blend of comedy and conscience continues to speak to audiences who appreciate a spirited defense of generosity against the many pressures that would undermine it, and it remains one of Corwin's most memorable and warmly quoted scripts.