Krampus Takes the Microphone: A Christmas Discovery from Stupid Potato

The BON TON listening room · A Christmas discovery

A Christmas devil at the microphone, old radio voices in the dark, and a soundtrack that moves from rockabilly to something considerably more unruly. Meet Stupid Potato.

We have a particular affection for the stranger corners of Christmas. Among the candles, ribbons and beautifully dressed trees, there is room for the horned visitor at the edge of the forest, the story told after the children have gone to bed, and the sound of a radio playing in a warmly lit room.

So when Stupid Potato introduced us to Krampus Kristmas, their seasonal radio channel, it felt like a discovery made for our Christmas world. We love Krampus. A station that lets him take the microphone is an idea we were always going to want to explore.

What follows is a little guide to the people and archive behind Stupid Potato, its Christmas listening rooms, and the tales and musical mischief waiting behind the play button.

A new station with an old-radio heart

Stupid Potato’s own history is recent. In a profile published on November 8, 2026, Wellesnet’s Ray Kelly reported that the service had launched the previous month. Its founder, Tiberius Osburn of Kansas City, is an enthusiast for old-time radio, especially Westerns.

According to that account, Osburn wanted to remove the obstacles that often came between a listener and an old broadcast: intrusive introductions, modern advertising and difficult recordings. He handles the service himself, from website work to audio restoration, reducing hiss, hum and rumble and balancing volume between programmes. Searchable transcripts are another part of the project.

The same profile describes an Orson Welles channel spanning his radio work from 1937 to 1952, including the Mercury and Campbell Playhouse broadcasts and appearances in detective and suspense series. It is a revealing starting point: the attraction is not only nostalgia, but the chance to hear a performance without spending the evening trying to find it.

A cabinet of voices

The wider Stupid Potato site brings together continuous radio channels, podcasts, cartoons and storybooks. Comedy, detective stories, Westerns, science fiction and radio theatre each have a place. For Christmas, it offers several distinct musical worlds, from early recordings to quiet jazz. The homepage lists Krampus Kristmas as a new channel on November 8.

There is a lovely correspondence between this kind of listening and collecting Christmas objects. An old ornament asks us to pause over its shape and expression; a radio play asks us to attend to a voice, a silence, a footstep. Both leave something for the imagination to complete.

Krampus, on the air

Krampus Kristmas combines original songs, short horror tales, folklore features and vintage Christmas commercials. Its fictional host brings the whole enterprise together. The station describes itself as campy PG-13, aimed at adults and brave teenagers rather than as a children’s channel.

The musical range is part of the joke: doom metal, punk, rockabilly, surf, synth-pop, tango and yodelling find their way into the seasonal mix. Among the on-demand titles are Hot Coal Boogie, 8-Bit Krampus and The Black Sack. A recurring Christmas sound binds the different styles together.

We like the imaginative audacity of it. A Christmas interior can hold elegance and humour in the same room; its soundtrack can, too. There is a time for hushed strings, and another for a monster with excellent radio manners.

The tales: small disturbances in familiar rooms

The Krampus Kristmas podcast gathers thirty original short stories. The episode descriptions move between domestic unease and mischievous fantasy: familiar Christmas objects begin behaving in unfamiliar ways. Here are four places to start, without giving away their endings.

The attraction of a short tale is its completeness. Put aside a few minutes, listen to one story all the way through, and let its little world close before returning to the evening. It is a different pleasure from letting a station run in the background.

Folklore, with a raised eyebrow

The Krampus’s Kousins segments introduce figures including Belsnickel, Frau Perchta, Grýla, the Yule Cat and the Mari Lwyd. Ten short cartoons add another playful, cautionary strand. These are contemporary productions drawing on older seasonal imagery, rather than historical broadcasts.

The older voices in the archive

Alongside its new Krampus material, Stupid Potato has a scary Christmas radio collection drawing on Suspense, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Escape and The Mysterious Traveler. Its listings supply broadcast dates and story descriptions.

Two useful beginnings are Suspense’s Back for Christmas, listed for December 23, 1943, and The Whistler’s Christmas Bonus, from December 25, 1944. The first turns a planned journey and a domestic relationship towards suspense; the second centres on a former convict trying to rebuild his life when money disappears at his workplace.

That is a different kind of Christmas darkness from the station’s original Krampus tales: recognisable human circumstances, played out through voices and sound.

Other rooms in the Christmas house

Krampus may be the reason we first tuned in, but Stupid Potato has other seasonal channels worth keeping close. Think of them as different rooms: the quiet sitting room, the bright kitchen, the room where somebody has put on an old record and started remembering.

A small listening plan

Krampus at BON TON

We will be playing the station regularly in the shop, with particular enthusiasm for Krampus Night on Saturday, December 5. Among our own Krampus figures, it feels like a very appropriate new voice in the room.

The small painted face, the bundle of switches, the exaggerated silhouette: a physical Christmas figure and a fictional radio host approach the same character in different ways. One occupies the shelf; the other brings an imaginary world into the air around it.