What happens
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello host their radio comedy program on NBC and ABC, with Rudy Vallee as guest. Costello is scolded by a professor and an aide over Vallee's supposedly false nose, and the scene dissolves into a rambling exchange of wordplay and insults. Vallee's business manager and head writer then arrive, bringing requests and bad jokes. The episode, first broadcast on February 15, 1945, moves to the staging of Jack and the Beanstalk, with Costello in the title role and Vallee setting the scene. The sketch is interrupted repeatedly, and the segment ends with Costello climbing the beanstalk.
A radio studio during a live broadcast of the Abbott and Costello program, with a guest appearance by Rudy Vallee and a Jack and the Beanstalk sketch.
Characters: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Rudy Vallee, Connie Haines, Professor Melon, Elvia Allman
Listen for: Costello's repeated interruptions of Vallee during the Jack and the Beanstalk sketch, and the closing ballad by Connie Haines.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.