What happens
Lou Costello arrives in New York from California, and his partner Bud Abbott soon finds him behaving strangely. Costello receives a telegram inviting him to Paterson, New Jersey, where the city plans to honor him with a day in his name. Costello, who has never given a speech, enlists the help of a self-styled public speaking expert, Professor Melonhead, to prepare him. Their lessons are full of confusion, and when Costello returns to his hometown he meets old schoolmates, neighbors and former gang members. The episode is a comedy of mistaken identities and nonsense talk, broadcast on NBC and ABC in 1945 with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the leads, and the sponsor is Camel cigarettes.
New York City and Paterson, New Jersey, in the 1940s
Characters: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Professor Melonhead, Connie Haines, Miss Blackboard, Mr. Hackett, Mayor LaGuardia
Listen for: Costello's struggle to learn public speaking from Professor Melonhead, and his reunion with old schoolmates and neighbors in Paterson
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.