What happens
Tallulah Bankhead hosts the debut broadcast of The Big Show, a Sunday variety program on NBC. Jimmy Durante, mocking his own appearance, jokes about a blind date and explains that he has been campaigning for a place on the show. Ethel Merman, Paul Lucas and Russell Knight then perform songs from the Broadway musical Call Me Madam, and Merman and Lucas trade anecdotes about their stage careers. Danny Thomas follows with a comic routine about a horse in a bathtub and a mother-in-law joke, and the broadcast closes with Mindy Carson introduced to sing.
A live NBC Sunday variety broadcast hosted by Tallulah Bankhead, with comedy, songs and banter among performers in a studio.
Characters: Tallulah Bankhead, Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman, Paul Lucas, Russell Knight, Danny Thomas, Mindy Carson
Listen for: Durante's blind date routine, the Call Me Madam songs, and Danny Thomas's horse-in-the-bathtub story.
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.