What happens
The Comic Weekly Man reads the funnies from Puck the Comic Weekly to a young listener, Little Miss Penny. First he reads Beetle Bailey, in which Beetle and his army friends draw up a list of complaints for their sergeant, and the sergeant mistakenly carries out Beetle's suggestions as the captain's orders. Then comes the start of The Sword and the Rose, a Walt Disney story set at the court of King Henry VIII of England in 1514, where Charles Brandon defeats the Duke of Buckingham in a wrestling match before the king. Roy Rogers is also read, and Dagwood and Blondie, Brer Rabbit, Dick's adventures aboard Robert Fulton's steamboat, and Rusty Riley are introduced as the reading continues.
A living room, with the funnies read aloud from a comic weekly, moving through several comic strips set in an army camp, medieval England, the American West, a suburban neighbourhood, and early nineteenth-century America.
Characters: Comic Weekly Man, Little Miss Penny, Beetle Bailey, Sergeant, Captain, King Henry, Charles Brandon, Duke of Buckingham
Listen for: The start of the Sword and the Rose story and the wrestling match at Windsor Castle, along with the readings of Beetle Bailey and Roy Rogers.
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.