Missing Furniture: Father Knows Best (January 11, 1951)

Father Knows Best, old-time radio on Stupid Potato

“Missing Furniture” is an episode of Father Knows Best, the old-time radio show, first broadcast January 11, 1951. Listen free on Stupid Potato: no sign-up, no app.

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What happens

The Anderson family of Springfield argues over the worn rose chair in their living room, and the argument escalates into a sequence of misunderstandings. Father Jim, mother Margaret, and their children Betty, Bud and Kathy are the central characters. The episode is from the radio series Father Knows Best, first broadcast on January 11, 1951, with Robert Young as the father. When a radio contest gives the family an unexpected chance to swap furniture, the Andersons find themselves dealing with moving men and the consequences of their choices. The transcript covers only the first part of the episode, so the rest of the plot is not described here.

The Anderson home, a white frame house on Maple Street in Springfield

Characters: Jim Anderson, Margaret Anderson, Betty Anderson, Bud Anderson, Kathy Anderson, Joe Phillips, Janie Liggett

Listen for: The radio contest in which moving men remove furniture from the Anderson house, and the family's reactions as the furniture disappears

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.