What happens
Jim Anderson decides his wife Margaret should learn to drive so she is not dependent on others, and he promises the family car to a Red Cross volunteer effort taking wounded veterans to a dance in Plainville. Margaret is nervous but agrees, and Jim sets out to teach her the basics in a single day, with the children eager to ride along. The family's efforts to make the lesson work involve plenty of confusion over the clutch, the gears, the ignition and the brake. The Father Knows Best series, originally broadcast on June 21, 1951, centers on the Anderson household in Springfield. The lead actors named in the transcript are Robert Young as Jim Anderson and June Whitley as Betty.
The Anderson home on Maple Street in Springfield, and the family car on the streets of town
Characters: Jim Anderson, Margaret Anderson, Betty Anderson, Bud Anderson, Kathy Anderson, Dorothy, Janie Liggett
Listen for: Margaret's first attempts to start the car, shift gears and stop it, and Jim's increasingly exasperated instructions
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.