What happens
Jim Anderson, the father of a typical American family in Springfield, finds the family placed on a party line when a phone company repair leaves them sharing a line with strangers. Margaret worries about impressing Mrs. Sheridan, a socially prominent woman, while Bud and Kathy try to drive the other callers off the line with a made-up story about gangsters. Meanwhile Jim is puzzled after a young woman in another car smiles at him, and the family's teasing begins. The episode is an installment of Father Knows Best, a 1954 NBC radio program starring Robert Young, first broadcast on February 4, 1954.
The Anderson home, a white frame house on Maple Street in Springfield
Characters: Jim Anderson, Margaret Anderson, Bud Anderson, Betty Anderson, Kathy Anderson, Mrs. Sheridan, Pauline Chambers
Listen for: Bud and Kathy's staged gangster conversation on the party line, and the phone call from the woman who smiled at Jim
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.