What happens
Father Knows Best is a half-hour family comedy about the Anderson household on Maple Street. Jim Anderson, played by Robert Young, and his wife Margaret, with their children Betty, Bud and Kathy, are preparing to go out one cold March evening when Kathy discovers a robin huddled outside the kitchen window. The bird is out of season and clearly in trouble, and the family begins to disrupt its plans to care for it. The episode aired on March 26, 1953, and is presented as a transcribed broadcast from Hollywood. The story follows the family's efforts to feed and warm the bird while the evening's engagements pile up around them.
The Anderson kitchen on Maple Street, a white frame house, on a cold March evening
Characters: Jim Anderson, Margaret Anderson, Betty Anderson, Bud Anderson, Kathy Anderson, Ralph, Joe Phillips, Mrs. Kirby
Listen for: Kathy's worry for the injured robin and the family's escalating efforts to nurse it with milk, bread crumbs and an eyedropper
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.