What happens
The Fred Allen radio show's Town Hall variety program opens with its usual stage-setting and a string of comic bulletins. Fred Allen and his regulars Harry Von Zell and Portland Hoffa trade wisecracks as the audience files into the hall. Fred presents a mock news segment on the Metropolitan Opera season, interviewing a parade of comic characters about their experiences. Later he speaks with Mrs. Ida Covington, a woman who runs an ice business in Long Ridge, Connecticut, and asks how she cuts, stores and delivers ice. The broadcast includes a quartet number, a contest, and a mix of sponsor messages and jokes in the closing minutes. Original air date March 23, 1938. Lead actors Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious.
A radio variety show broadcast from the Town Hall, with comic mock news and interviews.
Characters: Fred Allen, Harry Von Zell, Portland Hoffa, Peter, Truman Bradley, Miss Poindexter Swank, Miss Pocahontas Quince, Fritz Lump
Listen for: Fred's interview with the ice lady, Mrs. Ida Covington, about how she cuts and delivers ice.
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.