What happens
Fred Allen opens his show with his usual cast of regulars, including announcer Harry Von Zell, singer Portland Hoffa, and Peter Van Steeden's orchestra. The program moves through a series of comic sketches about crowded New York rooming houses, featuring a tenant whose closet holds a border and a young woman who loses her bath water when a fire breaks out. Poet Thondike Swinburne reads a poem about a crowded rooming house, and a dramatized skit follows an actor whose room is shared by a sword swallower's neighbors. Later segments include a talking waiter gag and an interview with David Ludmerer of the Statue of Liberty. The series aired in 1940 on CBS and NBC.
The Fred Allen Show studio, with sketches set in New York City rooming houses, a town hall tea shop, and the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island
Characters: Fred Allen, Harry Von Zell, Portland Hoffa, Peter Van Steeden, Thondike Swinburne, Gladys Snaveley, David Ludmerer, Yandall Baxter
Listen for: The rooming house sketches and Fred Allen's interview with David Ludmerer about the Statue of Liberty
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.