What happens
Mr. Allen, the owner of Mammoth Department Store, hires an efficiency man named Mr. Finchpenny to save the failing business. Finchpenny proposes cutting staff and advertising, but Allen fires him over his salary demands and decides to run the store himself. Allen walks the floors and finds the store in disarray, with customers waiting on each other and staff causing confusion. A customer orders goods from the store, and a supplier demands payment. The episode is a Christmas-season comedy from the Fred Allen series, first broadcast on December 25, 1932, with Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious in the cast.
Mammoth Department Store, shortly before Christmas
Characters: Fred Allen, Mr. Finchpenny, Portland Hoffa, Jenkins, Miss Swift, Professor Roy Atwell, Sandy
Listen for: Allen's attempts to run the store himself and the chaotic customer exchanges on the sales floor
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.