What happens
Fred Allen hosts a comedy episode of his radio show, broadcast on November 11, 1945 on CBS and NBC, with Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious among the cast. Fred jokes with Kenny about his life story and the comical state of his hometown of Cambridge. Allen's Alley residents react to new post-war inventions, from aluminum suits to a magic Davenport. Monty Woolley visits Fred at a shabby theatrical hotel and, after complaining that radio crime dramas never show a mistake, agrees to play a bungling police official in a sketch called Mr. Mobbuster, which parodies the genre with a chicken-stealing criminal.
A radio studio comedy program and its satirical sketches, including Allen's Alley, a theatrical hotel room, and a police headquarters.
Characters: Fred Allen, Kenny Delmar, Portland Hoffa, Minerva Pious, Monty Woolley, Titus Moody, Mrs. Nussbaum, Senator Claghorn
Listen for: The Mr. Mobbuster sketch, in which Monty Woolley's police inspector hunts the criminal Charlie the Chicken.
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.