What happens
Fred Allen hosts another installment of Town Hall Tonight, mixing comic bits with music and guest interviews. Early on, a mock news segment and a parade of divorce cases present absurd marital disputes, with couples arguing over jokes, closet space, and cars. The show then turns to a phonetics teacher discussing New York speech, a segment in which a Pullman porter named Joe Cooper is interviewed about his years on the 20th Century Limited, and a rambling exchange between Fred Allen and his writer Harry Von Zell. The broadcast is a variety program featuring Allen's regular cast, including Portland Hoffa and Minerva Pious, and it originally aired in 1939 on CBS and NBC. Sponsor messages are interspersed throughout, and the program ends with a playful stunt involving the arrival of Jack Benny.
A live radio variety broadcast of Town Hall Tonight in New York City.
Characters: Fred Allen, Harry Von Zell, Peter Van Steeden, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar, Minerva Pious, Joe Cooper, Jack Benny
Listen for: The divorce cases and the Pullman porter interview, where Fred Allen's dry questions to Joe Cooper about tipping and upper berths draw out the comic exchange.
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.