What happens
Fred Allen and his sponsor's ideas about giving things away open the show, with Kenny Delmar, Portland Hoffa and Minerva Pious around him in the familiar Alley. A cab driver has a dispute with Fred over an unpaid fare, and the two end up at a radio studio where Phil Baker is running his quiz program Take It or Leave It. Fred is picked as a contestant under another name, and the cabbie joins in the scheme. The Fred Allen show, broadcast on January 6, 1946, is built around the Alley characters, a quiz game and a series of comic misunderstandings.
A radio studio and the Alley of the Fred Allen show, with a city cab and street scenes in New York.
Characters: Fred Allen, Kenny Delmar, Portland Hoffa, Minerva Pious, Phil Baker, Senator Claghorn, Titus Moody, Mrs. Knowspahr
Listen for: Fred's cab fare dispute with the driver and the quiz game on Take It or Leave It.
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.