What happens
Fred Allen hosts Town Hall Tonight, a comedy variety show, and the transcript covers the program's opening skits and sketches. A broadcast from the Town Hall studio features a courtroom mock-trial, a parody of a family evening at home, and a restaurant scene. Allen's regular cast of characters appears, including Portland Hoffa and Kenny Delmar. The later part of the broadcast turns to a radio studio, where comedian Boulevard Bollywood prepares for a live sponsored show and discovers that his joke book has gone missing. The series is Fred Allen, the episode aired on May 20, 1936, and the lead actors are Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious.
The Town Hall studio in New York City, with sketches set in a courtroom, a house, a restaurant, a theatrical agency and a radio studio.
Characters: Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar, Minerva Pious, Harry Von Zell, Peter Van Steeden, Mrs. Bogg, Lester Vail
Listen for: The courtroom mock-trial and the radio studio scene in which the comedian's missing joke book is discovered.
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.