What happens
Fred Allen hosts a live Town Hall variety show, mixing comedy sketches, music and mock news items with his regular cast of characters. The program follows the usual parade of bits: a comic street scene, a fake news report about a Tampa service that delivers drunk men home, and a conversation between Portland Hoffa and Fred about a particularly cold winter. Later, Minerva Pious and the cast present a sketch about a Christmas service company, and the show closes with a Scottish drama about a thrifty household awaiting a long-absent daughter. The broadcast is a 1936 CBS and NBC program, and Fred Allen and Portland Hoffa lead the cast.
A Town Hall variety show broadcast, with comedy sketches set in Tampa, New York and Scotland.
Characters: Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar, Minerva Pious, Harry, Peter Van Steeden, Maggie, Sandy MacAllan
Listen for: The Tampa news item about the drunk-delivery service and the Scottish sketch about the thrifty McAllan household.
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.