What happens
Fred Allen and his regular cast of characters open the final broadcast of the year with a round of jokes and a rundown of 1947's big news. Each guest is asked what they consider the outstanding event of the year, and their answers lead into a series of comic sketches. Fred Allen's show, heard on CBS and NBC in December 1947, features Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious among its performers. Monty Woolley visits the program, and his mishap with a broken cuckoo clock at a department store becomes the central thread of the evening.
The Fred Allen Show's studio broadcast, with the comic sketches set in a village alley, a fictional department store called Gimbel's, and its complaint department
Characters: Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar, Minerva Pious, Monty Woolley
Listen for: Monty Woolley's exchange of a broken cuckoo clock at the department store, and the escalating series of mix-ups with its clerks
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.