What happens
Fred Allen hosts a broadcast from the Town Hall, opening with lively banter, a mock news bulletin and a comic sketch about a revolver lesson at a wealthy Vanderbilt household. Later segments include a bank robbery gag and a pet-shop conversation. The episode is part of the Fred Allen radio series, first aired on October 16, 1935, with Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar and Minerva Pious among the cast. Within the broadcast, a skit called Murder in the Dark, or Who Killed Kirk Rubin is staged by the Allen Art Players, in which a detective called One Long Pan questions a household and reenacts the death of Kirk Rubin.
A radio variety broadcast from the Town Hall, with comic sketches set in a New York household, a bank, a pet shop and a murder-mystery house.
Characters: Fred Allen, Portland Hoffa, Kenny Delmar, Minerva Pious, Tiny, Willoughby, Mrs. Vanderbilt, One Long Pan
Listen for: The mock Town Hall news items and the Murder in the Dark skit, where the detective One Long Pan reconstructs the death of Kirk Rubin.
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.