What happens
On a crisp autumn afternoon, Gildersleeve watches football practice at the junior high school, where the principal, Miss Irene Hinshaw, is also on his mind. Dr. Olson, a young rival, joins the field and a rivalry over Irene begins to take shape. Gildersleeve and Olson keep trading jabs about their football pasts, their health and their dates with Irene. Wounded pride and competing invitations push the two men into a series of challenges. This is an episode of The Great Gildersleeve, first broadcast on NBC on November 18, 1953, starring Harold Peary, Willard Waterman, Lillian Randolph and Lurene Tuttle.
A junior high school athletic field in autumn, then Gildersleeve's home, a sporting goods shop and a gymnasium.
Characters: Gildersleeve, Irene Hinshaw, Dr. Olson, Leroy, Piggy, Birdie, Peavey, Brock Morton
Listen for: Olson's badminton challenge and Gildersleeve's reaction to Irene's growing interest in the young doctor.
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.