What happens
Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a Summerfield citizen newly arrived in town, is recruited by Judge Hooker and Ted Swanson of the Clean Government Association to investigate suspicious conditions at the city jail. Believing that a respectable newcomer would be a perfect undercover investigator, they urge him to have himself arrested for a minor offense. Gildersleeve reluctantly agrees, despite his claustrophobia, and sets out downtown with his nephew Leroy and niece Marjorie to pick a fight with a policeman. His attempts to get arrested prove surprisingly difficult. The episode is from The Great Gildersleeve, first broadcast on NBC on October 5, 1941, starring Harold Peary, Willard Waterman, Lillian Randolph and Lurene Tuttle.
Summerfield, a small city; the downtown streets and the city jail
Characters: Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, Judge Hooker, Ted Swanson, Leroy, Marjorie, Bertie, Sponge
Listen for: Gildersleeve's repeated, comically unsuccessful attempts to get himself arrested, and his jail cellmate Sponge.
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.