What happens
Jack Benny hosts a New Year's Eve program on the Jack Benny series, first broadcast on December 31, 1950, with Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris. Before the midnight hour, the cast trades jokes and banter, Mary reads a letter from her mother, and Phil announces he plans to take up gardening in the new year. Dennis Day arrives in a hurry, and Rochester phones in from a party. The program then turns to its annual New Year's fantasy, in which the old year packs to leave and the new year prepares to arrive, with Uncle Sam and Columbia appearing among the characters.
A radio studio on New Year's Eve, with a New Year's fantasy set around midnight
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Eddie Anderson, Rochester, Don Wilson, Uncle Sam
Listen for: Benny's New Year's Eve fantasy, in which the old year 1950 packs to leave and Uncle Sam and the world greet the new year
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.