What happens
Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone talk about where to spend their summer vacation, weighing China, Europe and a seaside hotel, while Phil Harris and Kenny Baker bicker over the costs. Benny then introduces a comic parody of Eugene O'Neill's play Ah, Wilderness, in which he plays the stern father and Livingstone the mother, and a small New England family frets over their teenage son, Wilderness. The program aired on NBC and CBS Radio on May 16, 1937 as part of the Jell-O series, with Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris in the leading roles.
A radio studio broadcast, and within the comic play, a small town in New England near Boston.
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Kenny Baker, Don Wilson, Eddie Anderson, Wilderness, Paul
Listen for: The running joke about the expensive summer trips, and the scene where the father reads aloud the misspelled love letter Wilderness wrote to Annabelle Thompson.
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.