and cast hold a seance: Jack Benny (April 25, 1954)

“and cast hold a seance” is an episode of Jack Benny, the old-time radio show, first broadcast April 25, 1954. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to The Jack Benny Program free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Jack Benny and his cast leave rehearsal for lunch at a drugstore, where a rude waitress and some money talk lead to plans for the evening. Don Wilson says he is attending a seance with a medium, so the group gathers at Jack's house, joined by Dennis Day and Phil Harris. Jack is fooled into taking part, and Rochester is pulled in to make up the needed circle of six. The medium, Madame Zimba, leads the spirit session, and the strange visitors include a message from Dennis's great-grandfather and the spirit of Diamond Jim Brady. The lunch and the seance both come from a Jack Benny episode broadcast on April 25, 1954, on NBC and CBS Radio.

Los Angeles: a drugstore lunch counter, then Jack Benny's house in the evening

Characters: Jack Benny, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Rochester, Mary Livingstone, Madame Zimba, Diamond Jim Brady

Listen for: The waitress's remarks, Don Wilson's announcement about the seance, and the spirit messages during the seance

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.