What happens
Jack Benny goes Christmas shopping at a Beverly Hills department store with his wife Mary Livingstone. Jack opens a charge account, then runs into trouble at the jewelry counter, where a watch he buys is supposed to have an unbreakable crystal. Their trips through the store bring them into contact with a series of pushy and difficult clerks and shoppers, while Jack tries to find gifts for his friends, including a golf gift for Don Wilson. The stop-and-start shopping routine and the sales-counter exchanges make up most of the broadcast. The series is the Jack Benny Program on NBC and CBS radio, and this December 17, 1950 episode stars Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris.
A Beverly Hills department store during the Christmas shopping season
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Phil Harris, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Mr. Kitsil
Listen for: The clerk at the jewelry counter who insists Jack should test the watch crystal with a hammer
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.