What happens
Jack Benny, hosting his radio program, chats with Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris about the busy weeks before Christmas. Benny complains about the strain of making a new Paramount western, and Harris claims to be a rival of Gary Cooper in it. A wager over a college football game turns into a quarrel, and Wilson writes a short Christmas play in which Benny plays Santa Claus and reads letters from the program's cast. Benny then goes shopping with Mary Livingstone, and they have a series of mishaps at the watch, perfume and necktie counters while trying to find gifts for Don Wilson, Phil Harris and Rochester.
The Jell-O program broadcast from NBC in the weeks before Christmas, then a crowded department store in Hollywood.
Characters: Jack Benny, Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, Gary Cooper
Listen for: Benny's department store encounters with the watch clerk, the perfume salesman and the floorwalker, and Rochester's choice at the necktie counter.
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.