What happens
Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone shop for Christmas at a Beverly Hills department store, where Jack cannot decide on a pair of shoelaces. The episode, from the Jack Benny Program, first aired on December 8, 1946, on NBC and CBS Radio, with Benny, Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris in the leading roles. Jack keeps changing his mind about the metal or plastic tips while Mary grows impatient, and they run into a series of odd clerks, old acquaintances and minor mishaps around the store. Jack also struggles to find gifts for friends, employees and his sponsor, with each choice bringing new complications. Phil Harris appears at the lingerie counter, and Rochester is found shopping for a tie.
A department store in Beverly Hills during the Christmas shopping season
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Phil Harris, Don Wilson, Dennis
Listen for: Jack's indecision over the shoelaces and the store clerks' increasingly strange replies
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.