What happens
Jack Benny and his touring company spend Christmas Eve aboard a train, where Jack decorates a Christmas tree in the observation car with help from Rochester, using oranges, bananas and torn timetables as ornaments. The mood shifts as the group drifts through the train, bickering with the conductor and trading jokes with Mary Livingstone and Phil Harris. The program then turns to its annual New Year's Eve fantasy, Father Time Rides Again, in which Jack plays Old Man 1940 and Mary plays his wife as their lease on the house called the Earth runs out at midnight. This broadcast is part of the Jell-O program, and the cast includes Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson and Phil Harris. The episode first aired on 1940-12-29.
A Union Pacific train passing through Nebraska on Christmas Eve, followed by a New Year's Eve fantasy set in a great big house called the Earth
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Don Wilson, Old Man 1940, Mrs. 1940
Listen for: Jack decorating the Christmas tree on the train with Rochester, and the mock New Year's fantasy in which Old Man 1940 and Mrs. 1940 prepare to leave the Earth at midnight
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.