What happens
Jack Benny opens the season's first show from New York, broadcast from Ebbets Field, with his cast nervously preparing before air. Mary Livingstone, Don Wilson, Phil Harris and Dennis Day gather in the studio as Benny frets over the script and the sponsor, Mr. Mortimer, arrives to hear the show. Benny and the cast trade jokes about the city, the crowds, and Brooklyn baseball, and the program moves through its opening segments with commercials, banter, and a song by Dennis Day. The opening broadcast of Jack Benny's 1941 season, a half-hour comedy show, is underway.
A radio studio in New York City, the opening broadcast of the season, with references to Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Don Wilson, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, Mr. Mortimer
Listen for: Benny's nervous rehearsals and the sponsor's arrival before the broadcast, Rochester's phone call about a bet on the Louis-Nova fight, and Benny's account of his trip to the ballgame without his glasses.
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.