What happens
Orson Welles guest-hosts the Jack Benny program in place of the ailing Jack Benny, joined by Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Rochester and Phil Harris, who returns after a three-month absence. The broadcast is a comic, loosely structured romp in which Welles presides over the studio with mounting eccentricity. He wants the orchestra enlarged and tries to change the sponsor's product, while Phil Harris misreads Shakespeare and Dennis Day asks for a raise. Andy Devine, Rita Hayworth-style gags and a phone call from Rochester about Benny's illness fill out the evening. The episode aired on March 14, 1943, on NBC and CBS Radio, and this account covers only the early portion of the show.
A radio studio during a Grape Nuts Flakes broadcast, with Orson Welles guest-hosting for Jack Benny.
Characters: Orson Welles, Don Wilson, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Miss Harrington, Andy Devine, Rochester, Jack Benny
Listen for: Welles's grand demands for a larger orchestra and his takeover of the sponsor's product, and Phil Harris's mangled Shakespeare reading.
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.