What happens
Orson Welles fills in for Jack Benny on the Jack Benny program, broadcast on April 4, 1943, with Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester and Don Wilson. Before the show, the cast gathers at a Hollywood drugstore, where Benny is reported to be recovering and returning the following week. Welles announces that the evening's feature will be a comic version of Little Red Riding Hood, and he assigns the parts to the cast. Rochester announces he is leaving Benny's service, and Dennis Day sings a song. The story follows the play's familiar framework, with the cast taking on the roles of farmer, daughter, son, grandmother and wolf.
A Hollywood drugstore at the NBC building, then the studio, and the fairy-tale farmhouse and woods of the Little Red Riding Hood play
Characters: Orson Welles, Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, Don Wilson, Cliff
Listen for: Welles and the cast tossing jokes about the drugstore staff, the mock Red Riding Hood play, and Dennis Day's song
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.