What happens
Jack Benny hosts an episode of his radio show with Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris and Dennis Day. The cast quarrels about Don's eighth anniversary on the program, and Jack insists on starting a parody of Tobacco Road. Mary, Jack and Don read the opening scenes of the play, in which the Lester family plans to raise money by marrying off their daughter Ellie May. Heather Noodleman, cast as Ellie May, is judged too heavy for the part. The transcript breaks off before the play's ending. The show is broadcast on NBC and CBS Radio, dated March 23, 1941.
A radio studio in Hollywood, California, during a live broadcast of The Jack Benny Program, followed by a comedic reading of a Tobacco Road parody set in the rundown Lester family shack in the South.
Characters: Jack Benny, Don Wilson, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Heather Noodleman, Jeter Lester, Ellie May
Listen for: Don Wilson's eighth anniversary grievance, Jack's ongoing feud with Don, and the comic back-and-forth in the Tobacco Road sketch.
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.