What happens
Riley, a family man with a hunger for self-improvement, buys an old encyclopedia-style book to impress his daughter Babs and her college friends. At home he mixes up his facts while a radio quiz show, the Crackpot Jackpot, airs in the background. His wife Peg and his neighbor Gillis offer their own opinions on his reading and his family. The Life of Riley, a radio comedy from 1948, stars William Bendix as Riley, with Paula Winslowe and Hans Conried among the cast.
A middle-class household in the late 1940s, with the radio on and the Riley family home, plus the neighbor's house.
Characters: Riley, Peg, Babs, Gillis, Howard Christie, Digby, Emily, Lily Verne
Listen for: Riley's garbled attempts to recall the definition of an aardvark, and his misunderstandings of the radio quiz show.
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.