What happens
Nifty Miller, the barker for Colonel Gaudy's traveling carnival, learns that his son Chris has come to join the show for the summer. Nifty wants the boy to finish school and become a lawyer, and he has tension with Carrie, a dancer he has been seeing, who resents the boy's arrival. Lou, the snake charmer, is also bitter toward Nifty after their own break-up, and the carnival crowds and rivalries shape daily life on the midway. Claudette Colbert plays Lou, Walter Houston plays Nifty, and Norman Foster plays Chris in this 1936 Lux Radio Theatre production, broadcast on July 20, 1936, starring the leads named in the program. The account stops partway through the story, as the performance does.
A traveling carnival midway and tent show, with its sideshow, office wagon and dressing tent, during a summer stop in town.
Characters: Nifty Miller, Chris Miller, Lou, Carrie, Colonel Gaudy, Hap, Princess Calima
Listen for: Nifty's attempts to keep Chris on the path to law school, and Lou's scheme to turn Chris against his father.
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.