Promoting The Product: The Phil Harris (January 25, 1953)

The Phil Harris, old-time radio on Stupid Potato

“Promoting The Product” is an episode of The Phil Harris, the old-time radio show, first broadcast January 25, 1953. Listen free on Stupid Potato: no sign-up, no app.

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What happens

Phil Harris is called to an RCA Victor board meeting, where he and his associate Elliot Lewis are asked to help promote the company's new 1953 television sets. Vice president Mr. Prescott wants Phil to make a personal appearance at a Beverly Hills department store, and Phil has a plan involving his wife Alice Faye. The first part of the episode, from The Phil Harris Alice Faye Show, aired on NBC on January 25, 1953, with Phil Harris, Alice Faye, Elliott Lewis and Gale Gordon in the cast. Phil tries to sell sets from the showroom floor and gets himself and his friends into trouble.

RCA Victor board of directors office, then a Beverly Hills department store's television department, January 1953

Characters: Phil Harris, Elliot Lewis, Alice Faye, Mr. Prescott, Julius

Listen for: Phil's attempts to sell television sets on the store floor and the escalating trouble that follows

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.