What happens
Joe, a drifter who has always wished for a lucky break, finds a humming gray machine in his cheap hotel room. Labeled a Class A Utilizer, it seems to grant whatever he asks for. Joe uses it to buy a mountain estate, then a grand palace in a Central American republic, while agents from strange services arrive to ask questions about its use. The series X Minus One, broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Galaxy magazine, presents this story, adapted from Robert Checkley's tale of the same name. The episode's air date is April 10, 1957, and the cast includes Joseph Julian as Joe, with Danny Aco, Jack McGregor, John Gibson, Wendell Holmes, Ralph Bell and Karen Ford.
A cheap hotel room in New York, then an estate in the Adirondacks and a palace in a Central American republic, and a future society that runs on credit and utilization services
Characters: Joe, Flint, Jang
Listen for: Joe's escalating requests to the Utilizer and Flint's explanation of the credit bill
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.