Fred Allen – Texaco Star Theater – All Is Not Gold That Glitters. 410108.

Backed up by the Al Goodman orchestra, The Merrymacks open with, Smile in Your Heart. Kenny Baker gives Fred grief when he wants to act in the play later. The News of the week centers on the foggy weather of late. Fred interviews a handful of characters to poke as much fun at it as he can squeeze in. Kenny Baker sings, You Walked By.

The musical interlude by Al Goodman is, Pasidia. The running gag about Kenny’s acting keeps up to include bandleader, Al Goodman, and even Portland tries to get in on the action. After Fred and Portland get in some jokes at Jack Benny, and his cast, he interviews a man with an unusual occupation. Mr Brennan is a smoke stack watcher. Though Fred takes a humorous look at the dirty job, he just might be ahead of his time when it comes to focusing on dirty jobs. Maybe someday they’ll make a cable TV show about something like that. Imagine… a show about dirty jobs… I wonder what they’d call it?

The Merrymacks sing, The Story of a Home.

Fred brings out his panelists for the roundtable discussion. A statistician, a fortune teller, and a man with an unusual name. The question is one about marriage, “Should a man read the morning paper at the breakfast table?” Kenny sings, Beautiful Dreamer.

The Texaco Workshop Players perform a spoof on radio give away shows. The play is titled, All Is Not Gold that Glitters. It takes a look at the lives of the lucky winners of sweepstakes contests.

PS: Fred sure was ahead of his time. The reality is that often winners of lotteries, or sweepstakes find themselves broke, or in lives that are as bad off as they were before they won it big.