Listeners contributed approximately three thousand jokes a week. Host Peter Donald told the best of these jokes while a "laugh meter" took note of the audience reaction. The "Knights of the Clown Table" — Ford, cartoonist Harry Hershfield and Joe Laurie, Jr. — would attempt to top listeners with their own jokes. Any submission used on the program won ten dollars. Each time a panelist failed to top the listener (as registered on the laugh meter), an additional five dollars was added, so a listener could potentially win $25. Further, listeners were also given phonograph recordings of Peter Donald telling their jokes. The panelists claimed that together they knew over 15,000 jokes.