Gildersleeve invites a few servicemen to his house for Thanksgiving, but... Things begin to become more disrupting than he thought it would be. Harold Perry is Gildersleeve... Willard Waterman took over the role when Perry wanted a bigger salary from NBC. They fired him and replaced him with a man who looked very much like him and sounded like him as well. In fact the switch was so perfect, it took some time before the listening audience even realized it had happened!