Gunsmoke Blooper - The New Hotel

Gunsmoke Blooper

I hope that you have been enjoying the many great shows featuring William Conrad that we have added to RUSC recently and now I'd like to draw your attention to a very special episode, a rehearsal show not one of the regular broadcasts that's for sure.

The show I am referring to is an episode of Gunsmoke called The New Hotel. The broadcast date was the 19th February 1956 and it stars William Conrad, Parley Baer, Georgia Ellis and Howard McNear. What's so special about this particular show you ask.

It's so funny.  The cast cracks up laughing all the time, can't stop and can barely get through their lines, swear, purposely try to make Conrad laugh with a squeaky horn in the back ground - which at times sounds like a Spike Jones set - to which Matt replies "Hi John". We loved it. The first hint that something was different was after about 4 minutes when Matt says to Kitty as she drives up in what sounds like an old automobile..." Kitty get that God Damn thing outta here"...  it's all down hill from here.
 
The laughter of the cast was so infectious it had Joy and I laughing out loud. Apparently the cast often had so much fun in the making of Gunsmoke that it became known amongst them as "dirty Saturday". Vic Perrin who, along with other Hollywood radio players, was one of the shows regular character actors once said, "that doing Gunsmoke was more fun than attending the Academy Awards." Just listen to this episode and you'll know what he meant!  

Whilst we are still featuring William Conrad have a listen to the episode of Inner Sanctum entitled The Wax Works in which Conrad displays the versatility of his voice by playing all the roles.    

Happy listening,