The most reviewed series on RUSC
Wow! I've been so thrilled to see all of the comments and reviews popping up on RUSC recently. They're really bringing the site alive - but have come with a few surprises along the way!
For example... Can you guess the series which has received the most show ratings and series comments?
Maybe you're thinking it's a detective series such as Sherlock Holmes, or Dragnet? Or perhaps a thriller such as Suspense, or even the more recent CBS Radio Mystery Theater?
Well you'd be wrong on all counts! The series which seems to evoke the most ratings and comments from our lovely friends of RUSC, is in fact, the western series, Gunsmoke!
Even though it's one of my own favorite series, I was still quite surprised at those statistics, as I always believed detective shows and thrillers to be at the top of everyone else's list - at least that's what the polls Joy and I have added over the years seemed to indicate.
If you haven't listened to any Gunsmoke shows before, I'd really recommend them - as it seems would many of our friends!
Each show was a thirty-minute western adventure, starring William Conrad as Matt Dillon, the Marshall of Dodge City, Kansas. You always knew that justice would be done in a fair and compassionate way and that the bad guy would get his comeuppance - with even the opening of the show leaving little doubt that Dillon was the law!
“Around Dodge City, and into the territory on the west, there’s just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers: that’s with a US Marshall and the smell of gunsmoke! Gunsmoke! … Starring William Conrad the story of the violence that moved west with young America, and the story of a man who moved with it. I’m that man … Matt Dillon. United States Marshall … the first man they look for, and the last man they want to meet … it’s a chancy job, and it makes man watchful … and a little lonely.”
John Meston who wrote most of the scripts for the series and was involved from the beginning had always wanted William Conrad to play Matt Dillon, but many others auditioned before he was officially given the role.
On RUSC we do have the first two auditions, which incidentally were never aired, starring Rye Billsbury and Howard Culver. However, I'll warn you now that you may find them hard to listen to! Quite simply, William Conrad was made for the role - as Meston knew all too well!
There were around 500 episodes of Gunsmoke broadcast in the 9 years it spanned, and there are around 440 of these on RUSC right now. I'm hoping to find more of the missing ones to add to this terrific collection over the coming weeks.
Happy listening my friends,
