~ Gunsmoke - The Choice, Part 2 You're hired! Andy gets a job – the kind of job that requires a lot of responsibility. He'll be riding shotgun for Jim Buck, the stagecoach driver. He sits on top of the stagecoach beside the driver and carries a shotgun. If the stage gets held up by outlaws, the shotgun man is there to protect the stagecoach, the luggage, and the passengers. Matt's name is on the line Andy got this job on Matt's recommendation, so Matt's own reputation -- his good name -- is on the line. If Andy does a poor job, it will reflect on Matt. So, of course, Matt has a personal interest in Andy's success. You can imagine how relieved Matt is when he sees Andy get back to Dodge City with his boss. In Jim's Bad Books But Matt soon finds out that things did not go well between them. Jim is very angry and Andy is in his bad books. Andy knows he didn't live up to his new boss's expectations and he admits it to Matt, but Jim thinks Andy is downplaying it in the … [Read more...]
DL096: Gunsmoke – New Guy in Town
~ Gunsmoke: The Choice, Part 1 New Folks Showing Up All the Time Andy Hill is the new guy in Dodge City. It’s the late 1800’s (around the 1870s) when people were moving west across America. Towns were being settled and growing into cities. Its a fast growing town so there are new folks showing up all the time. The railway made much of this possible, bringing passengers by train to settle down in the West, and making it possible to move products across the country and do business. In this setting, we have the growing town of Dodge City. Many of the people who came to Dodge were ranchers and the cowboys they hired to herd their cattle. The cowboys moved around a lot from place to place. Then farmers came. They settled down to plant and harvest crops. They also built fences, which the cowboys didn’t like. In the town, there were shopkeepers, bankers, barbers, saloon bartenders, saloon girls, stagecoach drivers, and post office workers. And of course, there were criminals too – men who … [Read more...]
DL032: The Gambler ~ Racial discrimination: ‘Just’ an Indian
Gunsmoke, The Gambler, Part 3 Racial Discrimination: At the climax of the story, we come to the confrontation between Ascombe and Cass. We find out about a situation in the past that Cass had dismissed from his mind. He considered it unimportant and of no consequence. It had to do with how he had treated an Indian. He didn’t think that anything would ever come of it, that nothing would happen as a result of this situation. It was a situation he thought he could simply forget about because "Indian's don't matter". His flippant attitude shows how racial discrimination can go unchecked when most people share and accept racist thinking. But Ascombe didn’t see it that way. He saw Indians as people. He had hunted Cass down to get revenge for his Indian friend. Listen to their argument and try to understand both sides before you decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Understandably, emotions were running high that day so the situation didn’t end in a peaceful negotiation. But … [Read more...]
DL031: The Gambler ~ Missing Motive
Gunsmoke, The Gambler, Part 2: Pro-Active Marshall Goes in Search of Missing Motive Matt Dillon is very perceptive. He can see that Ascombe hates Cass and probably wants to kill him. In Part 2, Matt tries to prevent a murder. Ascombe won’t tell Matt why he wants to kill Cass, so Matt goes in search of Cass. He wants to hear Cass’s side of the story. There must be an incident that happened in the past that triggered this. If only Matt could understand the missing motive behind Ascombe's hatred of Cass, he could help the two men negotiate and reconcile. FREE PDF: Keywords & Transcript Quizlet: Have fun learning the keywords with English-Chinese Flashcards and Games. DL031 Keywords on Quizlet DL031 Supplementary Words on Quizlet What do you think? Ascombe is determined to kill Cass. He thinks he can somehow make it look like it was a fair fight that Cass lost. If Cass draws his gun first, but Ascombe is the faster and more accurate shooter, then Ascombe will get … [Read more...]
DL030: The Gambler ~ Guilty Remorse
Gunsmoke - The Gambler (Aired on CBS Radio, Oct 7, 1956): Gunsmoke, best loved Western of all time: In this episode of Dramatic Listening, we’re starting a new story — and a new genre once again. It’s an episode from the best-loved Western of all time, ‘Gunsmoke’. Gunsmoke was aired on the radio for 10 years from 1952-1961 and was also adapted to TV and played from 1955-1975. The radio years formed the characters in the show, but none of them moved over to the television show. The head writer wrote for both radio and T.V. When the West was young: The writers wanted a show that showed how rough and violent the West was really in the late 1800s. They went for a flawed hero instead of a perfect hero like the Lone Ranger. They were writing for adults, so they included sexual crimes like rape, prostitution, and violence like scalping, lynching. For the first three years, the show was unsponsored (no advertising) — CBS Radio was afraid that sponsors wouldn’t like the nature of … [Read more...]