Frank Aston of the "New York World-Telegram and Sun" declared "It deserves to run at least a decade", especially praising Barbara Cook's performance as Marian: "If all our stack-tenders looked, sang, danced, and acted like Miss Barbara, this nation's book learning would be overwhelming". John Chapman of the "Daily News" pronounced "The Music Man" "one of the few great musical comedies of the last 26 years", stating that "Of Thee I Sing" (1931) "set a standard for fun and invention which has seldom been reached. Its equal arrived in 1950 – "Guys and Dolls" – and I would say that "The Music Man" ranks with these two". In the "Journal-American", John McClain deemed the show "a whopping hit. This salute by Meredith Willson to his native Iowa will make even "Oklahoma!" look to its laurels".