![]() ![]() In season eight (1962–63), a fifth regular character was added to the cast: blacksmith Quint Asper ( Burt Reynolds), who remained until the end of season 10 (1964–65). In its original format, the series also focuses on Dillon's friendship with three other citizens of Dodge City: Doctor Galen "Doc" Adams ( Milburn Stone), the town's physician Kitty Russell ( Amanda Blake), saloon's barmaid, and later owner of the Long Branch Saloon and Chester Goode ( Dennis Weaver), Dillon's assistant. Gunsmoke is set in and around Dodge City, Kansas, in the post- Civil War era and centers on United States Marshal Matt Dillon ( James Arness) as he enforces law and order in the city. Alan Wagner, the network's vice president at the time, said, "It's better to get rid of a program one year too soon than one year too late." Between 19, five television movies based on the series were aired by CBS. From there, Gunsmoke remained in the top 20 for the next seven years, dropping out only in its final season. The series returned to prominence in 1967 following a shift in its programming time from Saturday to Monday night. It remained at number one until 1961 and stayed in the top 20 until 1964. During season two, Gunsmoke became one of the 10 most popular programs on American television and moved to number one in the third season. Of the hour-long episodes, 176 were in black-and-white and 226 were in color. During its run, 635 episodes were broadcast, of which 233 were 30 minutes and 402 were 60 minutes in length. ![]() The series expanded to an hour in length with season seven and began filming in color in season 12. Gunsmoke was originally a half-hour program filmed in black-and-white. In the United Kingdom, Gunsmoke was originally broadcast under the title Gun Law. The first episode aired in the United States on September 10, 1955, and the final episode aired on March 31, 1975. The series ran for 20 seasons, making it the longest-running Western in television history. Gunsmoke is an American Western television series developed by Charles Marquis Warren and based on the radio program of the same name. Unfortunately, since Festus had started out as a hardcore cowboy, and a tough deputy, every time the writers used Festus as the village idiot, it just degraded his original character.Clockwise from top: Ken Curtis (Festus), Arness (Matt), Amanda Blake (Kitty) and Milburn Stone (Doc) in 1968 These episodes all harken back to Barney Fife and the Andy Griffith Show. Now Gunsmoke was doing it with dimwitted Festus as the lead. Bonanza had been doing comedy Western episodes (usually with Hoss as the lead) for years. Towards the last years of Gunsmoke, the writers decided that spoofing the Old West for comedy was a great idea. ![]() Matt Dillon is busy not working on the show in this episode, as he is out of town. I saw this as a kid, and I never thought it was funny, just sad and boring. So you get a comedy about alcoholics taking advantage of a mentally defective deputy. He did get to be the main villain once that I know of, in a Hunter TV episode. He spent his career as a lackey and got beaten up in a few Clint Eastwood movies. Anthony James was a lifetime thug and henchman. I never liked his acting on Gunsmoke, because it seemed like he was always either a drunken thug, a drunken henchman, a drunken farmer, or some other lowlife character who did very little except act like a nasty drunk. Victor French later went on to work on Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven with his best friend Michael Landon. James and French have a plan to turn in their uncle for an old $50 reward so they can use the money to open a sleazy bar where they sell bootleg liquour. The pretty Lane Bradbury is back as their sister. Anthony James and Victor French are back as a couple of alcoholic lowlifes that pass for comic characters in the last years of Gunsmoke. ![]()
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