Gunsmoke: Chester or Festus?

In this installment of my Gunsmoke musings, I ask the all-important question:

Chester or Festus?

Which was your favorite? Which was the most help to Marshal Dillon?

It ranks in importance with other earth shattering pop culture decisions- who was your favorite Bond? Your favorite Law & Order detective? Your favorite Third Stooge? (for me it’s a close call between Curly and Shemp… I wish they could’ve been the Four Stooges! But I digress.)

First, a little background.

Chester Goode, played by Dennis Weaver, was a member of the original cast- and, like all the other originals, was a carryover from the radio program. On the radio version his name had been Chester Wesley Proudfoot, and he did not have the distinctive stiff-legged limp –that was introduced by Weaver. The limp is never explained; Chester does, however, mention serving in the army, so I always figured it was probably a war wound. The fact he got into the army suggests the limp came afterwards.

A common misperception: Chester was not a deputy. He wore no badge, and was described as “the marshal’s assistant.” It seems that he had been hired by Matt to help out around the jail; cleaning up, running errands, making coffee. However, Chester did often back the marshal’s play when apprehending bad guys –always taking a shotgun or one of the rifles from the rack in the office, never wearing a pistol.

In one episode (“Reward for Matt,” Season One), fearing for Matt’s safety, Chester surreptitiously took the marshal’s back-up revolver- “that old rusty Remington you keep in your desk.” Matt takes it away from him: “Sorry, Chester. A man has to kill his own snakes.”

Dennis Weaver left the series in the middle of the ninth season, having appeared in 290 episodes. He left to star in his own series, Kentucky Jones, which only lasted one season (but he had much more success later, with Gentle Ben and McCloud, and gave an excellence performance as trail-boss R.J. Poteet in the miniseries Centennial.)

The Gunsmoke writers gave no reason for Chester’s departure- one week he was there, the next week he was not, and he was never mentioned again that I am aware of. In fact, that tended to be the procedure on the show; new cast members were always introduced with an “origin” episode, showing them arrive in town, but when they left they were just gone without a word of explanation. The half-Comanche blacksmith Quint Asper, played by Burt Reynolds, is the only character I ever recall being mentioned again after they left (Festus: “Matthew, we’ve gone through several blacksmiths since the Comanche left.”)

Festus Haggen, played by Ken Curtis, was introduced in an eighth-season episode (“Us Haggens”), became a recurring character in the ninth season, and took over as Matt’s sidekick when Chester left –edging his predecessor out by appearing in 304 episodes. The apparently unlimited Haggen clan are sometimes referred to as Missouri ridge-runners, and Ken Curtis said he based the accent on someone he knew from his native Colorado… but said accent is very authentic Appalachian dialect.

Ken Curtis- a singer as well as an actor, and a former member of the Sons of the Pioneers –released two albums in the late ‘60s, singing and telling stories in character as Festus.

In one of the tales, “Ode to a Mule,” he tells of being a mule skinner in the Confederate Army, and specifically at the battle of Franklin in Tennessee. General Schofield (the Union commander) “was mighty hard on us Tennessee boys.” Festus came under heavy fire while trying to recover Confederate dead from Hood’s ill-fated charge- he survived only because his faithful mule Ruth carried him through the hail of bullets, succumbing herself once they reached safety. In gratitude to the mule who died carrying him to safety, he swore to name every mule he owned thereafter “Ruth,” no matter their sex.

The story tells us a lot about Festus. We can safely assume that the Haggen clan was comprised of East Tennessee mountain folk who migrated to Missouri at some point. Again, being from the area myself, the accent is perfect- my wife didn’t believe ye could be jobbed in the eye with a stob till she heard Festus say it too.

When we first met him, Festus was a man who had apparently spent most of his life on the wrong side of the law –like all his kin. His brother Jeff had been killed by a shotgun blast while trying to rob a stagecoach, and his twin brother Fergus had died of wounds received from a posse after a botched bank robbery. Festus first encounters Matt when they are hunting the same man- Black Jack Haggen, Festus’ uncle, who had abandoned the injured Fergus, stealing his horse and leaving him for dead. Matt and Festus strike up an uneasy partnership, catching the older bandit (who winds up shot dead by the marshal.)

We see Festus again the following season (the ninth)… trying to keep to the straight and narrow, he is now working in the Dodge area as a prairie wolfer. He shows up in town from time to time to trade in his hides, and winds up helping Matt more than once. For a very brief spell, Festus and Chester are both in Dodge- and they seemed to be fast friends.

After Chester leaves, Matt begins occasionally deputizing Festus and leaving him to watch over things when the marshal has to be out of town (this as-needed situation is first described in the season ten episode “Deputy Festus.”) Later, Thad Greenwood and then Newly O’Brien also serve as part-time deputies. Festus initially works part-time at Moss Grimmick’s livery stable, doing repair work to wagons (a skill he would’ve learned as a mule-skinner, no doubt) but eventually seems to be Matt’s full-time deputy, even doing the work of a deputy U.S. marshal (tracking fugitives in other states.) In the final season, Matt usually leaves Newly “in charge” –and, as we learn in the first TV movie, Newly eventually takes Matt’s place as marshal.

There’s the background. So who’s your favorite? I’ll say upfront that –while I like both characters –if I were the marshal and had to pick one I’d go with Festus. Here is how the two match up, in various categories…

COMPETENCE

Though Chester can be relied on in a posse, or for laying down covering fire… he’s not really a tough guy. He is hampered physically by his bad leg; he is also high-strung, nervous, fastidious, and a hypochondriac. One gets the distinct feeling he doesn’t wear a pistol because Matt doesn’t allow him to, figuring he’d get himself killed.

However, Chester is brave and determined… and as the show progresses, you can almost see the frustration in Dennis Weaver as he tires of being the gimpy sidekick and wishes for a more central, heroic role. He gets it a few times, in his last couple of seasons – catching some bad guys and solving some mysteries. The very last episode he appears in, “Bently,” features Chester figuring out who the killer is –only to be brushed off somewhat ignominiously by Matt, Doc, Quint, and Kitty. Not only do they not believe him, they are impatient with his antics, treating him like an idiot. Turns out Chester was right –the old farmer who had died leaving everyone to believe he had robbed and murdered Dave Bently was innocent; the bad-guy rancher who had really committed the crime (due to jealousy) tried to have Chester killed because he was snooping around too much, and accidentally killed his own young wife –who had been trying to warn Chester.

The last time we see Chester he is deeply shaken by the turn of events, and offers to escort the innocent man’s elderly widow to the stage, right after she learned that her husband had not been a killer and that Chester was the only one who had believed in him. In the last scene they are walking silently together to the depot. The more I watch that final scene, the more convinced I am that Chester just got on that stage with her and went someplace he’d be appreciated.

So I think in the final analysis Chester was more competent than the audience –or any of his friends –really realized.

Festus, on the other hand, was portrayed from the very beginning as a handy person to have in a shooting scrape or a brawl, as well as a talented tracker. If anything, he became more of a caricature as time went on –for some reason getting more scruffy and squinty-eyed after his first few seasons (Curtis also changed the character’s voice, making it deeper.) Toward the end of the series, the viewer could pretty much know that when Matt left town someone or other was going to knock Festus and Newly in the head and take over Dodge. Even then, however, Festus was presented as much more competent than Chester would have been –and many episodes were centered on Festus trailing desperadoes alone. And he was a hellion in a rough-and-tumble, apt to bite off that there hangy-down part of your ear.

From day one, Matt’s interactions with Festus demonstrated mutual respect and trust in his abilities, while his treatment of Chester was condescending and protective.

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

BEING THE MARSHAL’S ASSISTANT

This was Chester’s official designation, and he was much better at the duties it entailed than Festus would or could have been. He always kept the coffee fresh, cleaned the place up (although I recall him grumbling once about Matt making him wash windows, which “ain’t no type of job for a man”), delivered messages, kept the prisoners fed, and so on. Festus, on the other hand, was seriously hampered by the fact he was completely illiterate… and he just wasn’t a tidy person like Chester.

ADVANTAGE: CHESTER

FASHION SENSE

Believe it or not, Festus wins this one… scruffy as he was on a normal day (and when he was prairie-wolfin’ he was even scruffier), Festus had something Chester did not.

A fancy dress shirt.

When the occasion suggests it, Festus foregoes his usual white shirt and goes with a sort of paisley one –he fastens the collar button, and even adds arm garters. The best Chester does is sometimes add a vest to his simple wardrobe.

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

MUSICAL ABILITY

Chester sings to himself while he putters around the office –his favorite tune, which I don’t recognize, is about moving to Kansas. He also plays guitar pretty well, and blows a mean comb.

But he can’t compete with Festus. In his early episodes, Deputy Haggen occasionally unleashes that mellifluous Ken Curtis singing voice. He also, in those first few seasons he was on the show, frequently sings his own theme song: “Festus, don’t let no pretty woman make a fool of you… build yourself a herd, then you can cull one out if you want to…”

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

AMBITION

Both Chester and Festus are known for working hard when the occasion warrants, and for working hard to make sure the occasion doesn’t warrant. They’re also both cheap, and always on the lookout for a free drink or meal.

ADVANTAGE: DRAW

COLORFUL RELATIVES

We get to meet Chester’s “wild” brother Magnus, and the uncle who raised Chester after his father died, Wesley Goode (Magnus ran away and went wild when he was ten, never sleeping in a bed again. My guess would be that when Wesley’s brother died, he tried to take in both boys but Magnus didn’t cooperate.)

 In a first season episode, "How to Die for Nothing," however, Chester -after remarking that he was ten years old before he realized boys were supposed to have a ma -says he was raised up by Ben Cherry, a friend of his father's. When asked how long he stayed with him, Chester said "till he pegged out in his sleep one night, then I buried him in the ground and started out on my own." Maybe Uncle Wesley took him in for awhile, then he ended up with Cherry.

Uncle Wesley appears in a fourth season episode that was adapted from one of the radio episodes. Chester’s uncle shows up in town unannounced, to his nephew’s consternation; Chester had been writing home and saying that he was the marshal of Dodge City, and he had an assistant named Mister Dillon. Chester’s friends play along with the charade to help him save face. His uncle is impressed, for he too had a low opinion of his nephew’s competence:

““I had 11 nephews, and Chester was nowhere near the brightest. About number nine. Chester just borders on bein’ ignorant, I’d say… I never thought he’d amount to anything.”

Chester foils a robbery, proving he is not the klutz everyone takes him to be. Well, not completely.

This episode, oddly, keeps the original radio title: “Marshal Proudfoot.”

As discussed earlier, we also met Festus’ uncle (Black Jack) early on. The Haggens just keep coming (“there’s a sight of us around.”) We probably encounter over a dozen, plus we learn of many more via Festus’ stories (he frequently quotes his Grandpa Hawg Haggen.) There were so many, in fact, I’m not going to go into detail here and instead make them the subject of a future installment.

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

ANNOYING DOC

Both Chester and Festus make a second career out of arguing with Doc Adams, often reducing him to dyspeptic sputtering.

ADVANTAGE: DRAW

FUN FACTOR

One thing that sets Festus apart in his first couple of seasons is his close friendship with the blacksmith, Quint Asper (Burt Reynolds.) It is a very playful relationship, showing us a side of Festus we rarely see otherwise. The episode “Comanches Is Soft” (Festus’ frequent rejoinder to the half-Comanche blacksmith), in which Festus and Quint go on a drunken, carousing adventure, is one of the funniest of the series.

“Mad Dog” is another favorite of mine, in which Festus is mistaken for a deadly gunfighter in another town… and also thinks he is dying of rabies, and decides he’d rather go out shooting (and biting) his enemies.

The funniest Chester episode (and one of the best in the series), by contrast, is “Chesterland”… in which Chester tries to satisfy his (somewhat accidental) fiancée by building a house out on the prairie. His housekeeping/homebuilding efforts are one hilarious disaster after another, and the girl was only after what little money he had anyway. So in the midst of the hilarity, there is still great sadness… and the humor with Chester, almost always, is along the lines of “Poor Chester… he really does try so hard, but he just can’t accomplish anything.” While often funny, that’s no fun.

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

LOVE LIFE

“Chesterland” is probably the high point of Chester’s love life. He has a few unrequited crushes, gets taken advantage of a lot, and the one time he meets a woman who really does appreciate him –she throws him over and runs off with an outlaw, to keep the outlaw from killing him (“He Learned about Women.”)

Festus at least does have a steady girlfriend for awhile- April, who was introduced in the same episode he was and who appeared several times in the ninth season. There are also a few widder-women that take an interest in Festus, and sometimes vice-versa (Chester had an ill-fated widow adventure as well, and an ill-fated mail order bride.)

ADVANTAGE: FESTUS

That’s MY assessment- of course, I may be biased in favor of Festus, because he is the Gunsmoke sidekick I grew up with. When I talk to folks older than me, they tend to prefer Chester. I think that if they ever do a  TV or big screen remake of Gunsmoke –as they are about to do with The Big Valley and The Rifleman –they should use both Chester AND Festus, with Chester as the “marshal’s assistant” taking care of things at the jail and Festus as the chief deputy. That would be perfect.

What do you think?

Dodge City and Me

Dodge City and Me

Troy D. Smith

I love me some Gunsmoke.

And I’m clearly not the only one. Gunsmoke is the 

longest running dramatic series in television history 

–broadcast from 1955 till 1975, for a total of 20 seasons. 

Law and Order, a show I also love, managed to tie this feat 

–but with a caveat. The cast of L&O turned over several 

times during its run, with none of the original ensemble 

group making it the whole time. In fact, the longest tenure 

of any original first-season L&O character was five seasons 

(Mike Noth’s Det. Logan, although he did appear several 

seasons in the spinoff Criminal Intent.)








On the other hand, the four main characters introduced 

in the first episode of Gunsmoke had staying power. 

Marshal Matt Dillon remained the central protagonist for 

all 20 seasons. Doctor “Doc” Galen Adams also appeared 

for 20 seasons, although he missed most of Season 17 due 

to heart surgery. Miss Kitty made it for 19, leaving before 

the final year. Even the short-timer, Chester Goode, made 

it partway into the ninth season.










Kelsey Grammer’s “Frasier Crane” character tied Matt 

Dillon for longest run of an actor in a television role 

–but there is a similar caveat there. Frasier was not 

introduced on Cheers until the third season, and for two 

years was only a recurring guest rather than a featured 

cast member. James Arness brought Matt Dillon to the 

small screen as the main character of a program for 

twenty consecutive years –plus a series of TV movies, 

from 1987 till 1994. So in a way, James Arness played 

Matt Dillon for closer to 40 years.













But even twenty years is a big chunk of time. When 

Gunsmoke premiered my father was eleven years old. 

When it was cancelled I was almost eight –and when 

the final TV movie featuring retired marshal Matt Dillon 

aired, I was 26 and a father myself. To this day, love of 

Gunsmoke continues to be one of the bonds between my 

father and me, and we discuss it often.








I remember watching “The Deadly Innocent” with my 

grandma –and IMDB.com informs me this was on 

Dec. 17, 1973. I distinctly remember watching “The Tarnished 

Badge” –in which Victor French, whom I recognized as the 

kindly Isaiah Edwards from Little House on the Prairie, played 

a vicious sheriff that Matt had to bring to justice. The next day I 

re-enacted the story with my Marx cowboy action figures on the 

red clay banks behind our home (Johnny West was Matt Dillon, 

and Pat Garrett was the evil sheriff.) Whenever I think of that 

episode, I smell that red clay. That was Nov. 11, 1974.








That year my mom was in the hospital for awhile. My 

step-father, my older cousin, and I were on our own for 

several days. I remember our efforts to make breakfast 

that Sunday morning… the result being biscuits so hard 

you could break a window with them, and gravy so thick 

it was hard to pull the spoon out of it. And we watched 

the two-part episode “Island in the Desert,” in which 

Festus was held captive by a crazed prospector played by 

the great Strother Martin (who had a pet rattlesnake named 

Homer.) In a bizarre sort of family tradition, for years 

afterward we delighted ourselves in imitating Martin’s 

distinctive nasal voice: “Bite’im, Homer!” “I’ll cut ye, Festus, 

and I’ll cut ye good!” That was early December, 1974.








When I was 18 I had a job buffing floors at Wal-mart 

–back in the days when such stores actually closed at 

night, from 9pm till 9am. The floor guys would be locked 

in overnight. The other floor guy became my best friend 

–and he was a huge Gunsmoke fan. Syndicated repeats 

showed on the local Fox outlet at 10 pm every weeknight… 

when we were at work, yet before the rest of the employees 

went home and got out of our way. We had a contraband 

VCR tape that we kept hidden above the ceiling tiles in the 

janitor’s closet… every night, just after we got to work, we’d 

secretly stick it into one of the display TV/VCR’s, turn it to 

the proper channel, and push record. Every morning at 2am 

we’d retrieve it and watch Gunsmoke on our lunch break. 

Those are some great memories. And beyond that, the steady 

western diet contributed to me writing my own western stories 

at night while locked in those stores, never dreaming that I 

would one day be a published author.








I’m willing to bet that many of you have your own Gunsmoke stories, 

and I invite you to share them in your comments.


It’s hard to get out of Dodge.

Gunsmoke: Chronicling Dodge City, from Radio to Television

Troy D. Smith


Boy- how about that John Meston?

Some of you are nodding silently. Many of you, though, have never heard of John Meston. Not many people have, anymore, or know what a big influence he had on popular culture.

Meston started working for CBS radio in the 1940s, initially in the program practices department and soon thereafter as a writer. By the early 1950s, Meston and his friend Norman MacDonnell (a director and producer) set out to create a new kind of radio program: a western, but not one like The Lone Ranger and other popular shows aimed at kids. The two men, both in their late 30s at the time, were charged by their boss Hubell Robinson (CBS programming chief) to do a western series for adults, a serious drama rather than a melodrama.

They discovered a project that had been shelved for three years, meant to be a cross between westerns and hardboiled detective stories starring a tough lawman named Mark Dillon. They kept the "hardboiled" approach, and made a slight change to the hero's name: he would be Matt Dillon, and the program would be called Gunsmoke. It would be a tough, hard-bitten show, reflecting the rigors and vicissitudes of frontier life. Sometimes the innocent would suffer. The hero would be brave, but flawed in some ways and afflicted with occasional self-doubt and a good bit of cynicism (like any good hardboiled detective). The germ may have appeared in earlier scripts that never made it to the airwaves, but everything else was created by Norman MacDonnell and John Meston. This included the supporting characters: Doc Adams, Miss Kitty, and Chester.

Gunsmoke debuted on the radio in 1952, and was a hit. It was praised for its realism; it was one of the most explicit (for the time) programs on radio. McDonnell produced and directed, and Meston was the head writer. He wrote roughly 80% of the scripts in the show's first four seasons, fleshing out the characters (other episodes were written by McDonnell, Les Crutchfield, Kathleen Hite, John Dunkel, and a handful of others... Marian Clark would later also join the team and write many episodes).

What little the audience learned about Matt Dillon came from the mind of John Meston. Matt had been a wild young cowboy who spent several years on the border in Arizona and New Mexico. He could easily have become an outlaw, considering the company he kept -many of his old friends did- but he was inspired by an older lawman, who turned him onto the right path (in those early years it was common for Matt to meet old friends from his border days, and they were always extremely surprised that he had become a lawman.) Another marker of a Meston story: he often found ways to work his home town of Pueblo, Colorado into the dialogue. A surprising number of guest stars were on their way to or from Pueblo.

CBS decided to turn Gunsmoke into a television show, which debuted in 1955 with an all-new cast (and a new last name for Chester, who went from Proudfoot to Goode). The radio show continued simultaneously, and would run until 1961. Meston and most of the other radio writers started producing scripts for the TV show as well, many of them adapted from past radio episodes. This was relatively easy to do, as both the radio and TV versions ran for 30 minutes, Sometimes the radio origin of a TV episode is obvious in the title; the updated versions often changed the names of guest characters who appeared by their original names in the title.

MacDonnell, however, did not get to run the TV series, at least not at first: the netork hired Charles Marquis Warren as producer (and director of most episodes), with MacDonnell subservient to him. Except MacDonnell was NOT subservient to him, and the two feuded vigorously, leading Warren to quit halfway through the second season, at which point MacDonnell took over the reins completely.

The radio program was canceled in 1961, after nine seasons. The TV version underwent major changes at the same time: with season 7 (1961-1962), they expanded to a full hour. This meant the stories were no longer as tight, and in the eyes of many, no longer as dramatic and affecting. More emphasis was put on the guest-star-of-the-week, and gradually some of the show's hard edge wore off. The stories no longer tended to be as dark and somber as they had been in the first several years. Another notable change: Marshal Dillon no longer moped around the graveyard as much. During the half-hour era, many episodes started with a voice-over monologue by the marshal as he wandered through Boot Hill. We learned more about Matt's internal life and thought process in these scenes, probably, than in the rest of the series put together. Turns out Matt was cynical, and even bitter at times. He seemed to hate his job, and the necessity of killing so many people and dealing so much with the ugly side of human nature. He also had a pretty low opinion of the riff-raff with which he was forced to fill up the cemetery. Of course, those monologues added to the hardboiled atmosphere and helped set the dark tone for the stories. If one were to view the series from the inside out, as a progression of stories instead of a TV production subject to external forces, I think it would be safe to assume that the fact Matt quit going to the graveyard and agonizing so much over his part in filling it indicated he had either found internal peace and accepted his role, or that he gradually became more hardened to it.

In all, Meston wrote 183 of the radio episodes (out of 413). He went on to write 196 (of 635) TV episodes. That is 44% of the radio shows (mostly in the first four seasons) and nearly a third of the television episodes... plus 64 more that were adapted by someone else from his original radio stories. The very first episode of the TV show ("Matt Gets It") was a Charles Marquis Warren adaptation of a Meston radio script; the last episode of season ten was the final original teleplay by Meston ("He Who Steals," which centered on Festus). The first half of the show's 20-year run, and the entire Chester era, bore the heavy mark of Meston, who died in 1979. Norman MacDonnell, who also left Gunsmoke in 1965, passed away in 1979 just a few months after Meston.

THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR . . . By Tom Rizzo

Every morning before dawn, I strap on an arm band that holds my iPod, slip on a pair of wireless earbuds, and head to the streets to walk for an hour or so. 

 

But, I'm not listening to music. On my iPod are more than 1,500 Podcasts--mostly old radio shows of every genre you can imagine. Many of the Podcasts are old time radio Westerns. These programs are great sources of entertainment. Not only do they help pass the time on my walks, they keep me connected to a past that required listeners to make full use of their imaginations.

The actors were outstanding. Sound effects functioned as effective imagery, appealing to a range of human senses that helped deepen the audience's understanding of story.

One moment, you may hear dialog exchanged with the sound of a babbling mountain stream in the background. Or, the dramatic sound of gunshots exchanged in a fierce battle between the good and the bad guys.

Sometimes, all that was needed to set the stage for the right amount of tension or suspense was the sound of a character's breathing.

There were other sounds too. Doors being opened and closed. Coffee or liquor being poured. Horses galloping across the radio dial. The crackle and pop of a campfire. A dog barking. Maybe a baby crying. Based on dialog, sound effects, and scene-setting musical scores, listeners were able to add their own splashes of color and strokes of reality across a canvas of the imagination.

I didn't realize how many different Westerns were available back when radio was king. Among them:

    •    Gunsmoke  

    •    Have Gun Will Travel
    •    Frontier Gentleman
    •    The Lone Ranger
    •    Fort Laramie
    •    The Roy Rogers Show
    •    The Six-Shooter
    •    Death Valley Days
    •    Maverick
    •    Hopalong Cassidy
    •    The Cisco Kid
    •    Red Ryder
    •   . . . and many, many more.

In the Fifties, the western improved its entertainment value when writers created more complex story lines, laced with psychological motivations for the protagonist and antagonist. 

 

Dubbed adult westerns, these radio dramas were often referred to as "the thinking man's western"--the antithesis the traditional shoot-em-up style of western.  

The actors, of course, were key to the success of these mostly 30-minute productions. If you listened to a lot of radio, you'd eventually hear the same voices on multiple productions. But, you had to pay attention. Most of these men and women were skillful enough to alter their voices so they matched the theme or genre of a particular program. 

For this month ... a snapshot look at three of the most skillful radio professionals.

• WILLIAM CONRAD starred in Gunsmoke, which took place in Dodge City in the mid-1880s. 

The program is considered by many the greatest radio drama ever primarily because of its authenticity, thanks to superb acting and creative sound effects.

It is difficult to imagine anyone else but Conrad playing radio's Marshal Matt Dillon. Thanks to his deep, resonant voice and veteran acting skills, he brought an unparalleled believability to the part. 

Before taking the role, he was already a prolific radio actor. In fact, he almost didn't land the role because of his extensive exposure on other radio shows.

Conrad narrated the radio drama anthology, Escape, on which all the Gunsmoke regulars happened to work. He also served as narrator for the TV shows, The Fugitive, The Invaders, Tales of the Unexpected, Rocky and his Friends, and The Wild World of Animals. In all, he worked in more than  7,500 radio productions.

When producers turned to James Arness to play Dillon on the TV series, it deeply upset Conrad. But, his short and heavy physical stature worked against him for what producers had in mind for the TV version.

Before taking on the role of Matt Dillon, Conrad made his motion picture debut in the 1947 film, The Killers.

Conrad eventually made it to theTV screen. He played the featured role in Nero Wolfe, as well as the district attorney lead in Jake and the Fat Man. Conrad also starred as detective Frank Cannon in Cannon. After it was cancelled, he remarked, "Cannon was crap. I was delighted to see it canceled."

And, Conrad once served as the voice of The Long Ranger on Saturday morning cartoons.

• JOHN DEHNER starred in two radio Westerns: Have Gun Will Travel and Frontier Gentleman. 

Have Gun Will Travel opened September 1957 on television first--one of the few such instances. The radio show debuted more than a year later in November 1958. 

HGWT featured a gun-for-hire by the name of Paladin who tried to resolve any assignments he accepted in a peaceful way, preferably without violence.

Frontier Gentleman revolved around a character named JB Kendall, a disgraced British Army officer on personal exile in the West. The show lasted only one season, a victim of television's growing influence.

Dehner, before hitting the airwaves, worked a variety of jobs. They included WWII army publicist, disc jockey, pianist, and animator. He once worked for Disney as an Assistant Animator. In fact, he drew the owl sequences in Bambi, and the Beethoven sequence in Fantasia.

He certainly ranks as among the best radio actors. But, based on his background and accomplishments, Dehner had the talent and commitment to be the best at whatever career he chose.
After leaving Disney, he joined the Army where the military made full use of his language and media skills in a public relations capacity. 

After the service, he went into radio as an announcer, news reporter, and news editor in California. Dehner, in fact, won a Peabody Award for his coverage of the first United Nations Conference.

But he followed his heart into acting and, along the way, appeared as a cast member in nearly every network prime-time hit. His versatile voice and acting skills kept him among the busiest radio performers in the industry.

Dehner played characters in a number of radio westerns as well as old time radio shows such as Suspense, Johnny Dollar, Phillip Marlowe, Let George Do It and Rogers of the Gazette.

• BRACE BEEMER first became associated with The Lone Ranger as an announcer. 

But after the accidental death of Earle Graser in 1941, Beemer assumed the role of the masked legend of the Plains. 

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear . .  .

The program, which debuted on WXYZ radio in Detroit, ran for hundreds of episodes between January 1931 and September 1954. 

George Senius/Seaton held the role for five months in 1931, Graser between 1933 and 1941, and Beemer from 1941 to 1954.

He got his first radio job in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and happened to be the first ever radio personality to broadcast the Indy 500.

Beemer lent a booming voice to the part of the Lone Ranger. He stood six-feet-three, and personified the values and ideals that producer George W. Trendle and writer Fran Striker wanted to communicate through a character who played hardball with the lawless, but demonstrated understanding and kindness towards the law-abiding.

Beemer's size worked for and against him in one instance. Larger than most young men of his age, he managed to enlist in the Army and serve with the America Expeditionary Forces during World War I. He got wounded in combat, sent home, and discharged when officials discovered he was only 14.

Since Beemer played the role longer than anyone else, he's the most famous of the Lone Ranger actors. In fact, his voice was so closely associated with the role that Clayton Moore - who played the masked man on TV, imitated Beemer's speech patterns in the early episodes of the TV series.

Listening to these old, and sometimes scratchy, radio shows helps release the neurons of nostalgia. 

I remain amazed at the production quality of some of these old Westerns and other programs. Not only the acting, but the skill in blending sound effects that provided for a much richer listening experience.

But, the real truth is that it's still so darn much fun to listen. 

An Internet search will reveal countless sources from which to download recordings of these shows. Here are three different sites to start, if you're so inclined. 

• Gunsmoke
• Have Gun Will Travel
• Frontier Gentleman
• The Lone Ranger

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The Card of a Man

Troy D. Smith

Growing up in the 70s, I got plenty of Gunsmoke amd Bonanza on TV, and caught The McCahans and Little House on the Prairie from episode 1. But I missed out on getting the first-run experience of the many B&W classics from the 50s that my Uncle Horace told me about.

Then in the early 80s we got cable- 13 whole channels!! And there was this one called CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network. I wasn't very interested in their daytime programming, such as the PTL Club -though Jim and Tammy Faye did get very interesting by the time the decade was out- but nighttime and weekends, that was something else. At night they showed old sitcoms from the fifties, and I watched 'em all. Which is why, at 45, I can converse knowledgeably about YOU BET YOUR LIFE, OZZIE AND HARRIET, LIFE OF RILEY, MY LITTLE MARGIE, and THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM.

And Weekends? Weekends were for westerns! Still are, in fact, as CBN morphed by the end of the decade into The Family Channel.

WYATT EARP, BAT MASTERSON, THE WESTERNER, RAWHIDE, MAVERICK, there were slews of 'em, and I loved 'em all.

But my favorite was that dapper soldier of fortune based in San Francisco, the one they called Paladin.

You know him -though we never learned his actual name. Paladin was a persona he assumed, this erudite former cavalry officer with a taste for poetry and a gift for classical languages. He was like James Bond, but more sophisticated -and always ready to slap leather or throw a punch for justice. Justice that was foreshadowed at the beginning of every episode, with the camera trained on his hip as he drew his gun and his off-screen voice lectured the villain like a schoolmaster.

Gee, wonder why I liked him so much?

Like him I did, for a lot of reasons. I liked what he stood for, what a paladin was- a knight without a master, ever seeking a righteous cause to which he could lend his sword.

I took to heart the character's words in the episode when he explained the chess knight which was his symbol: the knight is the only piece on the board which can move over any obstacle, and change directions in the middle of a turn.

Much later, around 1997, I started jangling amongst the internet tubes, particularly hanging out in the Books and Literature chatrooms of Yahoo. And of course, you had to have a chat-name- mine came pretty easily. Paladin. (Except when I wanted to fly under the radar, then I was Hec Ramsey.) After all, I was trying to make a living (or at least part of one) as a writer, so I literally was a paladin- a free-lance. Later still, when I decided to get a tattoo, it was that chesspiece.

How about you- was there ever a western character you wanted to be like, just a little?