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.

Favorite Western TV Series: Gunsmoke

Troy D. Smith

I have no problem picking my favorite Western TV series- it's the grand-daddy of them all, Gunsmoke. I would have trouble picking my #2- I'm also a huge fan of Have Gun: Will Travel and Maverick, as well as more recent shows like Deadwood. But my first love is Dodge City. And why not? It's the most iconic of the "adult" westerns to hit the tube in the 1950s, running for twenty seasons.

I don't need to describe the show for you. You know about Marshal Dillon, Miss Kitty, Doc Adams, and the rest. Instead, at the end of this article, I will post links to several essays I have written about different aspects of the show at my own blog.

For today I will focus on my favorite episode. Now that's a tough one, there are probably dozens of contenders. But the one I always go back to is an episode from the Eighteenth season, "A Quiet Day in Dodge." (note: okay, the two-part "Island in the Desert" would be #2.)

The episode first aired on January 29, 1973, so I probably saw it in its first run. It's one of the humorous episodes, thrown in now and then to break the tension, and while it's quite funny that's not the main reason I like it so much. I like what it tells us about Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty, and their relationship.

The story opens with Matt riding into town just after dawn, a prisoner in tow. He locks the guy up, and then retires to his own cot- he has been up for 36 hours, and all he wants out of life right now is a peaceful sleep.

But he's not going to get it.

As the day progresses, an increasingly rumpled and grumpy Marshal Dillon has to deal with a host of problems, all designed to keep the sandman away.

Festus, who is apparently one of those annoying, chipper morning people, makes an ungodly racket cleaning fish in the office.

Matt's prisoner stabs him in the hand with a fork.

A young whippersnappery rapscallion, with overly permissive parents, terrorizes the town.

A crotchety old lady harangues the marshal over what she deems his lapses in duty (played by Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West herself.)

A brawl breaks out in the Long Branch, started by two grizzled old miners.

But the worst of it all... Miss Kitty is royally ticked off at Matt. It seems they had a picnic scheduled for the day before, which had been put off several times, and -yet again -Matt missed it because of work.

Finally, by the end of the day, Matt has managed to solve all the problems (including that of the kid, whom he gives a good spanking.) He even patches things up with Kitty; she makes him a special dinner, which they share in her room. It is pretty obvious what Miss Kitty has in mind for dessert.

This is one of the very rare glimpses we get into what goes on behind closed doors between the two longtime paramours. Remember that Toby Keith song, when he said Matt never did hang his hat at Kitty's place? Well, he does... and with a very domestic sort of familiarity.

But then, Kitty turns her back for a moment.... and the exhausted marshal is stretched out on her bed, snoring like a banshee. Not quite what she had in mind. The quietly fuming Miss Kitty breaks a porcelain pot to see if it'll waken her beau, but he doesn't stir. She marches downstairs to the bar -pouring beer over the heads of the two miners -then heads out the front door. The ever-protective bartender Sam calls after her, "It's awfully late, you might be molested!"

She laughs sarcastically and says "Really!" The implication, of course, was that she had been trying all day.

For the better part of two decades, the real relationship between Matt and Kitty was sort of between the lines. In this episode, we finally get an idea what they had been up to upstairs all those years. Although... not on that particular day.

Click on this link to see a blooper from the episode, in which the Wicked Witch cracks up the whole cast with a very unexpected ad-lib: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ngveiYIaeQ

And here are my previous blogs about the show:

Gunsmoke, Dodge City, and Me

Marshal of What, Exactly?

Chester vs. Festus

Matt Dillon's Dodge City: A Historian's Nightmare