Gunsmoke (TV series) (2024)

Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke TV series logo
Developed for TV by	Charles Marquis Warren
Based upon	Gunsmoke created by John Meston Norman Macdonnell
Starring:	James Arness Milburn Stone Amanda Blake (Season 1-19) Dennis Weaver (Seasons 1-10) Burt Reynolds (Seasons 10-11) Ken Curtis (Seasons 8-20) Roger Ewing (Seasons 11-12) Buck Taylor (Seasons 13-20)
Theme music composer	Rex Koury Glenn Spencer
Seasons / Episodes	6 seasons, 233 episodes (as Marshal Dillon, syndication retitling of half-hour episodes), 402 14 (titled as Gunsmoke), 20 (total seasons), 635 (total episodes)
Runtime / Picture format	Runtime: 26 minutes (1955–1961), 50 minutes (1961–1975) Format: Black and white (1955–1966) Color (1966–1975)
Production companies	CBS Productions Filmaster Productions Arness and Company (1959–1961) The Arness Production Company (1961–1964)
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Network / Country	CBS / USA
Series network run:	September 10, 1955 - March 31, 1975

Gunsmoke was a popular TV series of 20 seasons that ran from September 10, 1955 to March 31, 1975. It was the second Western television series written for adults,^[1] premiering on September 10, 1955, four days after The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. The first 12 seasons aired Saturdays at 10 pm, seasons 13 through 16 aired Mondays at 7:30pm, and the last four seasons aired Mondays at 8 pm. During its second season in 1956, the program joined the list of the top-10 television programs broadcast in the United States. It quickly moved to number one and stayed there until 1961. It remained among the top-20 programs until 1964.^[2]

Longevity records[]

The television series was the longest-running, primetime, live-action television series at 20 seasons, until September 2019 with the 21st-season premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU).^[3] Gunsmoke is the longest-running, primetime, live-action series of the 20th century. As of 2017, it had the highest number of scripted episodes for any U.S. primetime, commercial, live-action television series. On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons surpassed the show for the most scripted episodes.^[4] Some foreign-made programs have been broadcast in the U.S. and contend for the position as the longest-running prime-time series. As of 2016, Gunsmoke was rated fourth globally, after Doctor Who (1963–present), Taggart (1983–2010),^[5] and The Bill (1984–2010).

Gunsmoke is the last fictional primetime show that debuted in the 1950s to leave the air, and only three shows from the 1960s lasted past its final season in 1974–75.

Character longevity[]

Storyline[]

Marshal Matt Dillon is in charge of Dodge City, a town in the wild west where people often have no respect for the law. He deals on a daily basis with the problems associated with frontier life: cattle rustling, gunfights, brawls, standover tactics, and land fraud. Such situations call for sound judgement and brave actions: of which Marshal Dillon has plenty. ^[6]

Main cast[]

Actors appearing in more than 40% of all episodes.

• James Arness as Matt Dillon (635 episodes as Matt Dillon)
• Milburn Stone as Doc Adams (592 episodes as Doc)
• Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell (554 episodes as Kitty)
• Ken Curtis as Festus (296 episodes as Festus)
• Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode (290 episodes as Chester)

Syndication[]

All 635 episodes of the television series, and almost all 480 episodes of the radio show, still exist.

In syndication, the entire 20-year run of Gunsmoke is separated into three packages by CBS Television Distribution:

• 1955–1961 half-hour episodes: These episodes are sometimes seen in their original format and sometimes in the Marshal Dillon format. When first-run, prime-time episodes of Gunsmoke expanded to an hour in fall 1961, CBS-TV reran the half-hour episodes as Marshal Dillon on the network on Tuesday nights from 1961 through 1964. These were later rerun in syndication. General syndication ended in the 1980s, but they do air occasionally on cable TV. Local stations would show the retitled Marshal Dillon version of the series, while the series under the original Gunsmoke title (with some episodes under the Marshal Dillon retitling) were seen in the late 1990s on TV Land and later Hallmark Channel. STARZ! Encore Westerns Channel aired this version under the Marshal Dillon title. RetroPlex also aired two half-hour episodes under the original Gunsmoke title, although the episodes are advertised as Marshal Dillon, on Saturday nights from 8 to 9 pm Eastern time. MeTV announced that it will begin the half-hour black-and-white episodes beginning on January 2, 2017.
• 1961–1966 one-hour black-and-white episodes: These episodes have not been widely seen in regular syndication since the 1980s, although selected episodes did air from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s on CBN Cable/The Family Channel, and later on Encore Westerns on a three-year contract that ended around 2006. As of January 2010, Encore Westerns was again airing the episodes. In October 2015, MeTV announced that it would begin airing the one-hour black-and-white episodes on October 26.
• 1966–1975 one-hour color episodes: The last nine seasons of the Western, the most widely syndicated episodes of the entire series run, are still aired on some local stations, as well as nationally on TV Land and MeTV.

Since March 4, 2013, Cartoonito in the UK started showing all episodes of Gunsmoke from the Season 13 opening episode "The Wreckers" to the series finale episode "The Sharecroppers".

Episodes[]

• Main article: List of Gunsmoke television episodes

^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]}

Primetime Emmy Award wins and nominations[]

• Best Action or Adventure Series – nominated (winner: Disneyland)

1956 (presented March 16, 1957)[]

• Best Continuing Performance by an Actor in a Dramatic Series: James Arness – nominated (winner: Robert Young for Father Knows Best)

1957 (presented April 15, 1958)[]

• Best Continuing Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic or Comedy Series: James Arness – nominated (winner: Robert Young for Father Knows Best)
• Best Continuing Supporting Performance by an Actor in a Dramatic or Comedy Series: Dennis Weaver – nominated (winner: Carl Reiner for Caesar's Hour)
• Best Dramatic Series with Continuing Characters won
• Best Editing of a Film for Television: Mike Pozen for "How to Kill a Woman" – won
• Best Teleplay Writing (Half-Hour or Less): John Meston for "Born to Hang" – nominated (winner: Paul Monash for Schlitz Playhouse of Stars – "The Lonely Wizard")

1958 (presented May 6, 1959)[]

• Best Actor in a Leading Role (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series: James Arness – nominated (winner: Raymond Burr for Perry Mason)
• Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series: Dennis Weaver – won
• Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series: Amanda Blake – nominated (winner: Barbara Hale for Perry Mason)
• Best Western Series – nominated (winner: Maverick)

1965–1966 (presented May 22, 1966)[]

• Individual Achievements in Music - Composition: Morton Stevens for "Seven Hours to Dawn" – nominated (winner: Laurence Rosenthal for Michelangelo: The Last Giant)

1967–1968 (presented May 19, 1968)[]

• Outstanding Achievement in Musical Composition: Morton Stevens for "Major Glory" (winner: Wikipedia:Earle Hagen for I Spy – "Laya")
• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama: Milburn Stone – won

1969–1970 (presented by June 7, 1970)[]

• Outstanding Achievement in Film Sound Editing: Norman Karlin and Richard E. Raderman – won (tied with Alex Bamattre, Michael Colgan, Douglas H. Grindstaff, Joe Kavigan, Bill Lee, and Josef E. Von Stroheim for ABC Movie of the Week: The Immortal)

Home media[]

In 2006, as part of GunsmokeTemplate:'s 50th anniversary on TV, certain selected episodes were released on DVD in three different box sets. Twelve episodes, from 1955 to 1964, were selected for the Gunsmoke: Volume I box set, and another twelve episodes, from 1964 to 1975, were selected for the Gunsmoke: Volume II box set. Both sets are also available as a combined single "Gift Box Set". A third unique DVD box set, known as Gunsmoke: The Directors Collection, was also released with 10 selected episodes from certain seasons throughout the series' 20-year history. All of these box sets are available on Region 1 DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS DVD.

Additionally, Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS DVD have released the series in its entirety on DVD for 13 years between 2007 and 2020 in Region 1 (all of the seasons except for season one and seasons sixteen through twenty were split into two volumes). A complete series box set was released on May 5, 2020. All DVDs have been released with English audio and close captioning from season 1 to 5 and starting season 6 English SDH.

References[]

External links[]

• Gunsmoke (TV series) at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia