Gunsmoke
Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.
- 1955-1975
- 20 seasons
- CBS
- Action & Adventure
- TV-PG
Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.
Season 1 Episode Guide
39 Episodes 1955 - 1956
Episode 1
Matt Gets It
Sat, Sep 10, 1955 30 mins
Matt is critically wounded while attempting to arrest super-fast gunman Dan Grat. Grat runs rampant in Dodge while Matt recovers, but is unpleasantly surprised when the recovered marshal challenges him again.
Episode 2
Hot Spell
Sat, Sep 17, 1955 30 mins
Temperatures are high, tempers are short, and Matt is unenviably duty-bound to protect despicable gunman Cope Borden from being lynched by a group of normally law-abiding and hard-working ranchers and cowhands.
Episode 3
Word of Honor
Sat, Oct 1, 1955 30 mins
Doc is sworn to secrecy to protect a cruel gang guilty of murder.
Episode 4
Home Surgery
Sat, Oct 8, 1955 30 mins
The frightened teenage daughter of a rancher enlists Matt to attempt to save her father's life by amputating his gangrenous leg.
Episode 5
Obie Tater
Sat, Oct 15, 1955 30 mins
An old prospector marries a saloon girl, who like others wants to know where his gold from his prospecting days is hidden.
Episode 6
Night Incident
Sat, Oct 29, 1955 30 mins
Matt is dubious of young Timmy Wyatt's stories concerning nighttime robberies and assaults, but he agrees to investigate and is surprised by what he discovers.
Episode 7
Smoking Out the Nolans
Sat, Nov 5, 1955 30 mins
Matt has the unpleasant task of evicting some squatters from a rancher's land, but the squatters claim the rancher sold the land to them legally.
Episode 8
Kite's Reward
Sat, Nov 12, 1955 30 mins
Dillon takes away the gun of Andy Travis after he kills a man in self defense, figuring no one will challenge an unarmed man to a gunfight, but it's an action that might prove to be very costly.
Episode 9
The Hunter
Sat, Nov 26, 1955 30 mins
Marshal Dillon has to keep bullying buffalo hunter Jase Murdock from traveling south into Indian territory on a hunt for hides. Murdock's plan to trespass and wantonly massacre buffalo promises to spark an uprising.
Episode 10
The Queue
Sat, Dec 3, 1955 30 mins
Two men cut off a Chinese immigrant's pigtail, and he tells Matt that he can return home to China only with the pigtail or by taking the lives of the men who stole it.
Episode 11
General Parsley Smith
Sat, Dec 10, 1955 30 mins
An inveterate liar is loudly insistent that Dodge City's new banker is a swindler who will abscond with the townspeople's savings at his earliest opportunity.
Episode 12
Magnus
Sat, Dec 24, 1955 30 mins
Chester is concerned when his nomadic and "uncivilized" brother pays a Christmas visit to Dodge, but Magnus Goode proves worldlier and more adaptable to town life than anyone thought possible.
Episode 13
Reed Survives
Sat, Dec 31, 1955 30 mins
Booth Rider is being played for a sucker by the wife of the ranch owner he works for, in the hopes that he will have to kill her husband in self defense.
Episode 14
Professor Lute Bone
Sat, Jan 7, 1956 30 mins
Doc Adams complains vehemently to Matt when a medicine man's opium-laden "cure-all" nearly kills an infant girl. Matt initially finds himself unable to intervene legally, but he is finally able to do so when abuse of the elixir results in the death of an elderly man.
Episode 15
No Handcuffs
Sat, Jan 21, 1956 30 mins
Hank Springer who claims the sheriff of Mingo framed him for murder, escapes from Matt's jail, wrongly believing he has killed a deputy in the process, and now has the intention of killing the apparently corrupt sheriff.
Episode 16
Reward for Matt
Sat, Jan 28, 1956 30 mins
A woman puts a price on Matt's head after he shoots down her husband.
Episode 17
Robin Hood
Sat, Feb 4, 1956 30 mins
Holdup man John Henry Jordan repeatedly escapes conviction by robbing only the wealthy and sparing poorer persons who are potential witnesses against him. His luck runs out when Matt's efforts force him to victimize ordinary citizens.
Episode 18
Yorky
Sat, Feb 18, 1956 30 mins
A young white boy, taken hostage years earlier by the Pawnee, must steal from or kill a white in order to be accepted by the tribe as a brave.
Episode 19
20-20
Sat, Feb 25, 1956 30 mins
Troy Carver is an aging ex lawman with poor eyesight being chased by a dirt farmer who wants revenge for the killing of his brother 2 years before.
Episode 20
Reunion '78
Sat, Mar 3, 1956 30 mins
Jerry Shand finds himself facing a hangman's noose after killing jovial hardware drummer Andy Culley, but Matt learns that Culley was a former Quantrill raider and senses that reticent Long Branch hostess Belle Archer is the key to proving Jerry's claim of self-defense.
Episode 21
Helping Hand
Sat, Mar 17, 1956 30 mins
Matt saves suspected 18 year old cattle thief Steve Elser, from a would be lynch group, and tries to help him find a job, but discovers he might be a hopeless case.
Episode 22
Tap Day for Kitty
Sat, Mar 24, 1956 30 mins
Matt suspects Kitty of shooting and wounding an old man who attempted to abduct her in hopes of forcing her to marry him.
Episode 23
Indian Scout
Sat, Mar 31, 1956 30 mins
Amos Cartwright is an Indian scout for the army who's suspected of deliberately allowing his troop to be ambushed by the Comanches. Now, the brother of one of the dead soldiers is planning to kill him.
Episode 24
The Pest Hole
Sat, Apr 14, 1956 30 mins
When an epidemic of typhoid fever hits Dodge, some citizens want to take the law into their own hands against the person suspected as the carrier of the disease.
Episode 25
The Big Broad
Sat, Apr 28, 1956 30 mins
A large woman and her small companion bring trouble to Kitty's saloon, as the woman has a way of causing guns to be drawn.
Episode 26
Hack Prine
Sat, May 12, 1956 30 mins
Far from Dodge and without a horse, Matt Dillon still manages to bring in Lee Timble...a man wanted for murder. Lee's brother Dolph swears that he'll get him out. Meanwhile, an old friend of Dillon's, Hack Prine, has arrived in Dodge to take a job. Happy to see each other, they reminisce about old times, while both are unaware that the job Hack is in Dodge for, is killing Dillon.
Episode 27
Cooter
Sat, May 19, 1956 30 mins
After Matt exposes gambler Ben Sissle as a cheat, Sissle attempts to exact revenge by giving brain-damaged Cooter Smith a gun and telling the marshal that Cooter plans to challenge him to a gunfight.
Episode 28
The Killer
Sat, May 26, 1956 30 mins
A brutal killer named Crego is in Dodge. His game is to goad slower men into drawing first and then gunning them down and claiming self defense. Each time Dillon confronts him he backs down. If Matt can't rely on the law to provide a solution to this problem he may be forced to resort to Crego's tactics to mete out justice.
Episode 29
Doc's Revenge
Sat, Jun 9, 1956 30 mins
Doc bristles at a stranger who has just ridden in with two friends. With the proverbial blood in his eye, Doc fetches an old six-shooter and confronts the stranger. What's going on with the normally mild-mannered town doctor. Fortunately, Matt intervenes in time. We expect the object of Doc's anger, Clem (Chris Alcaide), to be a dis-likable roughneck. But he's not. Instead he's courteous and understanding even after Doc's sworn to kill him.
Episode 30
The Preacher
Sat, Jun 16, 1956 30 mins
The stage coach arrives in Dodge carrying two distinct personalities. Sam Keeler, a loud braggart of a man who boasts he can beat any man with his fists and Seth Tandy a quiet, meek man who refuses to raise his hands in violence. Keeler tries to provoke Tandy into a fight and Dillon is forced to intervene to prevent Tandy's beating. Soon Keeler has a grudge against Tandy and Dillon which will lead to an inevitable confrontation between Keeler and Dillon.
Episode 31
How to Die for Nothing
Sat, Jun 23, 1956 30 mins
Two drunk trail herders, one of whom draws on Matt. Matt is forced to defend himself, and kills the man. The dead man's brother (Mort Mills), another crew member, swears vengeance and now Matt must deal with the threat.
Episode 32
Dutch George
Sat, Jun 30, 1956 30 mins
Slickster Dutch George (that fine actor Robert Middleton) turns up in the middle of the prairie and steals a horse from boyish-looking McQueen (Tom Pittman). Turns out that George is an old friend of Matt's. Matt knows George's reputation as a skilled horse thief from back when Matt was a boy. McQueen comes to Dillon for help, together with Chester they ride to find George and the stolen horse. Matt thinks he may finally have George caught with evidence.
Episode 33
Prairie Happy
Sat, Jul 7, 1956 30 mins
Matt tries to quell rumors of a planned Pawnee attack.
Episode 34
Chester's Mail Order Bride
Sat, Jul 14, 1956 30 mins
Chester has been writing to a mail-order bride who is now coming to Dodge to marry him. What Chester has neglected to tell Matt and Doc is that the picture he sent her wasn't his but the marshal's.
Episode 35
The Guitar
Sat, Jul 21, 1956 30 mins
Weed Pindle is a rather mild mannered wandering guitar player who is in Dodge. A couple of the rowdier cowboys have started having fun at his expense getting him drunk. When they find out he fought for the Union in the 3rd Illinois Cavalry their fun turns serious and they are set on hanging the peaceful player. Chester and some of the other citizens are just as determined to prevent it.
Episode 36
Cara
Sat, Jul 28, 1956 30 mins
An old flame of Matt's comes to town, but her presence in Dodge may be motivated by more than sentiment.
Episode 37
Mr. and Mrs. Amber
Sat, Aug 4, 1956 30 mins
A struggling prairie couple endures harassment and torment at the hands of the wife's self-righteous brother.
Episode 38
Unmarked Grave
Sat, Aug 18, 1956 30 mins
A distraught woman is determined to help an accused young murderer in Matt's custody escape, after she learns of her own son's violent death and unceremonious burial on Boot Hill.
Episode 39
Alarm at Pleasant Valley
Sat, Aug 25, 1956 30 mins
While on the way back to Dodge, Matt and Chester help homesteaders besieged by Indians.
