Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Romeo" 1/22/56

Two wealthy ranchers hate each other. But the daughter of one rancher has fallen in love with the son of the other. This is likely to get someone killed.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Bloody Hands" 4/2/52

Sick of having to kill people, Matt Dillon resigns as marshal. But he might not be able to escape his destiny.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "The Gypsum Hills Feud" 4/16/55

While Dillon and Chester are on the way back to Dodge City, someone takes a shot at Dillon. Soon, he finds himself involved in a feud between two families.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Born to Hang" 4/23/55

A lynching leads to a vow to exact vengeance, which in turn leads to Dillon having a really busy day.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Sutler" 9/5/53

Dillon goes up against a man selling rifles to the Indians.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "The Old Lady" 1/24/53

An old woman's existance on a remote ranch has left her bereft of emotion. Her son is a wayward lout who drinks too much. This will not end well.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Absalom" 3/7/53

A young man is shooting up the town. When Dillon arrests him, the man's powerful father steps into the picture. This does not end well.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Westbound" 1/3/53

Dillon and Chester arrive in Abeline by train and soon arrest a man wanted for murder in Dodge City. But it's four hours until the train back to Dodge leaves and the prisoner's two brothers are in town...

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Claustrophobia" 6/26/54

Dillon and Chester discover a murdered man in a remote cabin. This event cascades into a situation involving more deaths and a singular tragedy.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Line Trouble" 6/26/60

Dillon helps an old Indian friend who is falsely accused of a crime.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Scared Boy" 5/17/59

A young boy witnesses a murder, which makes him a target for the killer.

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Miss Kitty is Awesome!

 In 1971, during Gunsmoke's 17th season, a three-part episode titled "The Bullet" (written by veteran TV scribe Jim Byrnes) aired. It is a superbly written and acted story arc in many ways, but today I'd like to stress one particular moment.

It comes during the story's second part (which aired on December 6, 1971). The context of the scene I'm sharing below is as follows. Outlaws have taken over a train that is carrying a fortune in gold. But the bad guys don't know that a badly wounded Matt Dillon is also hidden aboard the train. The gang leader is missing a hand and it was Matt's bullet that took that hand off. So if Matt is discovered aboard, he's dead.

A pretty young criminal--a femme fatale in the making--is also aboard. She knows about Matt and is considering ratting him out to the bad guys in exchange for being taken along with them after they've finished loading the gold onto a wagon. But Kitty Russell--who's perpetually undeclared love for Matt has always been obvious to pretty much any fan of the show--isn't going to allow that to happen.

 

DO NOT threaten Miss Kitty's man if she's in a position to to do anything about it.

This is a great scene from an always excellent TV series.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "What the Whiskey Drummer Heard" 4/17/54

Marshal Dillon learns that someone has been hired to kill him, but doesn't know Who, Where or When.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "Stage Holdup" 1/2/54

A complete lack of honor among thieves is a key part of Dillon's plan to catch a gang that robbed a stage and killed a passenger.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "Doc Judge" 9/25/60

While Matt is out of town, someone is plotting to kill Doc. But Chester is still in town and, as we discovered in the episode featured a few weeks ago, if you threaten one of Chester's friends, you had better just run away.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "Ex-Urbanites" 5/30/61

We think of Chester as Matt Dillon's not-so-bright sidekick. But when he stands in front of a friend who is in danger... well, Chester can be someone you simply don't want to mess with.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "Sins of the Fathers" 1/22/55

A mountain man named Big Dan Daggit brings his Kiowa wife to Dodge. Because of a recent bloody raid by Kiowas, a lot of the locals object to the wife being in town. But if you mess with Big Dan's wife, you're gonna have to mess with him as well.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "The Guitar" 12/26/53


The Civil War on Old-Time Radio (Parts 15 of 17)

The war is over, but the bitterness between North and South lasted for years after the fighting officially stopped. Matt Dillon has to intervene when two men decide to lynch a man born in the South because he served in the Union cavalry.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

This is the 15th of 17 episodes from various series that will take us through the Civil War and its immediate post-war legacy. I'll be posting another Civil War episode every three or four weeks.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "Solomon River" 4/17/60

While escorting a prisoner into Dodge City, Dillon and Chester meet a half-starved, half-crazy woman... who's desperately trying to dig a grave in rock-hard soil.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Gunsmoke: "The Lamb" 12/5/53

The soft-spoken, polite man who just rode into Dodge City also happens to have a reputation as one of the deadliest gunmen in the West.

Click HERE to listen or download.