Gunsmoke shorts.....

[L_Kilkenny]

Anyone else been watching them on Encore Westerns? I'm liking them much better than the 1 hour shows. Darker and edgier.

LK

[Mossyoak1957]

We watch "Encore Westerns" every night. I like both the 1/2 and the 1 hr. shows,I kinda like the 1 hr. shows better. I noticed that the 1/2 show are re-running the next week.
I wonder if the is a count on how many bad guys Matt Dillon killed in the 20 years the show was on.

I found my answer:...He killed 138 men and 7 women
And he was shot....59 times!

[GonnePhishin]

Are you talking about the 1/2 hour long shows?

[Mossyoak1957]

Are you talking about the 1/2 hour long shows?

I think he is...they just started airing the 1/2 shows again.

[gak]

I like the 1/2 hour shows too. Tip on the hour-long ones: kill the color--great improvement! Still, especially toward the last 1/3 of the show's run, it got to be more like "Little House on the Prairie With An Occasional Gun." Coiffed and curly long hair on the all-too-scrubbed aw shucks young adult men and teen kids running around (thank you 70s), family conflicts, etc. Real good ol' bad guy stories waned (I guess as things got more PC and anti gun?), and qualty dipped as well with an ill-conceived trend toward whimsical themes (usually the kind of music in the opening scenes would tip that off...but killing the color helps even on these lesser stories. Ditto on the other colored Westerns--Big Valley, Bonanza, etc. Try it!

[AJMD429]

...but killing the color helps even on these lesser stories. Ditto on the other colored Westerns--Big Valley, Bonanza, etc. Try it!

When they first came out with color television, my mother made the comment that "Television should stay black and white, so you know it's just a story you're seeing; if they make it color and it gets too realistic, people will sit and watch television, and believe whatever is shown is actually real, when it's just someone's version of reality as they put it on film."As a kid, I kind of rolled my eyes, although it was a moot point, as we couldn't afford a color television then, but later on as an adult, as I see how many people think they're an 'expert' on something or other, just because they saw a Public Television documentary on it, I'm realizing how prophetic her ideas were.

[L_Kilkenny]

Yes, I'm talkin about the 1/2 hour Gunsmokes. Characters just seem more "real" to me. Dillion tends to shot or punch first and ask questions later. Not much preaching going on either.

As for color vs. black and white I whole heartily agree except on one point. You really need to watch the Big Valley in color just for the Linda Evans factor.

LK

[KCSO]

In 1970 we got my Grandmother her first television. She was sitting in her rocking chair rocking and sewing and had the TV on, she said," boy if you close your eyes it's almost as good as radio".

My wife and I were amazed at the 1/2 hour shows, we had never heard of them. Then I looked and they were made before either of our familys had a television. By the time we had TV I was too big for mouse ears.

[Rube Burrows]

Anyone else been watching them on Encore Westerns? I'm liking them much better than the 1 hour shows. Darker and edgier.

LK

Those were the early ones. First they were Marshal Dillion where he was in the graveyard in the intro. They do show a darker side but they usually just end leaving me wanting to see a little more of the story. I love Gunsmoke but I do wish they would have left Chyenne on also.

[GonnePhishin]

Yes, Gunsmoke first came on TV in 1955? if I'm not mistaken and ran as a 1/2 hour show until 1962? when it became a 1 hour long show. It stayed B&W until 1966 season? when it went to color. The 1/2 hour shows and 1 hour shows in B&W were more "action" orientated then the color ones, especially after 1970.
However, it would have to rate as one of my all time favorite westerns.

[Rube Burrows]

Yes, Gunsmoke first came on TV in 1955? if I'm not mistaken and ran as a 1/2 hour show until 1962? when it became a 1 hour long show. It stayed B&W until 1966 season? when it went to color. The 1/2 hour shows and 1 hour shows in B&W were more "action" orientated then the color ones, especially after 1970.
However, it would have to rate as one of my all time favorite westerns.

Yeah, the color ones were at a time when violence on tv was becoming shunned upon.

[gak]

There also seemed to be better--or at least grittier--acting and characters in the earlier 1/2 hour or hour-long shows...like they took their craft more seriously (earning their stripes?). Later, they just phoned it in, and stories/characters also just got hokier and hokier. Never liked Alias Smith & Jones for that reason. The "wink-wink" just didn't cut it, though worked like a charm on films like Butch Cassidy that directly or indirectly inspired it. Laredo was another one of the same vein that even killing the color on can't save.

+1 to the wish they'd bring back Cheyenne--don't see that on the retro channels.....and, any news on the Rifleman redo? (Didn't mean to sideteack or hi-jack)

[GonnePhishin]

I think they had to be "grittier" because they only 1/2 hour to tell the story, and that the Virginian was another show in the same vain as Laredo.
Yes, the "violence" sic, was WAY too terrible in the late 1960's. That is the reason they killed off the "Wild, Wild, West."
Compared to what is in the idiot box today, the violence back than was tame in comparison.

[pricedo]

We watch "Encore Westerns" every night. I like both the 1/2 and the 1 hr. shows,I kinda like the 1 hr. shows better. I noticed that the 1/2 show are re-running the next week.
I wonder if the is a count on how many bad guys Matt Dillon killed in the 20 years the show was on.

I found my answer:...He killed 138 men and 7 women
And he was shot....59 times!

Where do you get those six-guns, 73s and 92s that never run out of ammo that Dillion and his buddies have on the show?

Even the crooks have guns with "bottomless" magazines.