Trivia for
"Gunsmoke" (1955)

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• At 20 years and 633 episodes, the longest-running American prime-time drama TV series to date. (2008)
  
  
• It was originally produced for the CBS Television Network by Filmcrafters at the Producers Studio (now the Raleigh Studio). Around 1960, CBS took over production and moved it to KTLA Studios, then owned by Paramount Pictures. Around 1963 production was moved to CBS Studio Center, formerly Republic Studios, where it remained for the rest of the show's run. Starting around 1970, CBS produced it in association with The Arness Company (James Arness). Originally syndicated by CBS Films and then by its successor, Viacom, now Paramount Television.
  
  
• James Arness and Milburn Stone are the only two regulars to stay with the show for its entire 20-year, 633-episode duration on CBS.
  
  

• The series was the final film project of Glenn Strange.
  
  
• Slated to be canceled in 1967 due to low ratings, but then-CBS president William Paley reversed the decision. He moved the show from Saturdays to Mondays (cancelling "Gilligan's Island" (1964) in the process), placing it back in the Nielsen's Top Ten (Paley and his wife were both big fans of the show).
  
  
• Rumor has it that Rex Koury had so little time to pen the theme song that he hastily scribbled it while in the bathroom. It was originally written for "Gunsmoke" when it was a radio show and later adapted for TV.
  
  
• "Gunsmoke" was created by writer John Meston and producer Norman MacDonnell as a radio series that premiered on CBS in 1952. Many of the early television episodes are adaptations of Meston's radio scripts. The radio series ran for more than 400 episodes and lasted until 1961.
  
  
• When a replacement for Dennis Weaver was needed when he was leaving the show it was director Andrew V. McLaglen's suggestion that Ken Curtis be brought in for a tryout as Festus Haggen in a few episodes. McLaglen had directed Curtis in a similar role in an episode of "Have Gun - Will Travel" (1957). Festus was given the job of deputy to make him different from Weaver's character of Chester Good (who was never a deputy).
  
  
• The series was set in the 1870s. Kansas entered the Union in 1861. The Marshals Service provided local law enforcement in territories, not in states. The duties Matt Dillon performed would have been handled by a town Marshal or county sheriff (in this case, Ford County). Each state (or federal court district) had one US Marshal, who was in charge of all the Deputy US Marshals in that particular jurisdiction; Matt Dillon would have been a Deputy US Marshal.
  
  
• The actress originally offered the part of Miss Kitty, Polly Bond (aka Polly Ellis), turned it down due to her recent (at the time) marriage to actor Tommy Bond in 1953.
  
  

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