The 'Secret Weapon' Behind Gunsmoke's Success, According To The Show's Co-Creator

Once upon a time, in the days before streaming, the goal of television creators was to craft series that would captivate viewers long enough to reach 100 episodes — i.e. the industry-accepted threshold where a show could be profitably sold into syndication. This is a major reason why the TV landscape, then and now, is riddled with so many unambitious, formulaic shows. While it might be nice to shake up the medium with an out-of-nowhere broadcast sensation like "Twin Peaks," such shows only tend to burn bright for a very brief time. So, if longevity and syndication dollars are your thing (and that 100-episode threshold has now dropped below 50), the history of the medium bellows loud and clear that you should probably pitch a sitcom or procedural of some sort.

This kind of unadventurous thinking may sound cynical, but there's no reason you can't create a cherished, influential show while coloring inside the lines. Norman Macdonnell and John Meston certainly weren't trying to re-invent the wagon wheel when they cooked up "Gunsmoke" for CBS radio in 1952. The Western series centered on the exploits of U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon (voiced by William Conrad), who keeps the peace in Dodge City, Kansas, during the 1870s, was an immediate success, which prompted the network to fast-track a live-action version for television (over Macdonnell's objections). CBS' instincts were spot-on: "Gunsmoke" was warmly welcomed into the nation's living rooms, and proved popular enough to remain on the air for 20 years (before getting abruptly canceled in 1975).

This kind of longevity cannot simply be ascribed to identifying the right genre and formula. There has to be something else going under the hood to keep that motor revving for two decades. According to co-creator Meston, there absolutely was.

Though the 635-episode run of "Gunsmoke" wasn't exclusively the result of its widespread popularity (indeed, it was on the chopping block in 1967, and only survived at the "Gilligan's Island"-killing behest of CBS honcho William S. Paley), its dogged familiarity was likely an old-timey salve for older viewers as they struggled to make sense of the United States' social and political upheaval throughout the '60s and stretching into the '70s.

When Meston was once asked about the series' endurance in an interview with Florida Today, he cited the cast and their characters. "Everybody has tried to copy 'Gunsmoke,'" he explained. "But what they don't realize is that the honesty of these people — Jim Arness, Dennis Weaver, Amanda Blake, Milburn Stone — is the key," he added, deeming this the show's "secret weapon."

Though the series was a ludicrous whitewash of how the American West was civilized, the printing of the legend, to borrow a phrase from John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," continues to be of great comfort to people who can't abide the U.S.'s vicious past or, worse, seek to justify it. No series before or since has exemplified America's unearned exceptionalism than "Gunsmoke." That, to me, is its actual (shameful) "secret weapon."