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Gunsmoke is a long-running American western television series that was broadcasted on CBS for 20 years between 1955 and 1975.

In 1971, Barbara Paley was invited to CBS' Daytime Department and wanted to cancel both repeats of the two sitcoms, The Lucy Show and Beverly Hillbillies, while Barbara Paley is putting her favorite programs, Gunsmoke onto the CBS daytime schedule, which is due to start December 20, the same day repeats of My Three Sons replace repeats of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. on the 4:00pm time slot, and it will cover the post-1966 episodes. Gunsmoke will start at 10:00am, followed by Family Affair at 11:00am.

Gunsmoke will be the second western program to ever appear on daytime TV, the first will be the Ward Bond-era Wagon Train reruns on ABC from 1963 to 1965 under the title of Major Adams, Trailmaster.

Gunsmoke's daytime repeats were quickly canned on March 24, 1972, by putting The Lucy Show reruns back to the schedule and moving My Three Sons to 10:30am and putting Heatter-Quigley's game show Amateur's Guide to Love at 4:00pm.
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