TVWI: Gunsmoke Cancellation Delayed

[Emperor Norton I]

In 1975, Gunsmoke was cancelled after 20 years on the air (the longest running prime-time drama until Law and Order tied it). This was in spite of still high ratings, and the cancellation came as a surprise to the people involved as they didn't know CBS was even thinking about it. To quote James Arness, who played sheriff Matt Dillion, "We didn't do a final, wrap-up show. We finished the 20th year, we all expected to go on for another season, or two or three. The (network) never told anybody they were thinking of canceling." In it's place, CBS put the Mary Tyler Moore spin-offs Rhoda and Phyllis.

Gunsmoke avoided cancellation once before when in 1967, it was removed from the schedule due to fan pressure and the wife of the president of CBS urging him not to cancel it. Gilligan's Island was cancelled instead.

So what if Gunsmoke avoided being cancelled, and ran for that extra 1, 2, or 3 seasons mentioned by Arness, if not more?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

New factoid:

James Arness, shortly after Gunsmoke was cancelled, got called up to star in a TV adaptation "How the West Was Won", which began as a miniseries, and then became a regular series from 1978-1979.

Evidentally, they wanted to go on for a few more seasons, but James Arness had a bum leg which was getting worse, and the show was so physically taxing that they cancelled it and he underwent two leg operations and was out of acting for two years.

So you have two things: one being, "How the West Was Won" most likely gets affected, since I don't get the feeling Arness would do another show at the same time as Gunsmoke. Though maybe he would if MGM showed the interest in him that they did in the OTL.
The second thing is that the leg problems could signal that Gunsmoke would be forced to be cancelled around 1979 as well (if it lasted to that) so Arness could get that same treatment for his leg. And then he could return for TV movies based around Gunsmoke like he did in the OTL.

***

Something else that could happen if Gunsmoke was given an assured cancellation date is that they could do the finale episode they never got a chance to do, and I would take it as a very good chance that they'd finally marry off Miss Kitty and Matt Dillon.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

*Bump*

Anyone? Longest running TV show in history, here.

 

[Pesterfield]

If it lasts to 1979 it'll have outlasted other Westerns by six years instead of two. Will this do anything for the genre, or will it just be an oddity?

If the movies keep to the same schedule it'll put them 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, and 1998.

Considering the wave of nostalgia programming lately I wonder if anybody would be thinking sequel or reboot?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

If it lasts to 1979 it'll have outlasted other Westerns by six years instead of two. Will this do anything for the genre, or will it just be an oddity?

If the movies keep to the same schedule it'll put them 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, and 1998.

Considering the wave of nostalgia programming lately I wonder if anybody would be thinking sequel or reboot?

The movies don't need to be butterflied down the road. There's no special reason they need to be X years after cancellation. They could come out in the 80s/early 90s with as much likelihood as they actually did, with butterflies making them different stories, perhaps.

Whether there could be a spin-off to follow it up, heck if I know, but it didn't get any I know of in the OTL 20 year run which I think says likely no. Whether it gets a reboot, I suppose it's as likely as it's been since it was actually cancelled.

***

I think the most important thing for a continued Gunsmoke is not the effect on itself so much as the effect it has on everything else. Everything from people to culture, to most importantly television. Alternate programs affect the schedule, affect other programs on the network and television overall as a result, can alter shows and can thus alter people's careers (not just actors, but writers and producers and people who got lucky and bumped into some guy who made them famous). As we saw with the thread on Batman moving networks in 1968 and thus being saved, that brought up the possibility that it would kill Star Trek and then all the results that has, along with a list of other things, from Paramount continuing to decline and Godfather not getting made and Brando's career never reviving.

 

[edvader]

Gunsmoke started on the radio with William Conrad as Matt.Didn't get the role for a big reason.Some of the radio cast/crew worked on the tv show.Conrad directed one TV episode.I hated Dennis Weaver as Chester.BTW John Wayne recommended Arness as Matt.Don't know if Peter Graves made an appearance.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Gunsmoke started on the radio with William Conrad as Matt.Didn't get the role for a big reason.Some of the radio cast/crew worked on the tv show.Conrad directed one TV episode.I hated Dennis Weaver as Chester.BTW John Wayne recommended Arness as Matt.Don't know if Peter Graves made an appearance.

Would one of the big reasons William Conrad was not Matt Dillon in the TV series be that he was overweight, which doesn't work well for a Western drama?

 

[Flubber]

Would one of the big reasons William Conrad was not Matt Dillon in the TV series be that he was overweight, which doesn't work well for a Western drama?

Conrad's weight is what edvader referred to as a "big" reason. In the words of Rainier Wolfcastle "That's the joke."

My father watched Gunsmoke religiously, mostly because he'd enjoyed the radio version so very much, and even he admitted the show hung around too long. I had to watch it with him, this being the 70s, with no cable, and most families not having two televisions. I distiinctly remember the show as a mixture of annoying and boring.

Towards the show's end the main characters were noted more for their absence more than anything else. IIRC, Miss Kitty's appearances steadily dwindled and she didn't appear at all during what would become the final season while Doc's character did little more than appear bickering with the painfully annoying Festus in a scene or two which did little more than bookend that week's plot. Even Matt Dillon himself was more and more offstage as either Newly, Festus, or that week's guest star(s) got most of the screen time. While I know Arness spoke about not being able to do a wrap-up episode, he and the rest of the main cast weren't doing much of anything on the show for most of the last few years.

Looking back, I'm struck by how much that later years of Gunsmoke reminds me of other, more recent "senior citizen" shows like Murder, She Wrote or Matlock. You'd have a "big" guest star who is instantly recognizable thanks to film or theater work decades previously, a formulaic plot which required minimal involvement by the viewer, and a few regular characters thrown in make things even more comfortable for an audience which fears change above all else. Just as with Gunsmoke's main cast disappearing for entire shows, Angela Lansbury and Andy Griffith occasionally didn't appear in episodes of their shows too.

About all I can see resulting from a Gunsmoke which lasts a few more years is a few more residual checks going to old Hollywood and fewer "once weres" available for guest shots on The Love Boat.

Gunsmoke was a great show once and it did last 20 years. By 1975 however, it was a zombie.

 

[edvader]

Thanks last two posters.I did watch the TV version for a while until it went to color and got too many supporting actors it seemed.BTW the producers used radio episodes for TV as well as a lot of the actors from the show.There is a MCFarland press book out on the history of the show-radio and TV.