User Reviews

...with humorous results. Not every episode of Gunsmoke had to be about Marshal Matt Dillon rounding up bad guys or this show would have not outlasted the TV western craze of the 50's and early 60's. This is one of those other episodes.

Doc and Marshall Dillon are looking at wanted posters of robbers wanted dead or alive thought to be headed for Kansas and Colorado when an older fellow walks in looking for Marshal Goode. Doc and Matt are confused. This was not the name of any previous or neighboring marshal. And then they learn that the man is Chester's uncle and apparently Chester has been exaggerating the truth in his letters to him. His uncle Wesley believes Chester is the Marshal and Matt is the deputy.

Now Kitty and Doc come up with an outrageous plan to make Chester look good. They want to stage a fake robbery at the livery stable and let Chester round up the fake bad guys. Matt is against this plan because what if somebody who does NOT know it is a fake kills somebody? Well the fake robbery is planned in spite of Matt's protests. But then those two deadly killers on the wanted posters show up, in need of cash. And they are not planning on getting jobs to earn it either.

How does this all work out? Watch and find out. Do note that the scruffy old fellow playing Chester's uncle is Dabbs Greer, who played the preacher on Little House on the Prairie decades later. But here he is only 41 so they have him playing an older guy by dressing him up as one even when he is really not that old yet.

I think these human interest episodes of Gunsmoke were great for establishing the camaraderie between Matt, Chester, Kitty, and Doc, who besides trying to establish law and order and eke out a living in a harsh unforgiving wilderness, were the best of friends. For all of Doc's grousing he would have done anything for the other three, and this episode proves it.

Chester's countrified uncle visits Chester in Dodge. Trouble is Chester has misled his uncle by mail into thinking he's the marshal in Dodge instead of just the deputy. Now Matt's got a problem since he doesn't want to embarrass his loyal assistant.

The first 5-minutes of byplay is hilariously played by Matt, Doc, Chester and Uncle Wesley (the familiar Dabbs Greer), showing again the marvelous chemistry between three of the cast principals. I doubt that whoever put together the cast principals, including Kitty, foresaw them gelling the way they did. It's a really underrated part of the series' enduring success.

Anyway, I would have liked the episode much better had the writers not dug a hole for themselves in a way that requires proving Chester's actual prowess, which then forces a highly improbable narrative twist. Nonetheless, the byplay is worth catching up with.