Wilbur Hawkins is an oddball traveling whiskey salesman -- a "drummer" -- who visits Dodge City. He tells Marshal Matt Dillon he overheard a conversation where two men discussed a plan to assassinate Matt. One of the men agreed to pay the other $300 to kill Dillon After someone takes a shot at Marshal Dillon, Matt has Chester spread the word that he (Matt) was killed in the hopes the culprit will be revealed.
When multiple men begin boasting about killing Dillon, the situation becomes quite confusing. (I am not sure why anyone in their right mind would boast about out-drawing Matt Dillon since it would invite all manner of gunfighters to challenge them.)
Vic Perrin appears for the second time in a Gunsmoke guest role. Perrin, along with John Dehner and Virginia Gregg, frequently played different characters on the radio version of the show. He fits the role of the eccentric Wilbur Hawkins well. He would appear in one more of the thirty-minute episodes and one of the one-hour episodes. During his extensive career, Perrin made occasional guest appearances in westerns and crime shows, but he was most prolific for his voice work. His voice can be heard in numerous animated shows.
Actor Robert Burton only appears in this one episode of Gunsmoke where he plays Sheriff Smith from Tascosa. Burton appeared in a substantial number of early television dramas.
Robert Karnes makes his first Gunsmoke appearance in this story. He plays the man in the Long Branch that was boasting about killing Dillon. Karnes would go on to appear in ten more episodes in the series.
"What the Whiskey Drummer Heard" is one of the stranger, more unpredictable stories in the Gunsmoke series, but it is also a simple story. There are many twists and turns packed into this thirty-minute episode, and the resolution is quite a surprise.