Gunsmoke
The Bassops
TV Flash files “The Bassops” as hour 326 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 9, episode 21, aired 1964-02-22, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S09E21: listed hour 326 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 21 of 36 in season 9. It aired 1964-02-22 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “May Blossom” (S09E20). Next is “The Kite” (S09E22). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
A family in search of a doctor find Matt and his prisoner unconscious and handcuffed to each other on the prairie. The prisoner wakens first and announces that Matt is the condemned man he is transporting for hanging.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Bassops sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S09E21 is listed hour 326 of 635 — hour 21 of 36 in season 9, season 9 episode 21.
When did Gunsmoke S09E21 air?
The Bassops aired 1964-02-22 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1955 opener, where the marshal is not invincible. Then sample a later guest-star hour rather than marching through hundreds of titles in order.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty seasons of Dodge as a civic appointment: a marshal who can lose, a chorus instead of gadgets, and adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Longevity here was weather, not catalog padding — weekly public work with dust still on the boots.
September 1955, CBS: a marshal takes a bullet in the first hour and the adult western stops being a kid’s hat commercial. Gunsmoke had already lived on radio, with a different voice in the badge. Television wanted a face the lens could trust. The lore still pours like bar whiskey — John Wayne pointing at James Arness, William Conrad left on the airwaves, a casting fight that was really a medium fight. Radio-to-TV is never a reprint. It is a negotiation about whose body gets to mean the law.
Filed against
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
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- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
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- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
Dennis Weaver’s Chester Goode was Gunsmoke’s limp and loyalty — chorus, not gadget, in Dodge City’s weekly moral court. Twenty seasons of adult western that treated a gunfight as a verdict, James Arness as a marshal the camera could…
- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
Ken Curtis’s Festus Haggen is Gunsmoke’s later chorus — Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a marshal who can lose, adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Twenty seasons of civic work with dust on the boots. On TV Flash…