Gunsmoke
The Prodigal
TV Flash files “The Prodigal” as hour 441 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 13, episode 3, aired 1967-09-25, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S13E03: listed hour 441 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 3 of 25 in season 13. It aired 1967-09-25 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Cattle Barons” (S13E02). Next is “Vengeance (1)” (S13E04). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
A notorious outlaw was shot in the back, fatally, before Matt could arrest him. The large bounty on the man's head was never collected. Now a "crusading" newspaper reporter is trying to goad the dead man's two young sons into a showdown with Matt Dillon, who would have been legally enjoined from getting the bounty money because of his lawman status and thus is the main suspect in the shooting.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Prodigal sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S13E03 is listed hour 441 of 635 — hour 3 of 25 in season 13, season 13 episode 3.
When did Gunsmoke S13E03 air?
The Prodigal aired 1967-09-25 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
James Arness towered over Dodge City as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, the long-running western that turned weekly moral court into a twenty-year empire. Quiet steel defined adult TV drama’s early prime-time map. Radio-to-TV casting…
- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
Amanda Blake’s Miss Kitty Russell ran Dodge City’s Long Branch with red-haired steel on Gunsmoke — saloon diplomacy as weekly moral court. Longevity made her western TV’s most reliable soft power. TV Flash files her as the original…
- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
Milburn Stone’s Doc Adams is Gunsmoke’s civic medicine — twenty seasons of Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a doctor who treated violence as a bill the town had to pay. CBS moved radio muscle to Saturday, then Monday; Stone made the…
- 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…