Gunsmoke
The Pack Rat
TV Flash files “The Pack Rat” as hour 505 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 15, episode 16, aired 1970-01-12, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S15E16: listed hour 505 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 16 of 26 in season 15. It aired 1970-01-12 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The War Priest” (S15E15). Next is “The Judas Gun” (S15E17). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
As Matt escorts a wounded prisoner to Ft. Union, his camp is invaded by a thieving young boy, whom Matt takes into custody. In Dodge City the journey to Ft. Union is joined by two women, one pregnant traveling to see her husband, the other secretly the wife of the prisoner. A trio of outlaws waits on the trail to kill Matt and rescue the prisoner.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Pack Rat sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S15E16 is listed hour 505 of 635 — hour 16 of 26 in season 15, season 15 episode 16.
When did Gunsmoke S15E16 air?
The Pack Rat aired 1970-01-12 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…