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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spooky Owl!" data-source="post: 362935" data-attributes="member: 57984">Yes, Steve Forrest was also in "The Brothers" (Season 18) and "The Widowmaker" (Season 19) and "Morgan" (circa Season 16) with a gatling gun (I always want to recast him with Joan Crawford in that one). All good episodes, including, as you say, "Mannon."In fact, the only scenes which seemed to work in the RETURN TO DODGE (1987) reunion movie are the flashbacks to "Mannon" scattered through-out.Jim Davis, Morgan Woodward, all these fire-n-brimstone character-actors with those voices worked really well on the umbilically-connected GUNSMOKE and DALLAS. Sometimes I think the hour-long color episodes get too much guff. Sure, the 30 minutes B&W installments during the first six years became instantly iconic, the #1 show on TV once Desi & Lucy divorced, but sometimes felt too truncated. Most drama series were expanding from 30 minutes to 60 (and even 90!) minutes in the early-60s, and GUNSMOKE seemed ripe for expansion. But when they grew to a full hour in 1961, instead of using the extra time to flesh-out the characters and add detail to the plotlines, the show started to feel padded. So ratings drooped a bit.CBS and James Arness (a co-producer not known for being very high-handed) decided a new line producer needed to be brought in (with creator/producer Norman McDonnell pushed out) with hopes of extending the series' run. Philip Leacock took over the show in 1963, early in Season 9, but the ratings continued slowly bleeding out, even with the obligatory switch to color in 1966 for Season 12.The show was cancelled (for the second time) in 1967, but CBS' William Paley felt twelve years on Saturday nights was the problem, over-riding the cancellation and moving GUNSMOKE to Monday nights at 7:30, John Mantley was promoted to executive producer, and it soon jumped back up to the Top 5.The hour-long episodes (the last 14 years of the show) became a bit more anthology-esque, with guest stars more heavily-featured than they were before. But they mostly got the balance right, so it worked, even though some fans complained about the tonal and structural shift.Even in its twentieth and final season, the first half of which was totally top-notch and was often in the Top 10 for the week, GUNSMOKE was still very strong. But when line-producer Leonard Katzman left mid-way through the year, and John G. Stephens took over, the last half of the season became a bit too ponderous and rating suddenly slipped.CBS used that to justify cancelling the aging show for a third and final time ("some horse-feathers about demographics," Arness growled).It shouldn't have happened. And Arness/Mantley/Stephens promptly went over to ABC and did HOW THE WEST WAS WON, which was a hit.I've pointed out some of this before, but it must be said![ATTACH=full]45754[/ATTACH]<img src="http://www.thatsmye.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Gunsmoke-Matt-1024x731.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 801px" /></blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?