The BEST episodes written by Les Crutchfield
#1 - Once a Haggen
Gunsmoke - Season 9 - Episode 18
Bucko, a close friend of Festus, is accused of murdering a man to whom he lost at poker. When his alibi witness lies out of fear, Bucko is sentenced to hang, and Festus, who'd begun to see the marshal as a friend, vows Bucko won't swing.
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#3 - Rope of Lies
The Virginian - Season 2 - Episode 25
A beautiful woman, Alva Lowell (Diana Millay), arrives in Medicine Bow having just bought the Lazy K Ranch and manages to hire a reluctant Steve Hill to be her foreman. A former business partner of Alva's, Jess Carver (Peter Breck), arrives and is killed by Steve, apparently in self-defence. However, Steve is arrested and must go to trial defended by Judge Garth's friend, lawyer Ebberly Packis (Paul Fix).
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#4 - Hinka Do
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 21
The new rootin tootin owner of "The Lady Gay" (Mamie) comes to Dodge and opens a saloon. When she opens the saloon, she lets the Dodge cowpokes know that she is very handy with a gun and will use that gun on any trouble makers in her saloon. At first Matt, Doc and Chester are quite amused at Mamie, but Matt begins to have some concerns about Mamie. Matt, Doc and Chester think that Mamie might be involved in some foul play concerning the previous owner of the Lady Gay Saloon (Herman Bleeker). When a Mexican man tells Matt that he saw Mamie sneaking around late the previous evening night with a lantern and a shovel, Matt, Doc and Chester investigate. They find a vest owned by the previous owner with blood stains. Matt thinks he has to arrest Mamie, but is concerned that Mamie might cause some problems;however, Matt tries to trick Mamie into an arrest. Just about the time that Matt is ready to haul Mamie to the Dodge City jail, he learns the truth about Herman Bleeker.
#6 - Colleen So Green
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 29
A southern belle charms Chester and many others in Dodge, not including Kitty.
#9 - Crooked Mile
Gunsmoke - Season 10 - Episode 2
Mr. Degler is determined to break up the romance between his adult daughter and half Indian Quint, so he sends for his cousin Praylie to help out, but Praylie has murder in mind instead.
#10 - Muley
Gunsmoke - Season 12 - Episode 18
After a young gunslinger wounds Matt, he comes to Dodge to finish him off and to rob the bank. He gets distracted after going to the saloon, where he meets and falls in love with one of Kitty's girls.
#11 - Us Haggens
Gunsmoke - Season 8 - Episode 13
When a boy witnesses his grandfather's murder, it sends Matt looking for a new found companion's uncle. Festus Haggen is tracking his uncle for killing his twin brother Fergus. Matt is wary but learns to trust Festus when he's shot and in bad shape.
#12 - Buffalo Man
Gunsmoke - Season 3 - Episode 18
Doc finds a half-dead man on the side of the road and tells Matt. Matt and Chester ride out to a buffalo hunter's camp but before they get far, the occupants show up not treating them much better than the man the doc found.
#13 - Now That April's There
Gunsmoke - Season 9 - Episode 25
Festus, returning to Dodge after doing some trapping, sees his girl, April, and they argue over a gift she received. Running off, she hides but her perch gives her a bird's eye view of a murder, one no one believes she witnessed but the killers.
#14 - No Handcuffs
Gunsmoke - Season 1 - Episode 15
Matt investigates a neighboring sheriff when his deputy arrives in Dodge City to make an arrest.
#15 - The Warden
Gunsmoke - Season 9 - Episode 33
A traveling salesman meets up with Bull Foot, an Indian who mainly sells vegetables. When goods are traded for a squaw, he is upset when she runs away and into the arms of Festus, whose mule she steals, only to return home awaiting sale to the next customer.
#16 - Stage Hold-Up
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 7
A stagecoach on which Matt and Chester are riding is robbed and another passenger is murdered. Matt utilizes a ruse to incriminate the thieves when a "cowboy" appears and offers to show him where one of the thieves may be buried.
#17 - Blue Heaven
Gunsmoke - Season 10 - Episode 1
A runaway kid and a wanted man from East Texas team up to first find the kid's mother and second to shake those who have been chasing the man about a murder in Carver County and robbery he just didn't commit.
#18 - Reed Survives
Gunsmoke - Season 1 - Episode 13
The young wife of an elderly farmer plots her husband's death.
#19 - Which Doctor
Gunsmoke - Season 11 - Episode 26
While on a fishing trip with Festus, Doc is abducted and forced to operate on a sick child, then ordered to be a bridegroom in a true shotgun wedding.
#20 - Brush at Elkader
Gunsmoke - Season 2 - Episode 2
After his friend Ben Williams is shot down by Lou Shippen, Matt travels to Elkader to bring him him. The only problem, he doesn't know what he looks like and the town is protecting Shippen.
#21 - First to Thine Own Self
The Virginian - Season 2 - Episode 20
A young drifter named Randy (Randy Boone) camps with Silas (Frank Maxwell) and his young daughter Melanie (Claire Wilcox) near Medicine Bow. Silas reveals he has been mining and that he found gold nuggets. Silas is murdered, the gold stolen and Randy is accused of the crime. He hides out with Melanie who knows him innocent and with help from Betsy Garth and the Virginian is eventually able to expose the real killers.
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#22 - Incident at Barker Springs
Rawhide - Season 1 - Episode 7
Brazo, a retired gunfighter, attempts to keep his kid brother from taking up the family business.
#23 - Cholera
Gunsmoke - Season 2 - Episode 14
A landowner's attempt to evict homesteaders is helped by a cholera outbreak.
#24 - Saludos
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 8
Matt and Chester find a young Indian woman (Sochi) on the prairie suffering from a gun shot wound. Matt and Chester take the young woman to Doc Adams for medical treatment, but the overall outlook for recovery does not look promising. Once Matt hears that a white man shot the woman, Matt and Chester set after the man. While Matt and Chester are searching the prairie for the man who shot Sochi, they run into three white men. Matt and Chester plan to take the three men back to Dodge so Sochi can identify the man who shot her;however, before Matt and Chester can get them into Dodge, the truth is finally made known about who shot Sochi.
#25 - Love of a Good Woman
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 20
An old friend of Doc's, a nurse, is visiting and he hopes she will stay around Dodge. In the meantime Matt is worried that an ex-con is gunning for him even though he thought he was innocent five years ago.
#26 - Monopoly
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 4
Two murders result when an unscrupulous Eastern businessman named Ivy hires a psychotic killer to help him establish undisputed control of Dodge City's freight shipment business.
#27 - Johnny Red
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 4
A man suddenly turns up in Dodge City claiming to be Billy Crale, the long-lost son of a well-to-do local widow. Matt knows that Billy Crale was reported dead during the Civil War and he becomes highly concerned for Mrs. Crale's safety when he confirms that the man is actually a onetime outlaw known as Johnny Red.
#28 - Sky
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 23
While Chester is teaching Miss Kitty guitar playing and singing technics, the cowpokes at the Long Branch are making quite a fuss over Frog mouth Kate. Kate has a fondness for a younger man almost half her age (Billy Daunt). Billy does not share the same feelings for Kate and runs away much to the delight to the Long Branch barflies. Late that night, Chester wakes Matt in the middle of the night to tell Matt that Kate had been shot at Ma Torvet's boarding house. Ma Torvet tells Matt that Billy was the one who shot Kate. Ma also believes that Billy shot Kate because Kate kept some money stashed away under her bed. Matt and Chester search the countryside for Billy Daunt. While Matt and Chester are conducting their search, they discover the wife of a destitute farmer who claims Billy killed her husband and tortured a very old man. Matt and Chester finally overtake a desperate Billy Daunt and transport Billy back to Dodge. Shortly after their arrival in Dodge, Matt finds out some more tro
#29 - Gypsum Hills Feud
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 16
Matt's attempt to find a man who shot at him from ambush leads him and Chester into the middle of a murderous feud between two bitter and isolated mountain families.
#30 - Renegade White
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 30
A gunfight in the Long Branch forces Matt to arrest a drunk. Letting him go since it was a fair fight, he suspects him of selling guns to the Indians, and goes after him even though he may run into those Indians.
#31 - Box o' Rocks
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 13
A man enlists the aid of a parson to fake his own death.
#32 - Odd Man Out
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 11
Matt is uncertain what to make of Cyrus Tucker's confused claim that his wife of 32 years "just ran off", especially when a homesteader claims that he saw the old man digging a large hole just behind his house.
#33 - Land Deal
Gunsmoke - Season 4 - Episode 9
When a stranger leading some immigrants planning on settling outside of Dodge wants Matt to give him a badge to avert trouble, he gets suspicious and rides out to their camp to see what is really up.
#34 - Thick 'n' Thin
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 16
A quarrel between two partners in homesteading escalates to the point of gunfire. Matt tries to make peace between them by locking them up together.
#35 - Brother Whelp
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 9
A man wants to gunfight when he returns home, after years away, and finding his brother married to his girl.
#36 - Tail to the Wind
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 6
A father and son bully a farmer and his wife who won't sell their land, but the farmer is oddly reluctant to let Matt arrest the two, even when they resort to gunfire.
#37 - Target
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 1
Ironic tragedy results when Danny Kader stubbornly disregards his father's predispositions (and Matt's pragmatic advice) in order to attempt an elopement with a young gypsy woman.
#38 - Speak Me Fair
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 34
There's a cattle drive near town, and the cowboys are nervous about a series of cattle rustling events that have taken place recently.
#39 - Crowbait Bob
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 28
When the greedy relatives of a dying man (Crowbait Bob)learn that he might be dying, they come to Dodge to grab anything of value they can get from the dying man. When his relatives find out that Bob has willed all of his possessions to Miss Kitty, they show their true hateful feelings about their relative, Crowbait Bob. When Miss Kitty finally opens Bob's chest box filled with Bob's possessions , Kitty and Matt find out the true value of Bob's possessions.
#40 - The Tragedian
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 20
Matt and his friends try to come to the aid of a has-been actor caught cheating at cards.
#41 - Jailbait Janet
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 25
After a train sparks a fire that destroys a family's crops, the man, his son, and his daughter rob another train of fifty thousand dollars. A baggage clerk is killed and the crusty representative of the railroad pressures Matt to solve it.
#42 - Till Death Do Us
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 19
Someone takes a shot at a hard man who is brutal to his wife, and someone is overheard claiming he was offered money to kill the man.
#43 - Winner Take All
Gunsmoke - Season 10 - Episode 22
Matt must try and end a feud brothers are having.
#44 - I Thee Wed
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 31
After Sam Lackett physically beats his wife on the streets of Dodge, Matt and Doc try to persuade Mrs. Lackett to prefer charges on her husband, but she refuses to so. When Mrs. Lackett comes into Doc's office suffering from a beating she received from her husband, Matt decides to go after Sam Hackett. After the Judge finds Hackett guilty of several minor crimes, he sentences Hacket to 50 dollars or 50 days in Dodge City's jail. Mrs. Hackett comes up with the 50 dollars for Hacket's fine, Matt reluctantly releases Hacket from the jail;however, once Hackett is free from jail, Mrs. Hacket learns that Hackett has not changed his ways one bit. He still threatens to bully and beat Mrs. Hackett. When Sam Hackett attempts to beat his wife again, she pulls a gun and kills her husband.
#45 - Belle's Back
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 35
Belle Ainesly rides into town after 3 years absence. Seems she ran off with an unsavory character 3 years ago, and all of Dodge feels she's a "bad" woman. Belle says she is coming back to stay at the family ranch.
#46 - Circus Trick
Gunsmoke - Season 10 - Episode 20
A circus family comes to town and charms the populace who don't know the family's real stock-in-trade is larceny.
#47 - Moo Moo Raid
Gunsmoke - Season 5 - Episode 23
Old man Onie has a great swimming cow that can lead herds across rivers, and when they both come up missing, one trail boss accuses another of killing them.
#48 - Taps for Old Jeb
Gunsmoke - Season 11 - Episode 5
After a successful search for gold, two prospectors hire a man, who shows up at their campfire, as a bodyguard.
#49 - Harvest
Gunsmoke - Season 11 - Episode 27
Some homesteaders have chosen a piece of land that is free to use per the government but Ben Payson has other ideas. When his daughter starts to care about the homesteaders' son, Ben decides to force them off the property regardless the cost.
#50 - Mistaken Identity
Gunsmoke - Season 12 - Episode 26
A drifter tries to settle in Dodge after switching identities with a man he found who had been bit by a rattlesnake, but his plans are complicated when that man is brought into town still unconscious.