So tonight was the season 16 finale of GUNSMOKE. For those not playing along, I picked my favorite western TV shows years ago, and I decided I would watch each episode on the 50th anniversary of each air date. Since Gunsmoke aired for 20 years, it's the only one I have left. I have expressed my joy over this show many times, and especially over James Arness as Matt Dillon, US Marshal. But let's get kinda weird.
Many years ago I read James Arness's autobiography. This was back when he was still alive, and I even have a signed photo of him. My favorite scenes from the earliest episodes were when he was giving a monologue at Boot Hill, lamenting terrible decisions made by misled people he had to kill. That's the picture I got signed of his.
But reading that autobiography helped me realize that he was a clown at heart. He wanted to make people laugh, and that doesn't line up with his best known character. Matt Dillon laughed at a lot of things, mostly Doc versus Chester or Doc versus Festus. But he never instigated the laughs, which Arness always did.
My favorite story is when they were filming the opening for all the early shows. Matt Dillon was supposed to face up against the fabled Man in Black, and while the Man in Black always fired first, Matt Dillon always fired last . . . and killed his quarry. But while they filmed that scene that would grace at least ten years of the show, James Arness pretended to be shot by that Man in Black and die. Just for the laugh. Seeing the pictures in his autobiography made me laugh myself into a hernia.
Why mention this tonight? Well, at the end of this season of Gunsmoke they showed a thing called Ben and Becky Talk Gunsmoke Season 16. Ben wrote a book about Gunsmoke. Beckey wrote a book about Miss Kitty. They discussed their favorite season 16 episodes. And then they started talking about how the Gunsmoke actors were like family.
After 20 years, they had to be. Granted, only Dillon and Doc were the sole characters throughout the show, but still. Kitty made it to the second to last season. Chester and Festus could break it up in the middle. Quint Asper wasn't as big as people thought, and Thad and Newly couldn't hold a candle to the others, but still. Ben and Beckey talked about the scenes that were my favorites. I loved when Doc got a bug up his ass, and he had to verbally battle either Chester or Festus. Those were the best. When everyone was busting each others' balls.
And it turned out that the Gunsmoke family was actually centered around these scenes, per Ben and Beckey. They were all professionals, but they loved screwing with each other during those scenes. In particular James Arness. He'd mess with Milburn Stone, who would go after either Chester or Festus, and then Kitty would crack up, etc. It all seemed to start with James Arness.
A lot of people, even Hunter S. Thompson, a hero of mine, would say that Arness as Matt Dillon would beat the shit out of anyone to get what he needed, but that wasn't true. Matt Dillon always had a sense of fairness about him. The people he beat the shit out of always had it coming. Kind of like Dirty Harry. Harry kicked the shit out of a lot of people, but none of them were ever innocent. And Dillon was no bigot. He treated all races equally. Can you say the same thing about the generation who wrote the character?
James Arness was a surfer. He played guitar on Venice with a bunch of youths. He was not the John Wayne character most associated him with. He was a laid back guy. Like me. He loved playing pranks on people. Like me. He loved to fuck with people who thought life was a certain way when it actually wasn't. Like me. Sorry.
It's this trickster persona that I would like to think about tonight. I have a lot of months to wait before the seventeenth season of Gunsmoke begins . . .
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