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Gunsmoke enjoyed a long life on television with 20 seasons. The leading cast was happy to keep it going, but CBS ultimately canceled the show for good. Gunsmoke producer John Mantley wanted to do a retrospective, yet it never came to be. He once explained what it would have looked like and why it never made it to television screens across the country.

‘Gunsmoke’ cast was like a ‘family’

'Gunsmoke' were in talks for retrospective Milburn Stone (as Dr. Galen Adams), James Arness (as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon), Amanda Blake (as Kitty Russell) and Ken Curtis (as U.S. Deputy Marshal Festus Haggen. They're all looking at the camera wearing Western clothes with trees in the background.
L-R: Milburn Stone (as Dr. Galen Adams), James Arness (as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon), Amanda Blake (as Kitty Russell) and Ken Curtis (as U.S. Deputy Marshal Festus Haggen | CBS via Getty Images

A Gunsmoke retrospective would certainly honor the stars, extending their show’s legacy. According John Peel’s The Gunsmoke Years, the actors grew incredibly close over the course of the Western show’s run. Mantley told Peel that it’s one of the particularly unique elements of this production that allowed the final product to be so special.

“I did that show for 11 years, and I never had any of the actors come to me and complain about the size of their part, or that someone else had more lines than they had,” Mantley said. “Nobody! You could walk on that set and hear Milburn [Stone] saying, ‘Why doesn’t Kenny [Curtis] take this line? He’ll get a much bigger laugh with it than I will.'”

Mantley continued: “You must realize that in the early days, those people spent more time on the Gunsmoke set than they did in their own private lives. They were, in every sense of the word, a family. I think that the love that they felt for each other as characters and in real life was reflected on the screen.”

‘Gunsmoke’ retrospective couldn’t get clearances on all of its big stars

Mantley told Peel that he always wanted to do a Gunsmoke retrospective, but it didn’t materialize. He wanted to pursue it for many years, even though he even claimed in the interview that it would be too late by that point regardless.

“One thing I had always wanted to do, but was unable to was after Gunsmoke had gone two or three years, I suggested doing a retrospective,” Mantley said. “We had it almost put together, and during the show we aged Jim Arness backwards in time to match the clips.”

Mantley continued: “We had the most exciting dramatic footage we had shot, racing down wild rivers, going over cliffs, and all of that sort of thing. We were going to air it opposite the return of the Smothers Brothers in the late 70s, not the recent one.”

However, it didn’t get on the air because there were “so many stars” in the show that they couldn’t get the clearances that they needed from all of them.

“They started too late, and there were something like 130 stars,” Mantley said. “Bette Davis, Jean Arthur, Robert Redford, Betty Hutton, to say nothing of the other stars. So we never did do that retrospective. I guess it’s a little too late now.”

CBS had a surprise cancelation

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CBS was very happy with Gunsmoke for quite some time, but the retrospective cancelation wasn’t the only upsetting executive decision. After 20 seasons, CBS announced that they wouldn’t renew another season of the hit Western series. However, they didn’t make any sort of public announcement or any calls to the producers or cast members.

All those involved in Gunsmoke were shocked by the news. They knew that the show was dwindling, but they didn’t think it would come to an end so suddenly. CBS made similar sudden cancelation decisions with Gilligan’s Island, Lost in Space, and The Incredible Hulk.

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