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This was the ''secret weapon'' that made Gunsmoke so good
It wasn’t the scripts or the sets ... here’s the secret behind Gunsmoke’s success!
Keeping a hit show on top for decades is no easy feat. Once you find the winning formula, though, everyone wants to know the secret.
For Gunsmoke, that secret wasn’t fancy sets or clever scripts. According to John Meston, who helped develop the series for television, it was the people.
Meston knew Gunsmoke was often imitated, but he believed its cast was impossible to copy.
"Everybody has tried to copy Gunsmoke," Meston told Florida Today. "But what they don’t realize is that the honesty of these people - Jim Arness, Dennis Weaver, Amanda Blake, Milburn Stone - is the key. That is Gunsmoke’s secret weapon."
And the cast wasn’t exactly looking for an exit. As Gunsmoke headed into its 11th season in 1965, James Arness was asked how he felt about returning for another year.
"About the same as the 10th season, the ninth, the eighth," Arness told The Duluth News Tribune.
When asked when he planned to quit, his answer was simple: "I’m in this saddle until it wears out - or until I wear out the public."
After all those years, it looks like the saddle held up just fine.
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