# Gunsmoke - I'd forgotten Festus had a girlfriend. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217 "2012-05-07T20:56:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guy\_Gardner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Guy\_Gardner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Gardner)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/21 "2013-08-28T17:53:14Z")
btw, the outlaw with his feet propped up in the bar does the dos equis commercials nowadays! ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/22 "2013-08-28T18:11:25Z")
Yes, Jonathan Goldsmith. Matt Dillon killed him 5 different times on Gunsmoke. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/23 "2013-08-28T21:26:18Z")
I don’t know if it was the actress or the writing or the directing choices, but regarding Elizabeth McRae in _Gomer Pyle_- LouAnn Poovie was the most slappable, annoying, and thoroughly unlikable she-character on '60s or '70s TV. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jim Nabors was _straight_ until he started working around that voice and those bovine expressions- fingers on an acre of chalkboards. And for all her faux sweetness you absolutely know she was secretly marrying Vietnam bound Marines by the car load under a variety of names in hopes just one would get her that GI life insurance. Any shadier and she’d have had a baby with Robert Blake. Hated that character. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/24 "2013-08-29T15:29:11Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Ken Curtis even sings in this one. Ken was a very successful big band singer long before he started acting. I had no idea he was with Tommy Dorsey after Sinatra left. Learn something new everyday. I’m not old enough to remember Gunsmoke. I was old enough to have seen the end of the run but I guess my parents weren’t fans. I remember Ken Curtis mostly from his John Ford films. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/25 "2013-08-29T19:17:49Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I don’t know if it was the actress or the writing or the directing choices, but regarding Elizabeth McRae in _Gomer Pyle_- LouAnn Poovie was the most slappable, annoying, and thoroughly unlikable she-character on '60s or '70s TV. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jim Nabors was _straight_ until he started working around that voice and those bovine expressions- fingers on an acre of chalkboards. I would have been far too busy banging those fantastic curves to even notice anything else! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/26 "2013-08-29T19:36:59Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > the radio version was much more violent. Dillon was barely likable at times. it was also clearer what the ladies did at the Long Branch. I heard a radio episode, years and years ago on the net, in which Doc Adams, in treating some guy in a railway accident (any trains in Dodge on TV?) met some other guy (or maybe it was the guy injured) from his past, maybe a “lawman,” who recognized him as a New York murderer. Which explained why Doc ended up in Dodge, on the lam. “Adams” was an alias, as far as I recall. I’ve searched for that episode since but couldn’t find it. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/27 "2013-08-29T20:31:03Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > the radio version was much more violent. Dillon was barely likable at times. it was also clearer what the ladies did at the Long Branch. > [@Kenm](#): > > I heard a radio episode, years and years ago on the net, in which Doc Adams, in treating some guy in a railway accident (any trains in Dodge on TV?) met some other guy (or maybe it was the guy injured) from his past, maybe a “lawman,” who recognized him as a New York murderer. > > Which explained why Doc ended up in Dodge, on the lam. “Adams” was an alias, as far as I recall. > > I’ve searched for that episode since but couldn’t find it. i recall that episode. it was one of the better scripts. January 31, 1953, “Cavalcade” Doc and another guy were courting a lady. Other guy, rich and local, challenges Doc, a Yankee new to Virginia, to a duel. Doc wins fairly but the locals don’t see it that way. Doc takes off, later so does the girl. They meet and marry, girl dies of illness. Doc ends up in Dodge. Lawman tracks Doc to Dodge. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/28 "2013-08-29T20:31:13Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > the radio version was much more violent. Dillon was barely likable at times. it was also clearer what the ladies did at the Long Branch. Gunsmoke was also historically accurate at the time. Evrery town had it’s whorehouse/saloon. Also explains why so few of the men had girlfriends – they had whores instead. ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Gardner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Guy\_Gardner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Gardner)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/29 "2013-08-30T17:24:00Z")
another great episode, this one from the seventh season. btw, the actor who plays ax parsons, robert j. stevenson, was a los angeles city councilman. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnUZuZCugCc) ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Gardner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Guy\_Gardner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Gardner)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/30 "2013-09-09T17:51:32Z")
well, i’ve now watched all 233 half-hour episodes of gunsmoke (the first six seasons), and these are my thoughts. the earlier episodes were much more raw and dark than the later ones. dodge was depicted as a really bad place were almost anyone could be a back-shooter. matt bent the law often, but it was usually on the side of leniency. he let a lot of people walk who would serve long prison terms in today’s world. and when he bent it in the direction of harshness, it was usually to beat up someone who had done something awful without actually breaking the law. dennis weaver was a brillant actor. he could play chester so well that he probably got bored with it, but i wish he had never left the show. doc was a complex character. you had to watch more than a few episodes to get him. and milburn stone was exactly the right actor to play the part. in the beginning kitty was just one of the girls in the long branch, but many viewers complained that matt’s woman shouldn’t be available to any cowboy who walked into the long branch and had the money, so near the end of the second season they made her part-owner, and a few years later the sole owner. this was a mistake because it limited the dramatic situations that the writers could put her in. amanda blake complained in the later years that the writers couldn’t think of anything to do with kitty except have her taken hostage. and here is a great episode from the first season. the guest star is aaron spelling, [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaaVFAY_in8) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/31 "2013-09-09T19:15:01Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > I heard a radio episode, years and years ago on the net, in which Doc Adams, in treating some guy in a railway accident (any trains in Dodge on TV?) met some other guy (or maybe it was the guy injured) from his past, maybe a “lawman,” who recognized him as a New York murderer. Yes, Dodge was on the railroad line on TV. They did have a railway stop. ---
**Author:** ![Sdowns8302](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Sdowns8302](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sdowns8302)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/32 "2020-08-16T03:41:16Z")
Newly had a girlfriend. In fact he had a couple. But in one episode he got married…she died almost immediately, but they did marry…I believe. She had leukemia. He also had the girl he took to some dance. I think it was only 1 episode, but they made it sound like they had been dating quite awhile. And then there was Mary Lorene. She bounced between Festus and Newly. But you’re right about Quint. I don’t think we ever even saw him hit on a woman!😁 It seems there may have been a woman at one point Doc got friendly with, but I’m unsure if I’m remembering the right show. As far as Dillon. I was so irritated when he had amnesia and they had him kiss Mike, but yet in 20 friggin years he and Kitty couldn’t evolve because they felt it would be _improper_. Though if you watch the shows enough, you catch all the innuendos lol. ---
**Author:** ![Sdowns8302](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Sdowns8302](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sdowns8302)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/33 "2020-08-16T03:45:39Z")
I love Festus and I liked that he at least changed over the years. They made him more capable, yet was able to retain his humor. Chester just annoyed me. I record and watch the episodes over and over, but will only watch ones with Chester when I have no other options. It would have been nice to see either Matt, Doc…Festus…anyone, actually get married to someone and bring children and a wife into the mix at some point. I also don’t care for the episodes that take us out of Dodge with Matt and we see only he and randoms the entire time. When he is in the deadlands just roaming around tacking people. 🤷‍♀️ ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/34 "2020-08-16T03:54:24Z")
Damnit SD…I get all the way to the bottom to find you stole my answer. I half expected to see myself saying as much back in 2012. Yes…Newlys wife went the way of many a long running series new gf/wife. See: Any of Ben Cartwrights wives, Jarrod on Big Valleys wife…Jaime Sommers before they brought her back. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/35 "2020-08-16T04:06:34Z")
IIRC, there was one episode where Chester fucked up and the bad guys got away. I think at the end, he and Matt were left standing in the rain, with Dillon ready to tear him a new asshole. Chester looked up, held out a bag of candy, and said “Care for a horehound, Mr Dillon?” At least, that’s how I remember it. I saw Dennis Weaver being interviewed one night (probably on _ **The Tonight Show** _) during the _ **McCloud** _ era. Johnny Carson (I guess it was) asked him if he ever regretted leaving _ **Gunsmoke** _. Weaver said no; he was glad he got out when he did, or he’d have been typecast for the rest of his life. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/36 "2020-08-16T04:10:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Newlys wife went the way of many a long running series new gf/wife. See: Any of Ben Cartwrights wives, Jarrod on Big Valleys wife…Jaime Sommers before they brought her back. And all of Captain Kirk’s alien space babes. 👽 ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/37 "2020-08-16T04:19:44Z")
Can you imagine if Miramanee had lived? Kirk: “Im gonna need to to tell me to stay away. That theres no place for me in you or your sons life.” Miramanee: “What?” Kirk: “Nevermind…” ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/38 "2020-08-16T13:31:25Z")
What I love about _Gunsmoke_ was that it had strong female characters. Kitty was a tough capable business woman, and most single appearance women characters were running farms, or businesses and were sturdy sensible types. They even killed when it suited them. It was so refreshing compared to _Bonanza_, where the women were always sweet simpering idiots or spoiled scheming divas. The only capable woman on _Bonanza_ that I can think of offhand was played by Inga Swenson as Hoss’ mother on two flashback episodes. And I say this as a _Bonanza_ fan. Great male characters. Annoying female ones. Anyway, back to _Gunsmoke_. I liked both sneaky Festus and good guy Festus just fine. Thad had no personality at all that I could determine. I never really liked Newly too much. What the hell was up with that guy? He’d get into a spot that needed a doctor, boom, he’s a doctor. When Festus was suspected of being a murderer and needed a lawyer, boom, Newly’s a lawyer. Plus he’s an expert gunsmith. His name should have been Mary Sue. If the writers’ couldn’t think of what to do with Kitty in the later episodes, why didn’t they just make storylines where Kitty was shunned by other womenfolk who disapproved of her profession? I never did understand how Kitty could be a madam and yet be so accepted by everybody immediately, even by strangers to Dodge. There was a stigma to her profession after all. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/39 "2020-08-16T15:36:16Z")
> [@](#): > > If the writers’ couldn’t think of what to do with Kitty in the later episodes, why didn’t they just make storylines where Kitty was shunned by other womenfolk who disapproved of her profession? I never did understand how Kitty could be a madam and yet be so accepted by everybody immediately, even by strangers to Dodge. There was a stigma to her profession after all. Can’t imagine it was very strong, considering the vital service they provided. “Yes, she’s a madam, but she’s _our_ madam, thank God!” ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2020, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217/40 "2020-08-16T15:53:48Z")
If G_unsmoke_ were _Star Trek_ would Festus be Spock? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunsmoke-id-forgotten-festus-had-a-girlfriend/621217.md?page=3)