Actually I think it went downhill pretty quickly when it went to color and the Matt Dillon character had fewer lines and was in fewer and fewer scenes. I had a huge crush on Amamda Blake. What a doll.
I loved those Matt-less episodes, especially the one with Festus and the old prospector with the pet snake, or that backwoods family that kidnapped some show girls/prostitutes, and its sequel where they try to marry them all off but it turns into a brawl.
***Actually I think it went downhill pretty quickly when it went to color and the Matt Dillon character had fewer lines and was in fewer and fewer scenes.***
It went downhill in 1968 after the murder of Bobby Kennedy and there began an anti-violence backlash against western TV shows.
Before 1968, Gunsmoke was for adults, with adult themes, being broadcast at Saturday 9PM Central time when the kiddies were in bed.
After 1968, it was moved to an early time period, extended to an hour and as Milburn Stone(Doc) said, there were then more kids on the show than he could ever remember. The scripts were so dumbed down it was pitiful. I could never watch it after that.
But then, everything went to hell after the murder of Bobby Kennedy. Only movies at the theaters escaped by starting up a joke called a “rating system.” They then began to make the most vile movies ever to come out of Hollywood.
And we could see his shirt was pink.