“Gunsmoke remained on the air through the 1975 season.”
My Dad died in 1976. My mother joked that besides his body just wearing out at age 79, the end of Gunsmoke was his last battle.
He loved the show and the first Maverick show. The Cartwright family/Bonanza was another favorite of his.
The 1981-82 version of Bret Maverick was one of my favourites back when I was a twelve year old kid. I ordered a set of DVDs of the show from somebody off of the old IOffer site and they were taped from the original broadcasts and what’s neat to listen to are the announcements over the end credits (for Flamingo Road and other shows of that time).
Gunsmoke was great; easily the best western that ever aired on TV. And some believe the radio version was even better; in fact, many of the early TV episodes were simply adaptations of scripts originally written for radio.
Of course, the radio series had a completely different cast: William Conrad as Matt; Parley Baer as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc and Georgia Engel as Kitty. You can even find publicity shots of the cast, in costume as their characters. All were given auditions for the TV series, and CBS decided to go in a different direction with casting. William Conrad actually directed two episodes of the TV series, one in 1963, the other in 1971. McNear made six appearances on the show, playing parts other than Doc Adams.