George Fenneman series, and then with John Stephenson when Dragnet returned to TV in 1967. It was Fenneman's voice which announced, "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent." while Stephenson would be heard at the end of the episode describing the court trials and verdicts. He was the principal commercial announcer for the radio version of "Gunsmoke", and frequently introduced "Matt Dillon" (William Conrad) after the episode to extoll the virtues of L&M or Chesterfield cigarettes. He appeared on screen in the 1951 film "The Thing from Another World" and the
Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke) room to restore "Gunsmoke", which had just been canceled, to the schedule at the insistence of William S. Paley's wife. In an early episode of "Have Gun Will Travel", Paladin is vying for a job against another bounty hunter, who claims to have been Matt Dillon's deputy when Dillon was the marshal in Austin, Texas. Paladin calls the man a fraud, saying Dillon never served in Austin. In Maverick a character called Matt Pickle was Marshall of towns that the Maverick brothers would invariably run through. One 2nd season episode was a full parody of a gunsmoke episode. Later episodes