Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke) In the opening of most radio episodes, the announcer would describe the show as "...the story of the violence that moved west with young America, and the story of a man who moved with it." William Conrad's Matt would take over, saying, "I'm that man, Matt Dillon, United States Marshalthe first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancy job, and it makes a man watchful ... and a little lonely." Conrad's Matt provided bits of narration for many of the radio episodes, usually to help set the scene for the listener or to
Gunsmoke and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes. At the end of its run in 1975, "Los Angeles Times" columnist Cecil Smith wrote: ""Gunsmoke" was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own "Iliad" and "Odyssey", created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend." In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the "Philip Marlowe" radio serial, asked his programming