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For a generation of TV-watching Americans (or two), "Gunsmoke" was can't-miss programming. Adapted from an already wildly popular radio show of the same name, the 1955 TV series got in on the ground level of the newly ubiquitous medium and quickly became a household staple. A Western made at a time when the genre dominated the big and small screens alike, "Gunsmoke" starred James Arness as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, a duty-bound public official living in Dodge City, Kansas sometime after the Civil War.

"Gunsmoke" broke plenty of records in its time, thanks in large part to its impressive 20-season run on CBS. Couple that with the radio show that started three years before the TV drama, and for decades, Marshal Dillon and Dr. Galen Adams (Milburn Stone) were the fictional characters with the longest continuous run in an American TV-based franchise.