How come only Festus wore spurs?
They all rode horses. Why no spurs for the others?
shareIf a horse knows it's owner well enough, it probably doesn't need poking from spurs.
shareI love the jangling sounds he makes when he walks. He sounds like a tambourine. I wonder is that was Ken Curtis's idea. By the same token, I wonder if it wasn't Dennis Weavers idea to make Chester's leg stiff and wooden like a pool stick?
Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast
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Anyone recall Dennis Weaver doing Gunsmoke promos for the Westerns Channel some years back? In one he reminisced about touring the country with Amanda Blake and Milburn Stone in a variety stage show. He said they sung harmonies, told jokes and danced the ol' soft shoe.
Weaver said in every town he'd pull the same gag...he'd walk out on stage with his stiff leg and a guitar, and he'd try to sit down on a stool to play. But the guitar kept sliding down his leg, until he'd stand up and do a high kick with the stiff leg to show everyone he was fooling.
He said the audience would come unglued whenever he did it.
The thing about Festus' spurs, they were *really* loud. That jing-jing-jing of him walking around really cut through the normal clatter of a Gunsmoke scene.
I recall seeing other men on Gunsmoke wearing spurs, but I just don't recall them being as noisy as Festus was with his spurs. Dang those things were loud!
And the thing is, Festus was a mountain man and wolfer, so one could speculate that he was a darned good hunter. But those spurs were *so* loud...I always saw a bit of a contradiction there. Hunting requires stealth, y'know.
Correct. Festus liked noisy spurs (the jinglebobs, actually) to attract attention.
shareI don't know when or where I saw it, but I saw some Western where some guy makes a point in putting matchsticks in his spurs to keep them quiet. I thought that was a nice detail, considering how often people are walking along wooden porches and store-fronts and hotel stairs and hallways and the floors don't make a sound, let alone the spurs, haha.
I'm not a woman much less Deanna Durbin, but the old-time glam-shot appeals to me.
Today Weaver would be cancelled for able-ism.
shareFunny you mention Chester's stiff leg. I never watched the show as a kid, but watching Weaver having to maneuver around with that stiff leg, I always wonder why? Is it necessary to have him hobble around like that? They could have given him a bad haircut and left the hay-seed speech, maybe clothes that weren't so clean and neat (not like Festus, but somehow a bit simple), and save all that running around with a stiff leg.
They must have used some prosthetic as well. I don't see how he could do that convincingly over so many episodes. Still, he was a pretty good character, if a bit too much of a side-kick. He always called Matt "Mr. Dillon." At some point it seems sort of silly.
I'm not a woman much less Deanna Durbin, but the old-time glam-shot appeals to me.
Chester was allegedly wounded in the (Civil?) war, which is why he had a limp. Weaver apparently did it to make Chester more memorable when he read for the part and to separate himself from Matt's character. The director liked it and he got the part. He allegedly said he would have done something easier had he known the part would go on for so long!
shareNo, no prosthetic. That was all him. There were several times when he would limp on the wrong leg and sometimes forget to limp here and there. It's funny catching him limping on the opposite leg lol 😅
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