Ma Tennis: Gunsmoke (October 23, 1954)

“Ma Tennis” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast October 23, 1954. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Andy Tennis, a hot-headed young rancher, shoots and kills an unarmed man over a gambling dispute in Miss Kitty's saloon. Marshal Dillon arrests him, but Andy's mother Ma Tennis arrives at the jail with a shotgun, determined to take her son and prevent him from facing trial and possible execution like her husband did years before.

Dodge City, Kansas in the 1870s, primarily at Miss Kitty's saloon and the town jail

Characters: Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty, Ben Tennis, Andy Tennis, Ma Tennis, Chester Proudfoot

Listen for: The tension between Ma Tennis's fierce maternal protection and Marshal Dillon's duty to uphold the law; Andy's hot temper and his family's tragic history of hangings

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.