Old Fool: Gunsmoke (August 7, 1960)

“Old Fool” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 7, 1960. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Hannibal Bass, an aging farmer, catches a poor boy stealing his pigs and prepares to shoot him. When the boy's widowed mother comes to retrieve her son, Hannibal finds himself charmed by her kindness and learns about the family's desperate circumstances. His anger over the theft melts away as he discovers the woman's struggle to survive alone on her homestead.

Dodge City and the surrounding frontier homesteads, Kansas territory

Characters: Matt Dillon, Doc Adams, Kitty, Hannibal Bass, Della Bass, Dunche, The boy's mother

Listen for: The story of an old farmer's hardened heart softened by meeting a struggling widow; themes of compassion overcoming anger and judgment

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.