Stage Smash: Gunsmoke (July 31, 1960)

“Stage Smash” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast July 31, 1960. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Marshal Dillon returns to Dodge City and encounters North Small, a gambler who proposes a poker game with high stakes—offering Dillon money, horses, or a woman in exchange for freeing his brother Cleary from jail. When Dillon refuses the bribe, North threatens him and insists everyone has a price. Meanwhile, a woman prepares to leave town by stagecoach, and tensions simmer in the jail.

Dodge City, Kansas—the marshal's office, jail, and saloon

Characters: Matt Dillon, Chester, North Small, Cleary Small, Sam, Kelly, Prisoner (Mother North)

Listen for: A gambler's proposition and veiled threats against the marshal; discussion of a stagecoach departure; tension between the marshal and his prisoner

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.