User Reviews

Frank Sutton, best known as Sergeant Carter in the series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., plays Billy, an uneducated simpleton that lives near Dodge City and visits the town occasionally. When he is in Dodge, he loves and entertains the children in the town, and the children enjoy his goofy antics. However, some of the older male residents of Dodge bully Billy and take advantage of his lack of intelligence. It doesn't help that everyone knows that Billy's mother was a Native American of the Cheyenne tribe.

Problems arise when a famous Civil War General who is in failing health, Kip Marston, identifies Billy as the son he abandoned as a baby. The General wants an opportunity to see and apologize to Billy before he dies. He sends Colonel Gabe Wilson to Dodge City to attempt to bring Billy to visit.

Of course, the Colonel finds Billy in Dodge, but convincing Billy to return with him is not going to be all that easy. For one thing, Billy is in jail when the Colonel arrives. For another, Billy has no interest in leaving his humble existence. Eventually, The General decides to make the trip to Dodge City to see Billy, instead of waiting for Billy to come to him.

The best thing about this episode is the cast of very familiar character actors. In addition to Sutton, J. Pat O'Malley is the Colonel. Ralph Moody, who appeared in numerous television series around in the 1960s and 1970s, is Kip Marston. Vitina Marcus, who played a similar part in the Season 7 episode, "The Squaw," plays Billy's wife. Roy Roberts, who would eventually become a semi-regular on Gunsmoke as Mr. Botkin, plays the part of Mr. Dobie. We also see Ted Jordan, who was a close friend of James Arness and would later become a cast regular as Nathan Burke, in a small part.

Unfortunately, the story here is seriously lacking. Why is the Colonel so insistent on bringing Billy back to the General once he arrives in Dodge and sees the circumstances? Why is Billy so resistant to going with the Colonel? It isn't like the Colonel is asking Billy to leave permanently. Why does Kip Marston suddenly decide to travel to Dodge to see Billy, instead of waiting for Billy to come to him? It would seem the old General's health isn't as bad as we were led to believe. The viewer is just never compelled to really care about the central plot elements, and, in the end, none of it matters, anyway.

There are some enjoyable moments in the episode. When Colonel Wilson arrives in Dodge City, we get a brief, rare glimpse into Matt's past as a young scout when he was in the U.S. Calvary around 1867. There is also a humorous scene in Delmonico's when Doc, Matt, and Kitty are having dinner and Chester shows up. Often those scenes that were probably added as time fillers turn out to be some of the most endearing.

In a series where the writing is often outstanding, a "dud" script like this one stand out even more, and the cast in this episode deserved better.

General Kip Marston is a Civil War hero who is getting old and approaching death. He asks an old friend, Colonel Wilson, if he will ride to Dodge and bring his half-Indian son he abandoned many years ago to see him. His last wish is to apologies to his son for leaving him and not returning. He has been told that his son is living in Dodge and now goes by the white name of Billy Touker.

When Wilson gets to Dodge he sees that Billy (Frank Sutton) is mentally slow. In fact he is the town joke. But Wilson is determined to bring Billy to meet his General Marston and have a nice family moment.

However all the excitement was too much for the mentally slow Billy. But when Wilson tells him that he would be arrested if he did not go meet Marston, Billy then accepts making the trip. But Matt tells him that he really did not have to go with Wilson which causes more confusion for the hapless Billy.

General Marston then decides to go ahead and make the trip to Dodge to see his son. But as you already know things do not go as planned. Much to the pleasure of nearly everyone involved.

To see Frank Sutton playing a fool just did not go well in making this show entertaining. For some reason he does not project warm tender feeling for a person playing a retarded character. Someone else in that role would have made the viewer feel more respect and tenderness for character plus would have been more entertaining. This story really did not play out well on the screen.

Most Gunsmokes involve Matt having to deal with violent criminals, for which I have a limited appetite, so I didn't mind watching to see how this one played out. Dodge City certainly shows a distressing level of intolerance to someone who is 'different', and an equally distressing level of tolerance for that intolerance. No one was defending Billy from his tormentors and Matt had to step in. We know that Matt and company stand for justice, equality and all the virtues; you'd hope that some of that would rub off on certain townsfolk. But there are creeps everywhere.

I found it odd, in the context of the times, that Billy is teased for being a 'squaw man', when he's half-Indian himself and would have more realistically been the object of prejudice as a 'half-breed'. His racial makeup is no secret. The children beg him for a war dance, but happily it's because they find him interesting and likable-- though the time and place are decidedly ill-advised.

It's nice that poor Billy is devoted to his wife Missy and vice versa, though she looks nothing like a Native American, but that's of course typical. At least she's not a blue-eyed actress in dark makeup with a bad wig! We've seen plenty of that.

Other reviewers have pointed out the weaknesses in this story, but it still has its moments. The viewer is at least spared the kind of viciousness that could have gone with this premise, such as racist low-lifes torching Billy and Missy's home, raping her, or all manner of further nastiness culminating in murder and Matt having to shoot someone down. He does start every show killing someone in a showdown, but shows his distaste for having done the necessary deed. It's his job.

So despite a little unpleasantness here and there, this is a pretty gentle episode, though not one of the overtly comedic ones. Interesting to see Sergeant Carter in another role!

To me, this was a very peaceful episode. Though I expected violence, I was most happy that there was none. Too many times Gunsmoke has a violent end, though that will never stop me from watching Gunsmoke, In the end the somewhat retarded Billy turned out to not be the retired general's son, as revealed by Billy's beautiful wife, Missy.

I started watching Gunsmoke in the late 1950s when i was about ten years old but missed all episodes after 1959 due to where I moved to, Back then, Gunsmoke was preceded by "Have Gun Will Travel". I read that some federal broadcasting commission ruled that western programs could not be broadcast back to back. I write all of this because of your 10 line stupid rule.

The number of lines required here is totally irrelevant to this message and I am not even going to correct spelling, No wonder you have only two replies since 2012. I have to wonder if you still exist or even did exist, although the two negative replies were discouraging to me. The Gunsmoke episode was extremely inspiring to me. Ten lines is totally unreasonable. All anyone desires is to comment as briefly as possible, not go into a thousand word essay as in high school.

This is just a goofy episode that gets more unbelievable as you watch.

Old and ailing General Kip Marston sends his colonel friend to Dodge to locate his long lost son Billy Touker, born of a native American squaw who he deserted as an infant. The adult son is mentally slow and child-like, but somehow support himself and his squaw wife. We first see him in town playing with the children, and a local man is taunting him about his squaw wife which Billy doesn't like. They get in a scuffle and Billy accidentally breaks a window and chair at a business and the owner wants Billy to face charges. Marshal Dillon, instead of trying to settle it there, or arrest the instigator of the fight locks up Billy to be held for trial in several days when the judge is in town. Shame on the marshal for not clearing this up on the spot. After the colonel arrives and the town finds out Billy is son of a hero, they hold a big celebration without inviting Billy's wife. The colonel pays an unreasonably high bail of $50 to take Billy to see his dying father. The window and chair would probably cost $15. The wife doesn't want Billy to leaver her, but why wouldn't she go along. The entire story just is poorly thought out. But it's interesting to see Frank Sutton attempting to play this part.