Television westerns used to skew towards a younger demographic with kid-friendly cowboys like Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy dominating that frontier, but everything changed in 1955. Only a few days after "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" premiered on ABC, it was CBS that truly changed the landscape in the form of the western drama "Gunsmoke" (via MeTV). The series was a risky gamble with the network but proved to be one of its greatest success stories, running for a then-unprecedented 635 episode run across 20 seasons.

For over two decades, "The Thing from Another World" star James Arness made a name for himself as Marshal Matt Dillion, the protector of Dodge City. The role would go on to become the touchstone of his career, but it's easy to forget that there was initially some resistance on account of the popularity of the show's auditory predecessor.

About three years earlier, "Gunsmoke" had...