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Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Jacket (1962)
An episode not worth watching
Beaver's friend Richard gets an expensive new jacket, and Beaver wants one just like it. Surprisingly he talks his dad into buying him one. When Richard loses his jacket, talks Beaver into lending him Beaver's jacket after school and returning it via rope before school to Beaver's upstairs bathroom window. This same scene seems to go on ad nauseum. The writing on this series was usually excellent and often funny and instructive. This teleplay was none of these.
Gunsmoke: Mayblossom (1964)
A distant cousin of Festus comes to Dodge to marry him
In possibly one of the worst (and most bizarre) teleplays ever written for "Gunsmoke", a distant cousin (May Blossoms) of Festus comes to Dodge to carry out an arranged marriage between Festus and herself. A carpenter (named Lon), whom Festus bested in a poker game, insults May Blossoms and Festus stands up for her and bests Lon again in a street fight. May Blossoms (Laurie Peters) wants her mule to stay at the boarding house with her, but the manager won't allow it; so Festus buys an old shack for her and the mule to stay. The rest of the teleplay involves lust by Lon, cold-blooded murder (which is shrugged off as almost nothing), and a solution (which comes out of the blue) to one character's plight. Laurie Peters (Jon Voight's first wife) gives a fine performance here as May Blossoms, but there is little else to recommend this episode other than Ken Curtis becoming more entrenched as Festus in the long-running "Gunsmoke" series.
Gunsmoke: Long, Long Trail (1961)
A long long trail to the fort
Sarah Drew is determined to join her fiancé at a remote fort 150 miles from Dodge. Marshal Dillon tells her the trail is very difficult for a man to traverse let alone a woman. She tries to get Matt to assist her in reaching the fort, but he declines. On his way to Hays on marshal business, he is met on the trail by her and she persuades him help her reach the fort. The rest of this episode is primarily about Matt and Sarah on the trail and is pure dynamite. Barbara Lord (in real life, the mother of Patrick 'Puddy' Warburton of the "Seinfeld" series) is terrific as the beautiful young woman who won't take 'no' for an answer. Lord retired from acting to raise a brood of four (Patrick being the oldest) and this was her last performance for 17 years. Kathleen Hite wrote numerous teleplays for "Gunsmoke" and this one could arguably be considered her best script. Although this episode was shot in black and white, it is as good or better than most of the later stories filmed in color. (Most of the usual regulars don't have much to do here)