Comanches Is Soft

This comedy episode came out just after Dennis Weaver (as the long-running, highly successful Chester character) was phased out of the series, and the show gave the character of Festus (Ken Curtis) a fulsome "introduction" with all the trimmings including a silly song he made up about himself and continued through this episode as a narrative. In contrast to Dennis Weaver's multi-shaded interpretation of the recently departed Chester, this is pure slapstick -- and Burt Reynolds is better at it here. Burt, with Kathy Nolan (recently of the highly successful "The Real McCoys" and on the way to "Broadside", the producers' fem answer to "McHale's Navy") and hilarious James Nusser as town-drunk-with-dignity Louie Pheeters, are the highlights of this one. To improve Festus's appeal the producers would soon have to make him a lot more like Chester, dropping the slapstick approach entirely and instead featuring the constant bantering relationship with Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) -- though, again, without the previous subtlety. With everything said, it was still about 300% better than the hopeless slapstick "comedies" the "Bonanza" series was putting out through the Sixties.

Festus and Quint play off each other perfectly in this episode. The light hearted theme is a welcome break from the often Debbie-Downer stories/writing.

This episode with Quint (Burt Reynolds) and Festus (Ken Curtis) is one of my favorites, due to the interaction between the two. Light on drama but perfect on comedy. Quint plays the perfect straight-man to Festus's "golly Bill," hillbilly timing. The classic line/title comes at a perfect time.

Not giving away any of the details about the show, I'll say this is a great episode!

It's nice to have a break from the serious episodes every now and then and this one most definitely stomps the romance/soap operaish episodes by a mile! There are some great episodes of gunsmoke that pull away from the regular expectations of a western, such as the episodes "Caleb" and "Abe Blocker" which are dramatic episodes but are the kind of drama a man can enjoy. The occasional comedy here and there is very welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Too bad some folks pulled down the overall rating to an "8". It absolutely deserves better than an eight. I think some sourpuss folks need to lighten up a bit. It would be good for them.

I gave it a 10. Perhaps it deserves more of a nine, but I want ahead and upped it to a ten.

One of my favorite episodes. Festus is hilarious and I can see a bit of "Smokey" coming out in Quint!