Burt’s Dodge City Days

Before “B.L. Stryker,” before “Smokey and the Bandit,” before “Deliverance”-even before “Dan August”-Burt Reynolds was a humble blacksmith on Gunsmoke.

You can’t be expected to remember him; during “Gunsmoke’s” 20-year run (from 1955 to 1975), a lot of people passed through Dodge City. In fact, only Matt Dillon (James Arness) and Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) lasted the whole 20 years. Kitty (Amanda Blake) was there 19, and Chester (Dennis Weaver) and Festus (Ken Curtis) considerably less. Reynolds stayed in town just three years-as -Quint Asper, whose mother was white and father was Comanche.

In “Quint Asper Comes Home” (Sunday at 1 p.m. on Family), the 1962 episode that introduced him, Quint decides to leave white society and avenge his father, who was killed by Indian haters. Marshal Dillon manages to talk him out of the vendetta, and Quint settles in as the town’s new smithy.

“Gunsmoke” was not Reynolds’ first series. He spent several months on “Riverboat,” which starred Darren McGavin.