How many Gunsmoke episodes was Burt Reynolds in?
Long before Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds was a working TV actor bouncing between one-off roles on Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone. Then, in the fall of 1962, Gunsmoke came calling — and gave him the part that made him a star.
His stay in Dodge City was shorter than most fans remember. Here's the exact count.
The short answer
50 episodes. Reynolds played blacksmith Quint Asper across three seasons of Gunsmoke — seasons 8, 9, and 10 — from 1962 to 1965, starting with the season 8 episode "Quint Asper Comes Home" in September 1962.
Who was Quint Asper?
Quint is introduced as a half-Comanche young man whose white father is murdered by gold thieves. He takes revenge, retreats to his mother 's tribe, and only gradually comes around after meeting Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness), eventually settling in Dodge City as the town blacksmith and Dillon's unofficial right hand. His three seasons landed at a pivotal moment for the show:
- Season 8 (1962–63) — Quint arrives, and the near-unknown Reynolds immediately stands out.
- Season 9 (1963–64) — Dennis Weaver's Chester exits mid-season, and Ken Curtis joins as Festus.
- Season 10 (1964–65) — Quint's final run, ending in May 1965.
Why he left after 50 episodes
Ironically, Reynolds had joined swearing he'd stay until the show ended — he'd told the Associated Press it was a terrible mistake for an actor to leave a series mid-run. What changed his mind was advice from a castmate. During a summer hiatus, Reynolds shot a movie and started getting noticed, and Milburn Stone — Doc Adams himself — pulled him aside. As Reynolds recalled in a Cowboys & Indians interview late in his life:
"Your movies are taking off — get out of here," Stone told him.
He listened.
Within a year of leaving he was headlining the spaghetti Western Navajo Joe (1966), and Deliverance (1972) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977 ) followed. Arness, for his part, told the Television Academy that Reynolds had obvious presence but had to play Quint dead serious — meaning the show never got to use his greatest weapon, that comic charm.
Did he ever regret it?
Not the leaving — but he never stopped loving the place. Reynolds later said he departed with everyone's blessing, and looking back on those years he described sitting in front of the Long Branch Saloon swapping stories with Matt, Kitty, Doc, and Festus by saying "it just never gets any better than that."
For the record: Gunsmoke ran 20 seasons and 635 episodes between 1955 and 1975. Reynolds appeared in just 50 of them — less than 8 percent of the show.