When he's along for the ride with Cheyenne, Smitty has got his big friend's big back. Smitty was a talented artist and was using his skills as an Army mapmaker. While Cheyenne usually let his fists do most of his talking, Smitty had enough chatter and wit for the two of them combined.
Story[]
Smitty rode through open country on a mapmaking mission with his partner, Cheyenne Bodie, when smoke signals forced the pair to head for high ground. Once there they met a group of men waiting, unbeknownst to Smitty, to rob a stagecoach. When the indians overtook the stage first, Smitty followed Cheyenne and the gang leader, Bob Manson, on a rescue of the female coach passenger and the driver. But what Manson was really after was the stage strongbox. Smitty and Bodie found themselves prisoners of the gang, along with a patrol of soldiers that came looking for the stagecoach. Unified by the threat of attack by Shoshone indians, Smitty, Cheyenne and the outlaws rode out in a last-ditch effort to escape. A cavalry patrol came to their rescue. Smitty said goodbye to the other survivors and rode on with Cheyenne to continue their duties as Army scouts.[1]
On another map-making mission, Smitty and Cheyenne found a lost wagon train and offered to lead them to the nearest fort. During the night, rustlers stole the settlers' cattle and one of the settlers, Morton Scott was killed. Smitty and Cheyenne hatched a plan to get the cattle back, with Smitty impersonating Scott in the nearby town of Julesburg. Smitty had to pretend to be both a gun salesman and big brother to Scott's relative Tommy. Smitty and Cheyenne discovered that the cattle were in the hands of a dangerous criminal, McCanles, and challenged him. The confrontation ended in a rip-roaring fist fight that Smitty said was the best fight he'd been in since he left Texas.[2]
Smitty arrived in the town of Twin Pass and was looking forward to having a hot meal at the restaurant when he and Cheyenne ran into an old friend and stagecoach driver Buckshot. Smitty passes him a case of new maps for the Army and Cheyenne asks the old coot about any new news in town. Buckshot told them that a friend of Cheyenne's was killed during a bank robbery. The sheriff shared descriptions of the gang leader, Carl Thompson, with them and the location where the robbers escaped across the border into Mexico. Cheyenne committed to finding the man that killed his friend and bringing him back to the law in the U.S. Although concerned for his own safety, Smitty agreed to come along. They did find Thompson and his gang, but when he and Cheyenne tried to rally the townspeople into helping, Smitty found they had no desire to fight. He and Cheyenne had to fight off the gang alone, until the people had a change of heart. He and Cheyenne were forced to fight off the gang while holed up in a stable. The townspeople came to their aid. Smitty and Cheyenne rode back to Texas with Thompson as their prisoner.[3]
Notes[]
- The recurring character Smitty was dropped from Cheyenne shortly after the show premiered. Critics and sponsors, including chemical giant Monsanto, complained that the show was too oriented to children. A review in the magazine Variety the week after the show's debut described it as "almost strictly kideo [sic] fare." In an interview, producer Roy Huggins said he was hired during the first season to introduce a more adult, serious tone. Huggins' first act was to drop the wise-cracking sidekick Smitty and change the Cheyenne character into a loner and drifter.1
- The character of Smitty appears three times in the series. According to script notes logged by the American Radio Archives, Smitty/L.Q. Jones was slated to star in eight other episodes of the first season. 2