That's funny. I'll have to put that episode on a TiVo wishlist so I'll catch it next time.

@Tim-Buktu said:

and they were doing a send up of Gunsmoke and Marshall Dooley says: "Do you remember that gunslinger who came into town; handing out business cards?" I fell out of my chair laughing. The episode title was Gun Shy.

Yeah, Maverick _ did a lot of "inside jokes" like that. As I recall, they had other _Gunsmoke-like characters in that episode as well, just changing their names a bit. In at least a couple of episodes Bart/Bret also whistled the Maverick TV series theme song absentmindedly.

I think the Paladin reference was a sort of tip of the hat to what was probably one of the best westerns ever--the others being Gunsmoke and Cheyenne.