Sgt Bilko/ Phil Silvers Show - C/D, S/D

as long as their in kansas, not the shiters in florida(?).

but the great episodes are as good as sitcoms get.

according to the new Kliph Nesteroff book The Comedians, Nat Hiken was really into casting New York-type homunculi who could barely get their lines out, particularly Joe E Ross (a pothead who married a series of strippers) and the guy who played Pvt Doberman.

also Silvers was just as big a gambling addict as Bilko.

In 1987 a British tourist visiting Tibet wearing a Phil Silvers "Sgt. Bilko" T-shirt had Chinese soldiers attempt to rip it off her because they thought the picture was the Dalai Lama.

Larry David, creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, has called The Phil Silvers Show his favorite television show.

The 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate used the names of several people associated with Sgt. Bilko for the members of a Korean War patrol – Cpl. Allan Melvin, Pvt. Silvers, Pvt. Hiken, and Pvt. Lembeck.

never higher than 23rd in the ratings!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phil_Silvers_Show

This DVD set has been sitting in my Amazon wishlist forever. Should I pull the trigger even though it's one of those (=gag=) black and white shows?

yes, because it's brilliant

p sure there are more genuinely great b&w sitcoms than color sitcoms

I just started watching the s1 DVDs, in fact.

The Phil Silvers Show is classic because it was so subversive. It's also perfect evidence that the current atmosphere of dewy-eyed worship that hovers around the military is a recent aberration in America's psyche. The majority of servicemen who served in WWII did not remember their time in the military with fondness, viewed the brass hats with deep mistrust, and understood the terms "snafu" and "fubar" from repeated personal experience.

absolutely, i'm sure that a huge number of the adult males who'd been in the military in the preceding two decades had a big personal identification with it.

In 1987 a British tourist visiting Tibet wearing a Phil Silvers "Sgt. Bilko" T-shirt had Chinese soldiers attempt to rip it off her because they thought the picture was the Dalai Lama.

the only reason I even know about this show at all was because this specific incident was referenced in a series of Zippy the Pinhead strips. at the time I had no idea who he was.

The Phil Silvers Show is classic because it was so subversive. It's also perfect evidence that the current atmosphere of dewy-eyed worship that hovers around the military is a recent aberration in America's psyche. The majority of servicemen who served in WWII did not remember their time in the military with fondness, viewed the brass hats with deep mistrust, and understood the terms "snafu" and "fubar" from repeated personal experience.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Monday, January 9, 2017 9:25 PM (thirty-three minutes ago)

it is funny to see how much media attitudes toward the media have changed -- there were any number of tv shows + film comedies in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that treated military life as a subject for laughs. i can't even imagine a show like that happening now.

Almost all of em borrowed elements of Bilko to different but lesser returns: F Troop, McHale's Navy, Gomer Pyle.

Even in the 90s! MAJOR DAD!

(the sitcoms that is) xp

Private Benjamin, M.A.S.H.

every movie comedy team in the '40s/50s joined the army or navy, sometimes on multiple occasions (cept Hope & Crosby, who were independent con men)

prob the major factor is that in the 40s/50s/60s much of the audience would've had the shared experience of being in the service, not true nowadays

the wiki page for gomer pyle u.s.m.c. says that the marine corps gave the show total cooperation and let them use whatever military equipment, etc., they wanted b/c they thought it was "good for their image"!

there was a draft on for its entire run, i think, so it's not like they needed a recruiting magnet.

(well not quite -- i didn't realize it debuted as early as fall '64)

I think this show was much more popular in the UK than it ever was in the US. Could be wrong. By the way, there have been two British sitcoms set in the Army in the last 5 years: Bluestone 42 and Gary: Tank Commander. I think I may have had a conversation or two before about the weird reverential attitude towards the military service in the US as opposed to the UK.

there was a draft on for its entire run, i think, so it's not like they needed a recruiting magnet

The problem was that a lot of guys chose to enlist in the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard in the '60s instead of going into service via the draft, in which case they'd be assigned to the Army or Marines (draftees didn't have a choice of which branch to serve in). Presumably the Marines wanted to present as good an image as possible in order to encourage more men to enlist in the Marines who might otherwise have enlisted in the other branches, which were considered safer in the Vietnam Era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUkteCQl90I