Sixties TV sit-com ‘Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.’ was a popular show about a bumbling but lovable young marine starring Jim Nabors.
I’m sure there was a similar, but inferior competitor to this show made around the same time but I just can’t think of the title. I’ve looked on a number of special TV fan sites for lists of TV shows about the military (there’s a heap!) but couldn’t spot the show I’m trying to remember.
I was only a kid in the sixties but I still remember this show because the lead actor was unintentionally obnoxious!
Unless you’re thinking of Phil Silvers, Sargeant Bilko, McHales Navy.
I always thought Gomer Pyle was loosely based on the movie “No Time For Sargeants”. Andy Griffith was in that movie… Actually, pretty funny - especially when the sargeant tries to get him flushed out for being drunk by drinking the recruit under the table, only to discover several bottles later that “I never touched liquor” did not include pappy’s corn juice.
The similarity ought to be pretty close – the movie No Time for Sergeants starred Andy Griffith and Don Knotts. Andy Griffith, of course, went on to star in The Andy Griffith Show*, which co-starred Don Knotts. Working at the filling station in town was Gomer Pyle. They spun off the series about a good ol’ naive but not-stupid boy in the Marines as Gomer Pyle, USMC, and it’d be surprising if they didn’t have No Time for Sergeants in mind when they did it. Goober (George Lindsaty) stepped in to fill Gomer’s old role.
*Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor first had a tryout on Danny Thomas’ TV show, The Danny Thomas Show/Make Room for Daddy. The ways of TV relations are interesting and strange.
There was a very similar book (and maybe movie) called “See Here, Private Hargrove!” written by a guy who became a writer for TV and movies. Movies about bumbling recruits were fairly popular in the late '40s and '50s since so much of the audience had been in the armed services.
McHale’s Navy and Bilko were more about people scamming the system rather than being befuddled by the system.
Actually, No Time for Sergeants was not a bad TV show, and certainly better than Gomer Pyle. The main difference was that Gomer was not particularly bright, but Will Stockdale usually succeeded by being either smart or by using his knowledge and skills.
I can only recall one scene from the show. I believe the unit was in survival training, and couldn’t find any food. Stockdale rubbed his hands on some berries, then washed his hands in a pond, and fish began floating upside down on the surface. Gomer would have accidently pulled the pin on a handgrenade, and then Sgt. Carter would have grabbed it and thrown it in the pond. Same result, way different approaches.
I think I saw this movie a looong time ago on late night TV. It contains a scene were Griffith rigs all the toilet seats to flip up at attention for inspection by some officer, right? Was pretty funny…
There was also a short lived sitcom that starred Don Rickles as a Navy boot camp leader called CPO Sharkey. You can’t get more obnoxious than Don Rickles.
Mu memory is that the TV version of NTFS had Will Stockdale as a near superhero. He didn’t fight crime but he had “country strength” let him lift two guys up by their collars, raise cars without a jack, or bend steel bars.
As a kid, I dug that, and wanted the show to play it up more.
I have nothing to add, other than to chip in one of my favorite bits of trivia: The screenplay for No Time For Sergeants was based on a stage adaptation by Ira Levin, who became better known for later works like Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys From Brazil. I guess it took him a while to find his niche.
Yes, I couldn’t remember that being the title but when I checked it on YouTube the first scene on the list was exactly the one I remembered. Strange, he doesn’t seem as obnoxious as I remember - but perhaps that’s just because so many ‘celebrities’ today are obnoxious anyway.
Thanks for all the other posters with extra suggestions and info. I love you all. I’m gunna cry.