The Phil Silvers Show
The Phil Silvers Show (also known as You'll Never Get Rich and Sergeant Bilko) was a comedy television series which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959. It starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko of the United States Army, who spent his time trying to make money by various con games. It also starred Harvey Lembeck as Cpl. Rocco Barbella, Herbie Faye as Pvt. Sam Fender, Maurice Gosfield as Pvt. Duane Doberman, Joe E. Ross as Sgt. Rupert Ritzik (the cook), Allan Melvin as Cpl. Henshaw and Billy Sands as Pvt. Dino Paparelli. The soldiers regularly helped Bilko with his cons which were usually directed towards Col. John T. Hall (Paul Ford), the put-upon post commander. This program (filmed in black-and-white) was widely rerun into the 1960s, until the advent of color television rendered it, and many similar programs, less marketable than they had been previously.
The series repeated successfully on Nick at Nite during the 1990s (together with other black-and-white programs), and it is still shown occasionally by the BBC in Britain.
The show was the basis of a 1996 movie, Sgt. Bilko, starring Steve Martin.
Trivia
The Flintstones cartoon episode "Asto'nuts" shows an unnamed sergeant who is unmistakably a cartoon version of Sgt. Bilko. A longer-running Hanna Barbera Bilko homage can be seen in the character of Top Cat, whose vocal inflections and persona overtly mimic those of Phil Silvers.
External links
- The Phil Silvers Show at IMDb
- The Phil Silvers Show at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
- The Phil Silvers Show on the BBC Guide to Comedy
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