The Phil Silvers Show

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056: The Son of Bilko

Bilko's in New York with Rocco and Henshaw, but unlike his two corporals - he doesn't have a date. Then he runs into an old friend who gives him the phone number of a mutual female friend, who's been trying to get in touch with him.

He goes to see her, but she's married. So why's she keen to see him? Well, her 17 year old son wants to join the Army. Bilko takes a shine to him; perhaps the son he never had.

On his return, he finds that an awkward and introverted 18 year old has been transferred to the Motor Pool platoon. Bilko's brief experience as a father figure leads him to take the lad under his wing. Unfortunately, the young man's propensity for practical jokes makes him rather unpopular, eventually even with Bilko.

Clever one this, but with some surprisingly dark humour. I don't remember ever seeing this one, and I wonder if it was never shown on the BBC back in the day.

Very good one this, even if I saw the final payoff coming a mile off.

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057: Rock 'n' Roll Rookie

Rock'n'Roll star Elvin Pelvin is drafted into the Army, which presents the Pentagon with a problem - a screaming mob of fans follows him around wherever he goes.

But maybe they can find a small, backwater Army camp where his legion of fanatics won't find him and the locals probably haven't heard of him? Yep - Fort Baxter - and of course, he gets put into Bilko's platoon, much to Colonel Hall's dismay.

Elvin is of course the Bilko Universe equivalent of Elvis Presley, and a pedantic person might find this problematic, because Elvis himself has already been mentioned in a few episodes.

Naturally Bilko sees an opportunity to make a fortune.

The lad who plays Elvin is not a bad likeness for the King of Rock'n'Roll. Not brilliant, but not bad.

I remember this one well and had always thought it was based on Elvis being drafted, but it was broadcast a year before that happened. Quite prescient.

Frank from Kojak appears again, this time as an Army officer.

I imagine Elvis was probably seen as a passing fad when this was made. Perhaps Rock'n'Roll was, as well.

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058: Bilko's Black Magic

A young GI who was left behind by accident on a deserted island during the war and has been living on coconuts and fish ever since, is brought to Fort Baxter after being discovered by a Japanese fishing boat - to help rehabilitate him into Army life.

Bilko is very reluctant to take him into the motor pool. Until he finds out that his new private has just received a fortune in back pay. It's yet another episode in which Bilko tries to separate a wealthy unfortunate from his money. Is it? No, it's one of those stories in which the conniving Master Sergeant uses his talents to help someone else get even.

Frank from Kojak is back yet again, playing his fourth different character. This time it's another army officer.

We see Sergeant and Mrs Ritzik in bed in this one, and once again the strict 1950s TV convention mandating separate beds is observed.

It really stretches credulity, this one. But it's very funny.

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059: Bilko Goes South

Kansas is undergoing a spell of freezing weather, so naturally Bilko tries to wangle a trip to southern, warmer climes.

Curiously, his first idea is to enter the platoon in a singing contest, which reuses an idea from an earlier episode in the same series (041, The Song of the Motor Pool).

But that's not what happens. Bilko gets hold of the wrong form, doesn't bother to read it, and unwittingly signs up his platoon to make a noble sacrifice as guinea pigs in research for a deadly tropical disease, which they are not expected to survive.

There's a thoroughly ridiculous scene in which Bilko orders some exotic food and champagne from room service and it arrives (I counted) 18 seconds later. But in the context of a farce, it works.

This one is peak Bilko. Pure genius.

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060: Bilko Goes Around the World

A bit of an odd start to this one. Some of the boys in the platoon attempt to persuade Doberman that he looks like David Niven, having just returned from a cinema screening of Around the World in 80 Days (which came out in 1956). Then Bilko begs a USAF sergeant friend to get him a free ride to San Francisco, so he can meet a voluptuous blonde telephone operator of his acquaintance.

But the route the USAF sergeant comes up with is so convoluted that Bilko comes up with a better plan - to try to make some money from travelling around the world in 80 hours.

Michael Todd, who produced Around The World in 80 Days and is persuaded by Bilko to offer $20,000 as a cash prize for the feat, is played by himself. He was about to marry Liz Taylor when this was made (her third husband; she was 24). Sadly he died about a year later in a private plane accident.

Bizarrely, his charred remains were stolen from his grave in 1977.

One of those ones where Bilko's plans go farcically awry. Not a bad one.

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061: The Mess Hall Mess

Ritzik's culinary inventions don't go down too well with the troops in the mess hall. It turns out that he's experimenting with their food to win $50,000 in a contest to come up with "the best new American original American recipe".

I love the little gags in these scripts, the subtle touches. When the three master sergeants decided to eat out rather than suffer Ritzik's creation, the restaurant hostess welcomes them with "bonsoir messieurs". Ritzik mutters "I thought so, a Greek joint".

The food they order arrives in about 30 seconds, rather like the room service in the previous episode. But you've got to cut a half-hour sitcom a bit of slack.

Predictably, the food there turns out to be magnificent - so Bilko hatches a plan to win yet another contest with a large cash prize. The Phil Silvers Show can be a tad formulaic, but the writers managed to squeeze something different out of every episode.

Very good, definitely above average.

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062: The Secret Life of Sergeant Bilko

A New York newspaper starts printing phony stories about lax Army security. The dodgy journalist responsible decides to visit an obscure Army camp town in the midwest to see if he can get a soldier or two to spill the odd secret with some judicious largesse.

But Paparelli recognises him straight away. Bilko decides to take advantage, while getting a bit of revenge at the same time.

There's a delightful moment where Fender stumbles over a line and Silvers recovers brilliantly with an ad-lib. I think that's what happens. Might just be scripted.

The snoopy reporter is delightfully unpleasant, but preposterously naive.

A bit different, this one. Superb.

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I took a stash of episodes on holiday with me on a phone, so my Bilkothon continued unabated, one episode per day. So:

063: Radio Station B.I.L.K.O

The local radio station is closing down, so Bilko decides to open one at Fort Baxter, in the hope of raising some advertising revenue. Grover is naturally reluctant to allow the signal corps radio equipment to be used for this but soon comes round when he's offered a role as the station's singing Irish tenor.

For a while it looks like this is going to be a pretty ordinary farce based on Bilko trying to keep his unmilitary activities secret during a general's inspection, but a clever plot idea involving Colonel and Mrs Hall elevates it to something special.


064: Bilko the Marriage Broker

A particularly military and strict company commander arrives to take control of the motor pool platoon, and he's unhappy with their lax attitude to discipline and hard work.

Before long he has Bilko and his men doing rigorous morning exercises, hikes, drills and other strenuous activities.

Bilko applies some Freudian analysis and decides that the new lieutenant needs a girlfriend. His attempts to fix him up with a new female lieutenant descend into glorious farce.

Very good one; for once not based on a scheme to make money.


065: Bilko Acres

Bilko's convinced that the swampland just outside Fort Baxter will be worth a fortune once the Army tries to buy it to extend the camp. So he buys it with the platoon's money first, expecting to make a killing.

Unfortunately the Army has no intention of doing that, so Bilko is left with a worthless expanse of waste ground. This story is about Bilko's imaginative ruse to sell it at a profit. There's a clever plot twist that leads to a very funny payoff.


066: The Big Scandal

A hypnotist comes to entertain the troops at Fort Baxter. Bilko's so impressed that he decides to try it for himself, in the hope (of course) of winning some cash by making bets on the outcome of his efforts.

The results though are mixed. He completely fails to hypnotise Ritzik, but what nobody notices is that Doberman, obviously paying too close attention while looking on, completely falls under Bilko's spell. The unfortunate consequence of this is that the hapless private believes himself to be hopelessly in love with the colonel's wife.

The situation descends into absolutely glorious farce after Bilko intercepts one of Doberman's calls to Mrs Hall, and - not knowing the identity of the mystery caller, intervenes to attempt to save his commanding officer's marriage.



There's also a hilarious subplot about a lovestruck medical officer, and a delightful character known as "Stacked Susie" makes a very welcome appearance. I watched this episode on an Android phone in a cruise ship cabin and quite honestly, I was tempted to sneak the phone into the bathroom and knock one out. It's a bit sobering to think that she'd be about 100 if she were still alive.

I'm not kidding, this is a comedy masterpiece.


067: Bilko's Perfect Day

Opens with a mystical, echoing voice from the heavens explaining that everyone gets one lucky day, and today it's the turn of Master Sergeant Ernest Bilko.

Absolutely everything goes right for Bilko from the moment he gets up. His shower runs hot when everyone else's is cold. He can't lose at cards. His every wish is granted. He gets off the hook for damaging the Colonel's car by a fantastically improbable turn of circumstances and he cannot fail to win when he makes a bet. Unfortunately, capitalising on his supernatural good fortune is not so straightforward.

Danny Dayton from Bilko's Television Idea appears again in this one.


068: The Colonel Breaks Par

It's that time of year when the Colonel vacations, and as he does every year, Bilko intends to turn the camp into a sort of "fun land" while the boss is away.  Crap games, poker, a hay ride and even a cock fight (!) are planned.

Disastrously though, it turns out that the Colonel intends to vacation in the winter instead. But Bilko has already ordered the catering and made all the plans. How to rescue the situation?

He comes up with an idea to persuade the old boy to take part in an officer's golf tournament to get him away from Fort Baxter, by means of an elaborate scheme involving Sam Snead, who (it turns out) is an old army buddy of Bilko's.

I've always remembered this episode as one of the three or four Phil Silvers Show classics. Actually it's a good one but not brilliant. Mostly memorable for the hilarious scene where the Colonel attempts a putt and the ball plops into the hole like a guided missile with the help of a powerful magnet.

It does somewhat beggar belief though, doesn''t it, that all the other officers would turn a blind eye to Bilko turning Fort Baxter into a sort of Kansas Las Vegas, while the commanding officers is off the post?

I looked up Sam Snead; he was one of the best golfers in the world for decades. Died in 2002 at the age of 89. He was actually in the navy, not the army.


069: Show Segments

This one is the late '50s version of DVD extras, featuring several scenes cut from previous episodes glued together by a script in which Phil Silvers and some of the other actors appear as themselves, sitting at a diner in a break between rehearsals, talking about the scenes that fell victim to the editor's knife. Ed Sullivan also makes an appearance, again as himself.

Curiously, the actors who play Henshaw and Rocco, here appearing as themselves of course, address Silvers as "Sarge".

It's not great, but DVD extras never are, are they?


070: His Highness Doberman

This one is a rerun of a formula used in several previous episodes. Doberman falls for a posh society girl, but her parents are terrible snobs and won't have her seeing a soldier. So Bilko poses as a foreign aristocrat to convince them, largely by being similarly condescending, that Doberman is actually foreign royalty. Not bad. And that one, as it turns out, is the last one in the third series.

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071: Bilko's Merry Widow

The nearby Women's Club is offering $500 for the first producer to bring a professional theatre company to Roseville - part of their "fight to bring culture" to the town.

Meanwhile, Bilko has blown the platoon welfare fund on the horses again. But he notices the advert for the $500 in the local paper, so he decides to put on The Merry Widow.

It's another vehicle for Phil Silvers to impersonate an eccentric foreigner; in this case a theatre producer. Where all the elaborate costumes for these initiatives come from is never explained.

I must say Bilko goes to a lot of trouble to get hold of the $500, but I suppose it was worth a lot more back then. While I can appreciate the talent that goes into the theatrical scenes, it's all a bit too far removed from the basic Bilko idea for me.

Interestingly the audio quality in this one is a bit different; a bit distant. The audience laughter is a bit more uproarious, as well. I think this must be the point at which they stopped filming in front of live audiences.

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There's also a hilarious subplot about a lovestruck medical officer, and a delightful character known as "Stacked Susie" makes a very welcome appearance.

I've just read that "Stacked Susie" was played by Julie Newmar, who went on to play Catwoman in the TV Batman eight or nine years later. And actually she's still alive and only 89.

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072: Bilko's Boy's Town

The men of Fort Baxter are going on desert manouevres. Normally Bilko feigns illness to get out of this sort of thing - but to Colonel Hall's astonishment, he doesn't this time. Why? Because this time said manouevres will take them in the rough direction of Las Vegas.

But when the old boy works out what the crafty master sergeant is up to, he assigns the motor pool platoon to stay behind and guard the camp.

Bilko isn't slow to find the silver lining of course, and he decides to open a lucrative Boy's Camp at Fort Baxter while the rest of the camp is away.

Once again the audio quality is poor, making the show seem a bit more dated than usual. Of course it is 66 years old now.

It's not a particularly good one. It does have a funny payoff. But so far I'm not too impressed with the third series. Still, only two episodes in eh?

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073: Hillbilly Whiz

The motor platoon gets hammered at baseball by the WACs, which greatly disappoints their master sergeant - mainly because he has $50 riding on their next game.

But while the men are out on the rifle range, Bilko is introduced to the newest member of his platoon - a rather slow-witted individual by the name of Hank Lumpkin. Hank, played by none other than a young Dick Van Dyke, turns out to be a whizz at throwing rocks - a talent learned from hunting squirrels. Could his talents be put to use with a baseball?

Young Dick's comic touch is delightful here - his hillbilly accent and gormless manner is absolutely spot on, and it's no wonder that he went on to become a household name in his own right.

There's a scene toward the end in which a number of famous '50s baseball players appear. I'm sure that would have been lost on me when I first saw this in the '70s or '80s, but this time I googled the names.

I've always remembered a Phil Silvers Show episode with Dick Van Dyke as being one of the classics, but it's not this one. He must have been in two of them, playing different characters.

Southern US culture takes a bit of a hammering in this one. There's a hilarious line when Hank's girlfriend complains that her family are upset about her being "sixteen years old and not married off yet".

There's another uniform anomaly in this one. The various NCOs are wearing dark caps again, but this time with the light trousers.

Honestly I didn't think this one was that funny except for the scene where we discover Hank's rock-throwing prowess, but there is at least a clever payoff.

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074: Bilko's Valentine

It's Valentine's Day, and much to Joanie's distress, Bilko has forgotten about it again.

I must admit I was slightly surprised to find that Bilko and Joanie are still an item, as there have been one or two episodes since her last appearance in which the conniving master sergeant has attempted to date other women.

But Joanie's so annoyed by Bilko's inattentiveness that she lets him think she's leaving the army. Her departure bothers him more than he expects.

Naturally, there follows a cunning plan to win her back.

Not going to say this is a return to form. Actually it's slow, and not terribly funny or clever. But I did like it more than the previous three third series episodes. And it does have a lot of '50s period charm.

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075: The Big Man Hunt

A diamond miner becomes a millionaire after finding priceless specimens in South Africa, and sets about finding the fellow soldier who saved his life during the war, so he can make him rich - and (of course) the lucky beneficiary is remembered as none other than Sergeant Ernie Bilko (a bit of a consistency problem there, since we've already established in a previous episode that Bilko was a private during the war but hey).

Meanwhile, Bilko is desperate to raise $100 so he can take part in a poker tournament in Topeka. But when he finds out that two private detectives are looking for him, he fears the worst and does everything he can to evade them.

Actually a pretty good one, my favourite of the third series so far.

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076: Bilko's Double Life

Bilko's in trouble with his various creditors, to the extent that he needs to go into hiding.

Meanwhile it turns out that he has a double - an exact likeness, in the form of a slightly effete multi-millionaire who lives in New York, called Herbert. Herbert's a little stressed, so he's going to take a vacation in Kansas - to a little town called Roseville. What were the chances??

Meanwhile, Bilko's off to New York at exactly the same time. What, er, were the chances??

You can pretty much guess how this one goes. Bilko and his lookalike have very different experiences. And yet - they end up solving each other's problems.

Very clever, very funny.