The Phil Silvers Show Views
The Phil Silvers Show (originally titled You'll Never Get Rich) is a comedy television series which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959 for a total of 143 episodes (including a 1959 special).[1] The series starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko of the United States Army, service number RA 15042699. His service number indicated that he had enlisted in the Regular Army sometime after 1940 from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio or West Virginia.
The series was created and largely written by Nat Hiken, and won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series. The show is sometimes titled Sergeant Bilko or simply Bilko in reruns, and is very often referred to by these names, both on-screen and by viewers. The show's success transformed Silvers from a journeyman comedian into a star, and writer-producer Hiken from a highly-regarded behind-the-scenes comedy writer into a publicly recognized creator.
The series frequently featured so many secondary cast members, with so many speaking parts, that the show ultimately became too expensive to sustain. It was this factor more than any notable decline in ratings which led to the show's demise in 1959. Though The Phil Silvers Show was never a huge ratings magnet, it was considered the top television comedy of its time. The show was Emmy Award-nominated for both Comedy Writing and Best Series in all four of its seasons, winning both awards in 1956, 1957, and 1958. The series received nine other nominations during its run, with Silvers winning one individual Emmy for his performance, and Nat Hiken winning one for direction. As Silvers later recalled, We went out at our height.
Silvers was able to play off his durable Bilko persona for the rest of his career. In 1963, he starred in The New Phil Silvers Show, which attempted to transplant his mercenary character to a factory setting, but the result proved unpopular. Silvers frequently guest-starred on Buddy Ebsen's The Beverly Hillbillies as a character called Honest John. He also played an unscrupulous Broadway producer on an episode of Gilligan's Island who stole the castaways' concept for a musical version of Hamlet. In an episode of The Lucy Show, Silvers was a demanding efficiency expert; at one point, Lucy's boss Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon), remarks that Silvers reminds him of a sergeant he used to know. Silvers also portrayed greedy connivers in various movies, notably It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The British film Follow That Camel cast him as a scheming sergeant (this time in the French Foreign Legion).
The Phil Silvers Show Images
