F Troop isn't one of those shows that stayed in the forefront of my TV memories like other series of the 1960s and 1970s. I certainly saw enough of it growing up; it seemed to be in reruns constantly (I was pretty shocked to find out only two seasons were produced - I thought for sure it ran at least four or five). But it never left a major impression on me or proved to be a big influence on how I perceived that entity known as "network TV from the 1960s." F Troop was just there; a ubiquitous fact of syndication life. Watching F Troop now, it's surprising how similar my reactions were to it after not having seen an episode for over ten or fifteen years: it's genial and pleasant enough entertainment, with a good cast that tries very hard, but it's certainly not ground breaking in the laughs department. I watched it; I laughed several times during each episode, and I instantly forgot what I had just viewed once I put on another disc.

That's not necessarily a knock, though, because as mild as F Troop's effect was, after watching fifteen or so episodes, I started to appreciate the more subtle appeals of the show. First and foremost, the cast of F Troop are a terrific bunch of farceurs, who must have known that the scripts they were getting needed as much manic mugging as possible to sell them to the audience. Chief offender, if you will, is the funny Larry Storch as Corporal Agarn, who apparently never met a punchline he didn't chew up and spit out right in your face. Frankly, his over-the-top performance is annoying at first, but then you start to notice that he's not going to quit; he's going to do this in every episode, and that's when you realize his approach is about the only correct choice possible with the relatively innocuous material he's given (I mean, how many lookalike/double plots can you have?). And once you get a bead on Storch's thinking, Forrest Tucker's (who's surprisingly nimble with the comedic lines) method begins to jell. What would be funny about this physically imposing tough guy name Sergeant O'Rourke constantly yelling at and threatening an idiot who's on a crying jag all the time? It would have turned the audience off immediately; so instead, Tucker plays it as the big, loveable mug who's resigned to comforting Storch every time he flies off the handle (they're constantly hugging each other, in another parody of macho military figures). They have a nicely tuned chemistry together, as do the rest of the cast.

As well, the other actors start to fill in the standard farce stereotypes quite well, with Ken Berry doing a fine turn as the bumbling, inept, romantic lead Captain Parmenter. Berry, a dancer and natural athlete, always manages to get in a few ingenious pratfalls (watch him read a letter while strolling down the street, running into various obstacles); with his mid-Western appeal and good looks, he's rather like a bantam Harold Lloyd. Filling out her britches nicely (can you believe she was only seventeen when she shot this?), Melody Patterson as Wrangler Jane shows a comedic timing that seems well beyond her young years. And Frank De Kova (as Chief Wild Eagle) and Don Diamond (as Crazy Cat), provide a funny double act as the conning Indians who just cannot believe how dumb everyone is over at Fort Courageous (and that's saying something, because they're pretty dumb, too). And of course with any kind of farce, you need to fill out the scenes with speciality bits, so James Hampton as Trooper Hannibal Dobbs (who can't bugle to save his life), and Joe Brooks (as Trooper Vanderbilt, who's legally blind and hard of hearing - of course, he's the lookout), and Bob Steele (as senile Trooper Duffy -- comic senility in aged characters being a necessary stock character for traditional farce), offer up familiar, expected gags every episode. It's all rather like a Borscht Belt Fort Apache, with the broad, broad playing providing bridges over the sometimes sketchy material.

And naturally, as with any sitcom from the mid-1960s, you have to have guest stars show up to give the audience that pleasant surprise of, "Hey, that's Vincent Price! What's he doing on F Troop?" This season includes appearances by Paul Lynde as The Singing Mountie (which gives new meaning to their phrase, "We always get our man!"); Phil Harris as a 147-year-old Indian Chief Flaming Arrow; Harvey Korman as Prussian balloonist Heindreich von Zeppel; Milton Berle as medicine man Wise Owl; Don Beddoe as a wily hermit; Julie Newmar as sexy Yellow Bird; Sterling Holloway as Sheriff Lawton; Henry Gibson as Wrongo Starr; Mako as a vicious samurai warrior; Pippa Scott as Mrs. Molly Walker; the rock group The Factory as a 1800's rock group The Bedbugs; Fred Clark as Major Hewitt; Arch Johnson as Colonel Adams; James Gregory as Big Jim Parker; Cliff Arquette as General Sam Courage; Charles Drake as Major Terence McConnell; Patrice Wymore as Peggy Gray; and Vincent Price as Transylvanian Count Sfoza. Watching these and other pros, I started to see what a hidden gold mine a show like F Troop is for fans of vintage TV. While the actual gags themselves in the show are ancient, the parade of good performers coming in and doing their shtick is an invaluable history lesson for lovers of all things TV. And they're funny, too, even if their jokes are stale. In fact, that may even be to their benefit; Berle in particular was always funniest when he knew he was bombing out with his material. That combination of above-it-all disdain and frantic flailing for laughs marks quite a few of the performances by the guest-shot artists that show up in this second season of F Troop, and the viewer is the lucky recipient.

F Troop premiered in 1965, and quite a few people couldn't help but notice a big similarity between it and the rather well-received Glenn Ford B-picture, Advance to the Rear, from the year before. In that film, Glenn Ford's Union "company of cowards" forges a pact with Confederate soldiers to stage a one cannonball apiece battle every day, allowing them both to live out the rest of the war in peace - not at all unlike the mock battles the Hekawis stage with the members of Fort Courage to impress visitors. Watching F Troop, other influences become apparent in its creation, including an obvious nod to Phil Sivers' Sergeant Bilko (The Phil Silvers Show). Sergeant O'Rourke and Corporal Agarn's constant scheming with the Hekawi Indian tribe for O'Rourke Enterprises comes out of the great American comedic tradition of the humorous, hustling, fast-buck con men that have graced numerous film genres and TV shows, heightened to perfection on the Bilko series. Perhaps that's why F Troop has proved to have such staying power with original fans who saw it when it premiered, as well as with new viewers who continue to catch it in reruns: it's familiar. The guest stars are well-known, carrying along their own comedic baggage from countless other guest spots on 1960s sitcoms. The gags are recycled from countless other movies and TV shows (despite what fans say about F Troop being "groundbreaking" and "ahead of its time," it's satirical look at cowboys and Indians was hardly new - a few months before F Troop's premiere, director John Sturges brought out The Hallelujah Trail, a big-budget calvary spoof that played very much like F Troop). And the lead actors do the same shtick, week after week, and they do it expertly. F Troop may not be art, but who cares? It's light entertainment, it's consistently played (even if the pitch is silly and insistent), and something about the show must still work, or people wouldn't still be watching it, and talking about it.

So why did F Troop only run two years? It's certainly no worse than other sitcoms from the same era that ran two and three times longer; why didn't it find a bigger audience? The answer may very well be a matter of scheduling, the hidden killer of TV shows. Its first year (a critical time to build an audience), ABC's F Troop was up against a powerhouse lineup on CBS that nobody could beat. Teamed up with fading series like Combat, McHale's Navy, Peyton Place, and The Fugitive, there was no way F Troop could get any traction against CBS's ratings' blockbuster The Red Skelton Hour, which wound up fourth for the year. F Troop didn't even crack the Top Thirty in the Nielsen's.

Despite less-than-spectacular ratings, ABC must have had high hopes for F Troop, because this second season, they switched production over to color, which indicated the network had enough faith in the show to increase their monetary commitment, despite the low ratings the first season (although when they switched to color, the elaborate black and white credit sequence - with the memorable theme song that explained the show's setup, a la Gilligan's Island -- was scrapped, with just an instrumental version and no lyrics, which didn't help new viewers orient themselves to the show). As well, they teamed F Troop up with the previous year's ratings phenomenon, the buzz-worthy Batman, which had finished fifth for the year for its Thursday night installment, and tenth for the year for its Wednesday episode -- ABC's highest rated show. Unfortunately, a series that burns that bright that quickly, can fizzle out fast, and that's exactly what happened to Batman, offering no help to F Troop. Going up against steady performer Daniel Boone over on NBC, F Troop didn't have a chance. It was gone by the end of the year. But through syndication and four decades of reruns, audiences rediscovered F Troop, and have kept it a favorite rerun staple for decades.

DISC ONE

The Singing Mountie
If you breed a fox with a mink, do you get a fink? The lads go into business with Agarn's fur-trapping cousin.

How to Be F Troop Without Really Trying
Outsourcing, 1800s style: F Troop must train its own replacements, the bumbling men of G Troop.

Bye, Bye Balloon
They float through the air with the greatest of ease: a Prussian balloonist arrives to send F Troop airborne.

Reach For the Sky Pardner
After the payroll train is robbed, F Troop needs some gallant heroes to guard the next shipment. They get O'Rourke and Agarn.

The Great Troop Robbery
He forgot to remember. An accident gives Agarn memory loss -- and gives a crooked medicine man a perfect fall guy.

The West Goes Ghost
Home Sweet Homestead. Dreaming of riches, O'Rourke, Agarn, Dobbs and Vanderbilt homestead a ghost town.

DISC TWO

Yellow Bird
O'Rourke's out to feather his nest when he discovers that beautiful Indian maiden Yellow Bird has a rich daddy.

The Ballot of Corporal Agarn
The great man votes: Agarn's absentee ballot will decide who will be mayor of his hometown.

Did Your Father Come From Ireland?
O'Rourke's father arrives from the old country to transform Fort Courage into a wee bit o'Irish heaven.

For Whom the Bugle Tolls
The bugler's skills are the deciding factor for fort inspector Col. "Bugle Bill" Bartlett. Too bad Dobbs makes Taps sound like Chopsticks.

Miss Parmenter
The captain's spinster sister comes a visitin' - and a courtin' once she spies Trooper Dobbs.

La Dolce Courage
Things get as tangled up as a plate of linguini carbonara when a lovely Italian and her papa open a restaurant in town.

DISC THREE

Wilton the Kid
He's lean, he's mean, he's...Captain Parmenter? Confusion reigns when Kid Vicious, the captain's lookalike, robs the Fort Courage bank.

The Return of Wrongo Starr
What a blast: Human jinx Wrongo Starr returns...and this time he's escorting a shipment of dynamite.

Survival of the Fittest
Parmenter and Agarn brave a wilderness survival test with nothing but a cup, a knife...and a little help from their friends.

Bring on the Dancing Girls
The barroom door swings both way: O'Rourke vows to get even with the blackmailer who took over his saloon.

DISC FOUR

The Loco Brothers
Now you see him, now you don't! Two warriors ride into the fort, swoop up Captain Parmenter, and whisk him away.

From Karate with Love
East meets West: Fort Courage becomes a sanctuary for a kimono-clad cutie fleeing "honorable bad man."

The Sergeant and the Kid
He's brave, honest and true. In fact, there's only one thing wrong with aspiring soldier Joey Walker. He's 10.

What Are You Doing After the Massacre?
The troopers learn to respect their elder - much elder - when 147-year-old Flaming Arrow hits the warpath.

A Horse of Another Color
It doesn't take much horse sense to figure that Captain Parmenter isn't the right man to rope a wild stallion.

V is for Vampire
A real pain in the neck! Wrangler Jane the victim of a Transylvanian count with a taste for A-positive?

DISC FIVE

That's Show Biz
Camptown Races, heavy on the bass: Agarn resigns to manage mop-topped rockers called the Bedbugs.

The Day They Shot Agarn
Agarn is headed for that Big Fort in the Sky, compliments of a firing squad. It all began when....

Only One Russian is Coming! Only One Russian is Coming!
Captain Parmenter has a rival for Wrangler Jane's heart: Agarn's Cossack cousin Dmitri Agarnoff.

Guns, Guns, Who's Got the Guns?
"Every man in F Troop is under suspicion!" Has one of our brave boys in blue been selling rifles to the Apaches?

Marriage, Fort Courage Style
Equestrienne Wrangler Jane looks for a bridal trail. She hires a matchmaker to snare Captain Parmenter.

Carpetbagging, Anyone?
Agarn and Dobbs don war paint and feathers in a clever plot to save the fort from a greedy land speculator.

DISC SIX

The Majority of Wilton
Starve a fever, souse a cold? When Parmenter gets the sniffles, his friends ply him with alcohol-laced home remedies.

Our Brave in F Troop
F Troop's newest recruit, Wild Eagle, moves up the ranks faster than a greased arrow.

Is This Fort Really Necessary?
Has the fort met its fate? An officer in charge of closing down unnecessary forts arrives at Fort Courage.

The DVD:

The Video:
Warner Bros. has done nothing to make F Troop look any better after forty years; the full screen transfers look grainy, scratchy, occasionally dirty, and with slightly faded colors (which can range from pinkish to a slightly jaundiced yellow cast). They look about as good here as they look when you watch them on TV reruns, so don't expect any kind of remastering here. It's disappointing, but not fatal.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono soundtrack accurately represents the original broadcast presentation.

The Extras:
There's a new, thirty minute retrospective featurette, Fall in with F Troop, that looks at the impact of the show, with some reminiscences from writers and directors involved with the show, as well as a brief interview with Ken Berry. It's a nice look back for the fans.

Final Thoughts:
I don't think F Troop is one of the classic TV sitcoms, but it's a quality endeavor, with a more-than-generous production, an inspired cast that works well together and who puts forth maximum effort in every episode, and a plethora of corny, silly sight gags and one-liners that your great-grandparents would recognize as ancient. It's a rather comforting show, really, in the best sense of 1960s TV; it's not trying to change the world, or impart a message, or even be all that original. F Troop is just trying to make you laugh, which it succeeds at doing. I recommend F Troop: The Complete Second Season.