F Troop

Although it only ran for two seasons, "F Troop" was a consistently hilarious western spoof that should have stayed on much longer. It didn't just stick to satirizing westerns--the show managed to throw in vampires (Vincent Price showed up in one episode), James Bond-ish secret agents (Pat Harrington as "Agent B. Wise"), rock bands (Agarn leaves the army to manage a group called The Bedbugs) and just about anything else they could think of. The show was crammed with memorable characters: Ken Berry's well intentioned but bumbling Capt. Parmenter, Forrest Tucker's scheming capitalist Sgt. O'Rourke, Larry Storch's loyal but not particularly bright Cpl. Agarn, Joe Brooks' sight-impaired lookout Cpl. Vanderbilt. The real find, though, was Frank DeKova as Chief Wild Eagle. DeKova parlayed his sinister, menacing appearance into a career of playing cold-hearted killers and various psychos. As conniving Chief Wild Eagle, though, he showed a flair for comed y that was wholly unexpected. Although he went over the top sometimes, he was consistently fun to watch, and you really looked forward to his appearances. There were some truly funny running gags (Parmenter's "Please Jane, not in front of the men" whenever Jane tried to put the moves on him; directions to Fort Courage that always went, "Make a left at the rock that looks like a bear, then a right at the bear that looks like a rock"), but the one that everyone remembers is when O'Rourke would say to Agan, "I don't know why everybody says you're so dumb", and then ten minutes later, in the middle of another scene, Agarn would turn to O'Rourke and say, "Who says I'm dumb?" A truly funny show that should have lasted longer than it did.

P.S. There's a blooper reel in circulation that has about 10 minutes of "F Troop" outtakes on it. If you ever come across it, snap it up. It's even funnier (and far dirtier!) than the stuff that made it into the show.

I truly loved this show. Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch were a great comic team and they had a great chemistry together and Ken Berry was great at slapstick and this show was truly a showcase for that talent. It also could be seen as a parody of capitalism, especially in the case of the Hekawwe's. Wild Eagle had to have been one of the great con men in the history of television.

F Troop was without a doubt a victim of it's own genius and thus in my mind ranks as the SINGLE greatest example of a television show that was way ahead of it's time. Perhaps, too far ahead. As correctly pointed out in previous comments, the show ran for two seasons on ABC from 1965 to 1967. One season in black and white, the other in color. 66 episodes were produced and every one of them was a comedic masterpiece. Despite poor ratings and eventual cancellation, the show went on to become extremely popular in syndicated reruns and develope a large cult following. So what happened? Here is my opinion. At the time F Troop made it's debut, Television was still in it's infancy and America was use to either the "family" sitcoms such as "Donna Reed", "Beaver", "Ozzie and Harriet", etc... Or, the "idiot" sitcoms such as "Gilligan", "Bewitched" or "Jeannie". The nation was not ready for, nor did the understand the "Satire" comedy. Two came out in 1965. One worked, the other didn't. "Get Smart" was a satire of the secret agent phenomenon which was sweeping the country. America could relate to that because of "James Bond" and the cold war so "Get Smart" was a success. Plus you had the great talents of Don Adams and a superb show to boot! But a satire on the American west? The nation didn't get it or take to it thus "Troops" fate was sealed. Despite the fact that the show is brilliant, the chracters are funny and endearing and the writing was superb and ahead of it's time, America just didn't get it. Only when times changed in the 70's and 80's and the show was in syndication did America start getting the humor and understanding what satire really meant. "F-Troop" paved the way for satires like "Police Squad" and "The Naked Gun". To this day the humor is fresh and funny and even relevant. I have seen episodee hundreds of times and still laugh and still find things I didn't notice before. And hats off to Televisions most underrated physical comic, Ken Berry. I urge anyone to find this show on video and enjoy it for the classic and genius that it is.

Without a doubt the funniest thing to come out of America. It also sums up the time when it was made and I can't see anything similar ever being made again.

As children we watched it but now as I watch it again and again I realize that I never got the jokes the first few times through anyway.

e.g. Agarn needs to see the medicine man at the Indian camp to find out whether he's a kleptomaniac so the medicine man gives him some deer skins to look at that have berry blots on them (i.e. a Rorschach test) and asks him what he sees. In explanation the medicine man say that this test was invented by a great Indian medicine man called Roaring Chicken. For short they call it the RoarChick Test!! Now that is clever AND funny.

Many other similarly clever jokes. Great scenes of pathos with lots of sentimentality before the days of the studio audience which nowadays bursts into sickening applause over that sort of thing. Catch it if you've never seen it... or watch it again if you have. It's still funny.

I wish that Warner Brothers would come to their senses and see that there are many of us who would buy the complete series of F-Troop once on DVD...I hope they realize that there IS a market for the show to this day! The company of Warner Brothers should respect the will of all us true admirers of this show which (to myself and many others) has got to be one of the best written comedies of all time...It definitely is up there with shows such as "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners"...As I recall all the times as a young boy that I would sit and watch the hilarious antics of the members of F-troop and the Heckowee tribe, (excuse me if I misspelled the name), I start to laugh deep inside once again...I really do , Sincerely hope that Warner Brothers release this series before we all get to old and start dying off - Please Release The F-Troop Series On DVD As Soon As Possible - Thank You!