EMMYS 1957: The Phil Silvers Show (season 2)

NETWORK: CBS

CBS continued its history of winning the Emmy when the award went to the second season of The Phil Silvers Show. Clearly, Silvers' personality and charisma as the Bilko character proved popular and still allowed for a number of stories. I did find that the series tends to go back to the well with the same three or four ideas, but the writing is so good that even a formulaic episode is still a lot of fun. It's like when a great band covers a familiar song.

One of those constant tropes is the "someone is sent to rid the platoon of gambling through the arts" story. The first season did this three or four times. But the clever way it was approached this season was fun because we'd been through the dance before so seeing someone try to outwit Bilko at it was fun. Another classic trope is the blue-blood rich looking down on the servicemen. This occurs twice in this season. It's telling that the series really takes a stand against the aristocracy, as if they are the enemy of the common man, and the highest form of common man is the American soldier. It's a reminder to the country to respect their servicemen. In a post-war era with conflicts beginning to heat up in other parts of the world, this is a nice sentiment.

The second season brings back Bilko's sometime love interest, WAC Sgt. Hogan. However, they have tweaked continuity. The series is definitely contemporary from all its references, and the year is explicitly identified in an amusing story where Bilko is audited. But Hogan was introduced to the platoon only last season, and now the series consistently says they've been dating for five years. I don't remember what the date references were last season, but I don't think there's a five year gap between. Chalk it up to new continuity. You could get away with that more often when there were fewer reruns.

We also gain a new recurring character with Sgt. Ritzik, and his catchphrase ("I knew it!"). Ritzik is a guy always trying to beat Bilko at a bet, but he's a born loser. So there's a lot of fun conflict between Ritzik and his wife over his obsession with beating Ritzik.

What remains consistent into the second year is Bilko's love for his men. He may rib them and use them, but he will preserve their dignity. Many stories continue this  thread, such as pulling scams to embarrass the blue bloods that embarrass his men, or trying his best to let Ritzik win for once.

The second season also cements the series' place in popular culture by having celebrity guest appearances. Bing Crosby turns up in one episode, and another is built around Bilko getting a spot on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan actually appears in two episodes. The latter is a clever meta-story that features Phil Silvers as himself discussing last night's episode with his cast mates at dinner. He runs into Ed Sullivan and they discuss their episode, which turns into a series of sequences from previous episodes that had been cut for time. It's the kind of episode that's very ahead of its time, and a clever way to avoid doing a standard clip show. Instead of moments we'd already seen, we are treated to extended gag sequences we haven't already seen. Now, whether these were truly from the cutting room floor, I don't know. But I thought it was a smart change of pace.

Another episode that pays a nod to the times is "Rock 'n Roll Rookie" in which an Elvis stand-in named Elvin Pelvin joins the platoon. He just wants to be treated like everyone else, but Bilko tries desperately to record him singing so he can sell the record. It's fun to see the show take on Elvis, who was at his height at this time, with Jailhouse Rock releasing that year. The story also plays to all audiences by both kind of embracing the character but also having the older generation taking good-natured jabs at him.

In another nod to present-day goings on, there's a great quiz show episode where Bilko contrives to get one of the men on The $64,000 Question. A lot of TV shows have done "guy tries to cheat quiz show with secret radio" stories, and I was immediately reminded of that here. But of course there was also a real life quiz show scandal in this era, so it's funny thinking about in that context as well.

I regret that CBS started pulling some of the episodes from the online source I was using, so I was unable to watch a few of the last episodes. Still, on the whole I enjoyed the second season. While it played safe and predictable with a number of the set-ups, I found I liked certain episodes even more. The characters are coming into their own, with their own personalities and catchphrases, and some of the premises are consistently funny and remain fresh. Part of that is how Silvers continues to sell it with everything he has. So even if Bilko's running a similar scheme (getting a film made, getting a song promoted; starting a mink farm, starting a radio station) the energy and innovation continues to make it a blast to watch.

FAVORITE EPISODES: "A Mess Sergeant Can't Win", "Bilko's Tax Trouble", "Doberman's Sister", "Bilko Gets Some Sleep", "Bilko Goes to Monte Carlo", "Show Segments"
UP NEXT: The Phil Silvers Show (yet again!)