| Video Roundup June 2008
F Troop Keeps Riding
 If you turn on a TV today,
you'll think that comedy happens only within established social institutions -- the
nuclear family, the workplace, a close-knit group of friends. These were the backdrops for
the sitcoms of the 1950s as well, but in between then and now, in the era in which I grew
up, television comedy had a much broader, sillier set of premises: A diverse group of
castaways is stranded on a deserted island; immediately after splashdown, an astronaut
finds a brightly colored bottle that's home to a genie; a New York lawyer chucks the high
life to become his idealized vision of a farmer. The humor was zanier and more timeless,
helping the shows remain in our consciousness into a new century.
One sitcom from the mid-1960s achieved a mild cult status
in the 1970s because its setting was unusual and reruns were scarce, at least on my local
TV stations. F Troop was set immediately after one of America's darkest times --
the Civil War -- and during the era of the cowboy romanticized in so many movies and
serials. Fort Courage, Kansas, an outpost in the American West, was where most of the
action took place. TV veteran Ken Berry starred, playing Captain Wilton Parmenter, who
came from a long line of military leaders and was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted
after beginning the final charge at the Battle of Appomattox by accident.
The show's humor came in various guises: the schemes of
Sergeant O'Rourke (Forest Tucker) and Corporal Agarn (Larry Storch), the antics of the
Hekawi Indian tribe, and the efforts of Parmenter to avoid the marriage-minded clutches of
his girlfriend, "Wrangler" Jane Angelica Swift (Melody Patterson). Tucker was a
film and stage star, while Storch's rubbery features were well known to TV viewers in the
1960s and later. Patterson was a fresh face, but little did viewers know that she was only
15 when the series began in 1965. Marx Toys produced a popular group of action figures
reminiscent of the characters in the John Wayne movie Fort Apache, and whether
purposeful or not, F Troop rode this wave.
All 65 episodes of F Troop are available in two
six-DVD sets. In my memory, these shows look noisy and faded, but the DVDs and their
crisp, clean video undo that impression. In fact, watching F Troop on DVD was
almost like watching a different show, modern technology being especially kind to what was
surely not considered TV for the ages in its day.
Season one was entirely in black and white, and perhaps its
memorable feature was its opening, a compressed explanation of the plot line for the
series in the form of a catchy theme song. More than a few kids in my neighborhood knew it
by heart. Season two was in full color, but the opening sequence was changed -- shortened and
animated for some inexplicable reason.
Also inexplicable was the casting of Edward Everett Horton,
the narrator for "Fractured Fairytales" on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,
as the medicine man of the Hekawi tribe. If you remember Horton's calm, expressive voice,
you'll know why he seems an odd choice to play an Indian, even a comedic one. Guest stars
were abundant and included Milton Berle, Vincent Price, Don Rickles, Paul Lynde, Harvey
Korman, Jamie Farr, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Phil Harris. Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar, both
of whom played Catwoman on Batman, also appeared. Probably two of the more unusual
guest roles -- members of the Beatles-derived band the Bedbugs -- were played by Lowell
George and Richie Hayward of Little Feat.
I suppose the big question to answer about F Troop
is if it holds up by today's standards. If you judge it by contemporary sitcoms, which are
rooted in our current times, F Troop hasn't made the 40-year transition very
successfully. The characters are too broadly drawn and the humor is too coarse and goofy
for today's audiences who respond to observational humor. However, as classic TV, F
Troop exists with other two-season wonders like The Munsters, The Addams
Family and The Monkees as shows that have far outperformed their short
on-air runs. All of these shows have been staples on cable TV long after their
over-the-air lives were thought finished.
Thus, perhaps a more interesting question is if today's
sitcoms will have the lasting power of F Troop. Somehow I think that the friends,
family and workplaces of today will be more dated in the future than post-Civil War
soldiers at a fort in Kansas -- as zany as that may sound. I'll just bet the kids I
grew up with can still hum a few bars of that catchy theme song.
...Marc Mickelson
marc@hometheatersound.com |
