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Gomer Pyle (played by the comedian Jim Nabors) was the bumbling gas station attendant with a few sketches on The Andy Griffith Show. However, Gomer became so popular, he was eventually put right in his own spin-off.
Here, Pyle is drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps. Every episode has Pyle doing something crazy, mostly enraging his superior, Sergeant Vince Carter (No, Not the Basketball player!) (Frank Sutton).
Tropes:
- Artistic License Military: This is a sitcom, after all, and follows the Rule of Funny. Getting details of military life exactly right are of ... secondary importance.
- Breakout Character: Gomer Pyle broke from The Andy Griffith Show.
- Cloudcuckoolander
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Notably Subverted by Sgt. Carter, Carter does shout a lot and is angry sometimes but he is kind at heart.
- Large Ham: Carter, Again.
- Loud Last Name: "PYYYYYLLEEEEE!!"
- Name's the Same: So this is where Sgt. Hartmann from Full Metal Jacket got the idea to call Pvt. Lawrence "Gomer Pyle". It helps that both Pyle and Lawrence are idiotic and bumbling when it comes in serious situations.
- While Lawrence was nothing but a complete screw-up, Pyle did manage on several occasions to come up with innovative solutions (usually grounded in his back-country upbringing) to a problem he, Carter, or the unit as a whole faced.
- Peeling Potatoes: Weeks of K.P. were the very first punishment inflicted by Sergeant Carter on the laid-back Pyle, all the way back in the pilot episode.
- Which is totally lost on Pyle: "Goollee, Sarge, you're right! This IS fun!"
- Spiritual Successor - To The Phil Silvers Show, with more antics and less zany schemes