Cynical Cinema

I’ve been paying close attention to the way TV series end now, since I got totally screwed watching six days worth of The 4400 before realizing it never actually ends.  With the Final Season of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. was released onto DVD (November 25th, from Paramount Home Entertainment), I skipped right to the final episode.  And it’s OK.  But I am not convinced that the people making this show knew it was going to end.  I think they may have been hedging their bets.  First of all, the episode was set up with Gomer on the verge of transfering to another base, which would make Sargent Carter, of course, thrilled.  But then at the end of the episode, he stays after all.  And makes the Sarge ANGRY…

The final episode features clips and flashbacks to the best moments of the series.  Remember when Pyle did the following stupid thing… and so forth.  But there are only a couple, like they had run out of ideas and just needed to do a clip show.  And if that is the case, and they had just run out of ideas, they ended this show not a moment too soon. 

The biggest problem with this show is Sargent Carter.  He is constantly blowing his top, and there is nowhere for him to go.  He can’t get an angrier, he’s already so angry.  This type of character is best when he does a slow burn.  Think Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies, as he gets more and more angry with Peter Sellars.  Inspector Dreyfuss begins by being just a little irritated with the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, but by the end of the movies, he is in a full-on rage, eventually going so far as to plan to murder Clouseau.  With Frank Sutton constantly in full-rage mode, we know exactly what we’re going to get, and his rage is no longer funny.

This show remains reasonably funny, most of the time, in a cheesy-60s sitcom sort of way.  Jim Nabors is decent as Gomer Pyle, and the guest stars are usually pretty good, in some cases top-notch.  But the show was never terrific, never hilarious, and it was fairly merciful when the series ended.  Whether they knew it was ending or not.

I just picked up a show I never know existed. Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., season 4. It came out May 13th, courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment. Oh, I’ve heard of Gomer Pyle. The Andy Griffith Show and all that. And I knew he was played by Jim Nabors, and I knew he was goofy and as dumb as a bag of hair. I might even have been able to pick him out of a lineup of 1960s TV characters, if he stood beside Dick Van Dyke and Carol Burnett and Chester from Gunsmoke. Gomer Pyle is an American institution, just like Jerry Lee Lewis is a French one. But somehow the existence of the show completely eluded me. And I should have known – I always thought, in Full Metal Jacket, that R. Lee Ermey was referring to the Andy Griffith character when he calls Vincent D’Onofrio “Private Pyle”. But now I know better - He’s referring to this, actual “Private Pyle”. Which makes that bathroom scene all the creepier.

Especially now that I watched Season 4 of Gomer Pyle. I couldn’t help but think about Vincent D’Onofrio and that maniac smile that spreads over his face while he sits on the floor of the bathroom. Seven-six-two millimetre. Full. Metal. Jacket. And so every time I see even a shadow cross the permanently-happy, blissfully stupid face of Gomer Pyle in this series, I expect the next thing he’ll do will be to bust into the weapons depot, load up a Rambo rifle, and go on a killing spree. (Which, as I understand it, is the alternate ending to Episode 91, “A Visit From Aunt Bee”. Or, at least, the director’s cut.) There are very few killing sprees in Gomer Pyle, USMC. And I wasn’t counting, but I think there are more laughs than murders. I think. I believe the final score is 1-0. One laugh, zero kills.

Not that I expect a military-themed show to have actual soldiers doing actual fighting. Remember Major Dad? No, neither do I. But I DO expect a “comedy” to make me laugh. And I have rarely seen a comedy that feels more dated than Gomer Pyle. The premise here is that a garage station attendant of sub-par intelligence has left Mayberry to enlist in the Marine corps. While there, he has to deal with his angry, yelling, order-barking platoon sergeant, but because he’s a “knucklehead”, he can’t do anything right ever. Which makes the sergeant yell more. And that makes Pyle screw up more. And hilarity, one would suppose, would ensue. But somehow, it just doesn’t. There is something just so painfully sit-com-ish about Gomer Pyle USMC. And perhaps in it’s day, it felt new, but there are few shows on DVD today that feel as dated as this. And that includes the A-Team.