For those of us who were very young and just discovering the fun of watching TV comedies with our parents you couldn't ask for better shows than the Andy Griffith Show and it's spin-offs. Perhaps the best spin-off show was Gomer Pyle USMC. It's excellence is due primarily to the chemistry between Jim Nabors and Frank Sutton. The writing was good too, but these pros made that easier because they could carry the load so effectively.
Of course the show's formula was lifted wholesale from the already successful Andy Griffith's comedic career. That formula started, as far as I know, with Andy's routine called "What It Was Was Football" which I still think of when I see a "big orange" soda (Crush or similar ilk)! It was honed further by the movie "No Time For Seargeants" and then refined for sitcoms in The Andy Griffith Show. American loved the formula so as long as it was changed enough to camouflage the sameness...Success was almost guaranteed.
Oh yeah, the formula was basically exploiting, in a kind way, the innocence of someone who was naive and stripped of all pretension. It worked to the "nth-degree" with Jim Nabors as Gomer! He was so believable that it likely sabotaged him after his stint as Gomer. That can happen when a character is so fully inhabited by an actor who is both a great actor and is so well suited for a persona that you see this as the person's natural persona. In spite of this, I see his whole acting career as a qualified success due to the fact this show will continued to loved by millions more around the world...Especially now that it's out on DVD.
Simply put, "they don't make 'em like they used to" and this is truly a gem of a series.
