Paul Ford often forgot his exact lines, which allowed Phil Silvers to improvise during many of the scenes between Sergeant Bilko and Colonel Hall. Both men always stayed in character however, it was usually the other actors in the scene who laughed, ruining the scene.
Although the ratings were still good in the show's final season, it was canceled by CBS because they wanted to sell the reruns in syndication. At that time, it was believed that a series could not still be in production in order to do well in reruns. The reruns were sold to NBC, and aired continuously for forty years. Phil Silvers was very upset when CBS abruptly canceled the series without consulting him.
Phil Silvers (Bilko) and Maurice Gosfield (Doberman) did not get along. In real-life, Gosfield was very much the slob that he portrayed as Doberman. He also had constant trouble remembering his lines, which frustrated the cast and crew. Despite this, Gosfield became the most popular cast member, and received more fan mail than Silvers, which Silvers resented. According to Silvers, the adulation went to Gosfield's head and he became very demanding on the set. Silvers wrote in his autobiography, "Dobie thought of himself as Cary Grant playing a short, plump man."
In 2003, "The Radio Times" named this as the top television sitcom, above other classic shows such as Fawlty Towers (1975) and Seinfeld (1989).
Originally, the series was filmed like a play. The cast had to memorize the entire script, and the scenes were filmed in one take, in sequence, in front of a studio audience. When Mike Todd made a guest appearance in the second season, he insisted on the episode being filmed like a movie, out of sequence, multiple takes, with no audience. Silvers and the crew found Todd's way was faster, cheaper, and less demanding for the actors, so the series changed over to this new policy. The episodes were screened for audiences of military servicemen, whose responses were recorded and added to the shows.