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F Troop
Cover art from the 2006 DVD release of the 1st season of F Troop showing stars (clockwise from top) Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Melody Patterson and Ken Berry
Format	Comedy
Created by	Richard Bluel Seaman Jacobs Ed James Jim Barnett
Starring	Ken Berry Forrest Tucker Larry Storch Melody Patterson James Hampton Frank Dekova Bob Steele Joe Brooks
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	65
Production
Executive producer(s)	William T. Orr
Running time	Approx. 22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	September 14, 1965 – April 6, 1967
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired from 1965-1967 on ABC. It premiered in the United States on September 14, 1965, ran for two seasons and finished its first run on April 6, 1967, for a total of 65 thirty-minute episodes. It originally began as a black and white series. It premiered on the ITV network in the United Kingdom on October 29, 1968, and was repeatedly screened until July 16, 1974. The series was also broadcast nationally in Australia on ABC-TV and in Ireland on Telefís Éireann.

Contents 1 Story 2 Opening theme music 3 Regular characters 3.1 F Troop officer & enlisted men 3.2 Townspeople 3.3 The Hekawi tribe & tribal members 3.4 Recurring characters 3.5 Notable guest stars 4 Episodes 5 Creation and production 6 Syndication and afterlife 7 Feature film 8 External links

F Troop is set at Fort Courage, Kansas, a fictional United States Army outpost in the West, in 1865, the year the American Civil War ended. The commanding officer at Fort Courage is the gallant but chronically clumsy and accident-prone Captain Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry), the descendant of a long line of military leaders. He is awarded the Medal of Honor after accidentally instigating the final charge at the Battle of Appomattox. As a private, he is ordered to fetch his commanding officer's laundry. When he rides away on horseback to accomplish the errand, the pollen in the air causes him to sneeze repeatedly. He sneezes loudly just after he passes a group of soldiers, and they mistake this sneeze for the order "Charge!" His superiors, wishing to reward his action, promote him to captain and give him command of remote Fort Courage, a dumping ground for the least useful or trustworthy soldiers.

Much of the humor on the show was derived from the schemes of Captain Parmenter's non-commissioned officers, Sergeant O'Rourke, and Corporal Agarn, and the local Indian tribe, the Hekawis, alternately seeking to expand and conceal their enterprising business, O'Rourke Enterprises, as well as the struggles of Parmenter to exert his authority and escape the matrimonial plans of his girlfriend, shopkeeper "Wrangler" Jane.

The circumstances of the F Troop story line are illustrated in the show's opening theme:

The end of the Civil War was near,

When quite accidentally,

A hero who sneezed, abruptly seized

Retreat and reversed it to victory.

His medal of honor pleased and thrilled

His proud little family group.

While pinning it on, some blood was spilled,

And so it was planned he'd command...F-Troop!

Where Indian fights are colorful sights

And nobody takes a lickin',

Where paleface and redskin

Both turn chicken.

When drilling and fighting get them down,

They know their morale can't droop,

As long as they all relax in town

Before they resume, with a bang and a boom...F-Troop!

• Captain Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry), the "Scourge of Appomattox" - is credited with keeping the peace, which is in fact really kept by O'Rourke's secret treaty with the Hekawi. When the need to keep up appearances arises, the troopers and the Hekawi stage mock battles for the benefit of outsiders.

• Sergeant Morgan O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker) - the Sgt. Bilko of his day. O'Rourke's business dealings involve illegally running the local saloon and an exclusive-rights treaty with the local Indian tribe (the Hekawi) to sell their "authentic" souvenirs to tourists. He calls his dealings "O'Rourke Enterprises".

• Corporal Randolph Agarn (Larry Storch) - O'Rourke's dimwitted sidekick and business partner in the illegal O'Rourke Enterprises scheme. His name is a play on both Randolph Scott and John Agar.

• Private Hannibal Shirley Dobbs (James Hampton) - F Troop's inept bugler, who can only play "Yankee Doodle and "Dixie" with regularity. Standard Army tunes like "Reveille," "Assembly." and "Retreat," are only occasionally played well. He is also the fort's artillery crew. (This usually results in the cannon misfiring, and knocking over the lookout tower.)

• Private Vanderbilt (Joe Brooks) - a legally blind lookout (20/900 in each eye, according to Agarn) who also answers questions in the lookout tower with responses like, "No thank you Corporal, I just had my coffee". A running gag has Agarn kicking the fort's cannon in frustration after it misfires, only to see one of its wheels come off, setting it off, sending a cannonball into one of the tower's support legs, causing the tower to collapse and sending Vanderbilt crashing to the ground. In one episode he shoots his pistol in a crowded barracks-and misses everyone.

• Trooper Duffy (Bob Steele) - an elderly cavalryman with a limp. Duffy is the lone surivor of the siege of the Alamo in 1836, even though the historical record states that there were no survivors. However, according to Duffy's records, he was killed in action.

"Wrangler" Jane Angelica Thrift (Melody Patterson) - Captain Parmenter's beautiful but tomboyish girlfriend, who runs the local general store. She is determined to marry the naive Parmenter and is often obliged to rescue him from his various predicaments. Patterson was only 15 1/2-years old when the series began.

Charlie- The town drunk. Fort Courage got Charlie from dodge city.

The Hekawi tribe supposedly derived their name from an incident in which the tribe became lost, exclaiming "Where the heck are we?", which then became "We're the Hekawi". (This is a bowdlerized version of a famous joke in which "heck" is replaced by the F-word.) They are partners in O'Rourke Enterprises and produce most of the company's products. They have a 50/50 deal with O'Rourke and have a still which produces the whiskey for the saloon. The regular "Indian" characters (none of whom were played by Native American actors) include:

• Chief Wild Eagle (Frank De Kova) - leader of the Hekawi tribe and business partner in the illegal O'Rourke Enterprises scheme.

• Crazy Cat (Don Diamond) - Chief Wild Eagle's assistant and heir-apparent. He often acts as chief and is rebuked by Chief Wild Eagle.

In order of number of appearances:

• Private Duffy (Bob Steele) - a slightly senile survivor of the Battle of the Alamo. According to his military records, he was killed in action. Steele was a former 1930s Western movie and serial star.

• Private Duddleson (Ivan Bell) - a sleepy, obese soldier who is hit on the head repeatedly by Agarn for having his body in line but not his belly, or sleeping when he's supposed to be at attention.

• Private Hoffenmueller (John Mitchum) - trooper who can speak Cherokee, Sioux, Hitachee, and Hekawi. But he cannot speak English as his original language is German.

• Roaring Chicken (Edward Everett Horton) - aged medicine man (veteran actor Horton appeared as Roaring Chicken in the first season only, and only in several episodes).

• Private Leonard "Wrongo" Starr (Henry Gibson) - a jinxed soldier. He appears in "Wrongo Starr and the Lady in Black" and in "The Return of Wrongo Starr". Alternative explanations are given for the jinx. The name is a play on Ringo Starr.

• Pete - bartender for O' Rourke's saloon. He is only seen in the first season but is mentioned several times in the second.

The program featured guest-starring roles and/or cameo appearances by:

• Sterling Holloway (the voice of Disney's Winnie The Pooh)
• Don Rickles as Chief Wild Eagle's obnoxious son Bald Eagle
• U.S. TV legend Milton Berle as a crooked Indian detective Wise Owl
• Acerbic comedian Paul Lynde as Sgt. Ramsden of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Cliff Arquette, better known as Charley Weaver from Hollywood Squares, as General Sam Courage, the Fort's namesake
• Veteran Hollywood character actor Jack Elam
• Jamie Farr (best known as Klinger from M*A*S*H) as "Standup Bull" an Indian entertainer
• Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar, both of whom played Catwoman in the 1960s television series Batman
• TV veteran Parley Baer
• Mike Mazurki (Geronimo)
• Zsa Zsa Gabor as a traveling gypsy
• Vincent Price as Count Sforza, a suspected vampire
• Phil Harris as 147-year old Flaming Arrow, determined to take back Indian land
• Harvey Korman as Heinrich Von Zeppel, a Prussian balloonist
• Little Feat guitarist Lowell George and drummer Richie Hayward as members of the anachronistic Beatlesque band, the Bedbugs.[1], [2]

Season One Scourge of the West Introduction Don't Look Now, One of Our Cannons is Missing The Phantom Major Corporal Agarn's Farewell to the Troops The Return of Bald Eagle Dirge for the Scourge The Girl From Philadelphia Old Ironpants Me Heap Big Injun She's Only a Build in an Girdled Cage A Gift From the Chief Honest Injun O'Rourke vs. O'Reilly The 86 Proof Spring Here Comes the Tribe Iron Horse Go Home Our Hero, What's His Name? Wrongo Starr and the Lady in Black El Diablo Go For Broke The New I.G. Spy, Counterspy, Counter Counterspy The Courtship of Wrangler Jane Play, Gypsy, Play Reunion for O'Rourke Captain Parmenter, One Man Army Don't Ever Speak to Me Again Too Many Cooks Spoil the Troop Indian Fever Johnny Eagle Eye A Fort's Best Friend is Not a Mother Lieutenant O'Rourke, Front and Center The Day the Indians Won Will the Real Captain Try to Stand Up?

Season Two The Singing Mountie How to be F Troop Without Really Trying Bye, Bye, Balloon Reach for the Sky, Pardner The Great Troop Robbery The West Goes Ghost Yellow Bird The Ballot of Corporal Agarn Did Your Father Come from Ireland? For Whom the Bugle Tolls Miss Parmenter La Dolce Courage Wilton the Kid The Return of Wrongo Starr Survival of the Fittest Bring on the Dancing Girls The Loco Brothers From Karate with Love The Sergeant and the Kid What Are You Doing after the Massacre? A Horse of Another Color V is for Vampire That's Show Biz The Day They Shot Agarn Only One Russian is Coming! Only One Russian is Coming! Guns, Guns, Who's Got the Guns? Marriage, Fort Courage Style Carpetbagging, Anyone? The Majority of Wilton Our Brave in F Troop Is This Fort Really Necessary?

Although the show's opening credits claim F Troop was created by Richard Bluel, a final arbitration by the Writers Guild of America eventually gave Seaman Jacobs, Ed James, and Jim Barnett credit.

Episode writers included Arthur Julian (who, alone, wrote 29 of the 65 episodes), Stan Dreben (Green Acres), Seaman Jacobs, Howard Merrill (The Dick van Dyke Show), Ed James and the highly successful comedy writing duo of Tom Adair and James B. Allardice, who collaborated on some of the most successful American TV sitcoms of the 1960s, including The Munsters, My Three Sons, Gomer Pyle, USMC and Hogan's Heroes.

The series was directed by Charles Rondeau and Leslie Goodwins among many others, and produced by William T. Orr and Hy Averback.

The story is in some ways a comedy derivative of the John Wayne film, Fort Apache (a running joke in the film is the number of soldiers at the fort named O'Rourke). In actual fact, it bears more than a slight resemblance to a 1964 Glenn Ford film called Advance to the Rear, which appeared just one year before F Troop aired.

The entire series was shot on the Warner Bros. backlot in Southern California.

Although only two seasons were produced, F Troop enjoyed a very healthy second life in syndication, much like fellow two-year run entries The Munsters, The Monkees, and The Addams Family, from the same era. The show was a particular favorite on Nick at Nite in the 1990s, running from 1991 to 1995 despite the fact that there were only 65 episodes to run. (The show's ratings were still healthy after the second year, but according to Tucker, Warner Bros.' new owners, Seven Arts, discontinued production because they thought it was wasteful for so much of the Warner Ranch being taken up by a single half-hour TV show. Producer William Orr says the studio was unhappy with the added costs of producing the show in color during its second season)

On September 27, 2005, Warner Home Video released the first F Troop DVD compilation as part of its "Television Favorites" series. The six-episode DVD included three black-and-white episodes and three color episodes. Previously, the series had been digitally remastered and released on ten VHS tapes by Columbia House in 1998, with 30 of the 65 episodes represented in that series.

Following the successful sales from the "Television Favorites" release, Warner Home Video released F Troop: The Complete First Season, with all 34 black-and-white episodes included.

Warner Bros. has, on May 29, 2007, released The Complete Second Season of F Troop. The DVD features interviews with original F Troop cast members, writers and other production personnel, not to mention behind-the-scenes information.

F Troop is currently being developed into a feature film by writer/director, Bobby Logan (Repossessed, Meatballs 4, Up Your Alley).^{[citation needed]}

• F Troop at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Comedy Guide
• F Troop Episode Guide
• F Troop fan site
• F Troop Fan Group

Television shows produced or created by William T. Orr

Warner Brothers Presents · King's Row · Casablanca · Cheyenne · Conflict · Colt .45 · Sugarfoot · Maverick · Bronco · The Alaskans · Lawman · Bourbon Street Beat · Hawaiian Eye · The Roaring 20s · Surfside 6 · 77 Sunset Strip · Room for One More · The Gallant Men · The Dakotas · Temple Houston · Wendy and Me · No Time for Sergeants · · Hank · Mister Roberts · F Troop