Gomer Pyle USMC TV Ratings

Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. Ratings

Nielsen Ratings:
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. stayed on the Top 10 of the Nielsen Ratings for each of its five seasons.

Season Ranking:
1964-65 #3
1965-66 #2
1966-67 #10
1967-68 #3
1968-69 #2

Broadcast History:
Season 1 - September 1964- June 1965, CBS, Friday 9:30-10:00pm
Season 2 -September 1965- September 1966, CBS, Friday 9:00-9:30pm
Season 3 - September 1966- August 1967, CBS, Wednesday 9:30-10:00pm
Season 4 & 5 - September 1967- September 1969, CBS, Friday 8:30-9:00pm
Reruns - July 1970- September 1970, CBS, Wednesday 8:00-8:30

The Andy Griffith Show begat Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. in 1964 and that was a winner. While starring in Gomer Pyle USMC, Jim Nabors scored a hit album (Jim Nabors Sings) in 1966 and more successful LPs followed.

The 1960s had a return to "the more mundane sensibilities of comedy," due to viewers' wishes for television programming to be a "cultural antidepressant." Thus, fantasy and rural-oriented comedies gained popularity and dominated the Nielsen ratings. Like other comedies at the time, Gomer Pyle was a "deep escapist" show; it avoided political commentary and offered viewers a distraction from the social changes of the 1960s.

Despite being a military-themed show and airing during the peak of the Vietnam War, the show never discussed the war. Instead, the show focused on "Gomer's innocent simplicity [and] Sergeant Carter's frustration and later concern for Gomer's well-being." This, compounded with the popularity of rural comedies in the 1960s, made the show popular. Frank Sutton, who played Carter, also ascribed the show's popularity to its concentration on its two main characters, and the plots being built around their respective personalities.

The program remained in the top 10 of the ratings throughout its run -- in the top three for all but its third season when CBS moved it from Fridays to Wednesdays. Nabors quit because he desired to move to something else, 'reach for another rung on the ladder, either up or down'. Gomer Pyle wasn't re-enlisting in the Neilsen wars - and no wonder. He had taken that hill and held it for five long years and never made it past the rank of private.

In the fall of 1969, Nabors leveraged his clout with the network to launch his own one-hour musical-variety series (similar to The Carol Burnett Show). For the production, Nabors brought along his friends and Pyle costars Ronnie Schell and Frank Sutton; the executive producer was Richard O. Linke.

TVparty-er Joe tells us, "I remember, a regular sketch was called 'The Brother-in-laws' and it starred Frank Sutton with Barbara Harris (Sgt. Carter's girlfriend Bunny on Gomer) as Sutton's wife and Jim Nabors as his brother-in-law Loomis who run a boarding house - they were just Gomer Pyle, Sgt. Carter, and Bunny again but with different names and in a different setting. Also, Ronnie Schell (Duke Slater on Gomer) was in some of the sketches as a resident of the boarding house who was always drunk, and would always make his entrance by falling down the stairs."

The Jim Nabors Hour did well enough in the ratings, finishing twelfth for the first season. That still represented a net loss of more than twenty percent of the audience from the year before. That's undoubtedly why CBS aired reruns of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. during the summer of 1970 while the The Jim Nabors Hour was on hiatus.

DISCLAIMER
This site is not affiliated with CBS Video, Paramount, or Jim Nabors.