CPO Sharkey: The Complete First Season

After serving in the Navy during WWII in real-life, the legendary Don Rickles found a perfect vehicle for his inimitable brand of comedy with CPO SHARKEY, a satirical look at Navy life which ran on NBC for two seasons and 37 episodes (1976-78). As a 24-year naval veteran, Otto Sharkey had pretty much seen and heard it all. The unseasoned recruits he whipped into shape received most of his wisdom, though sometimes it was served up as sharp-tongued, ethnic barbs: there was Daniels (Jeff Hollis), an African-American, the Polish Kowalski (Tom Ruben), the Jewish Skolnick (David Landsberg), Mignone (Barry Pearl), an Italian-American and Rodriguez (Richard Beauchamp), a Puerto Rican. And, though the men of Company 144 were bunglers and blockheads, they were his bunglers and blockheads -- ready, willing, and able to endure one verbal Shark attack after another. Beneath his barbed exterior, however, there was a heart of gold and Otto helped his recruits survive boot camp and life with equal measure. Sharkey was joined on base by his best friend, Chief Dave Robinson (Harrison Page), his assistant, Seaman Lester Pruitt (Peter Isacksen), a 6' 7" Southerner filled with simple-minded homilies and his immediate superior, the smug, buck-toothed Lt. Whipple (Jonathan Daly).