The series starred Don Rickles as C.P.O. Otto Sharkey, He was an abrasive, sharp-tongued veteran in charge of new recruits on a naval base near San Diego. Rickles is famous for his jokes about various ethnicities and this show provided him with a vehicle for his politically incorrect humor. The young company consisted of Daniels, an African American; Kowalski, a Polish American; Skolnick, a Jewish American, Mignone, an Italian American and Rodriguez, an Hispanican American. Sharkey's best friend on the base was Chief Robinson (Harrison Page) who was African American. Sharkey also put his insult humor to good use with the other characters. Sharkey's assistant, Pruitt (Peter Isacksen), was 6' 7" and simple-minded. His immediate superior was the smug and buck-toothed Lt. Whipple. But Sharkey was really a nice guy beneath his harsh exterior and often went to extreme measures to help his recruits with their problems. Despite not being particularly popular, this series is often remembered for an incident that occurred on The Tonight Show. During production of the series, Rickles appeared on The Tonight Show with guest host Bob Newhart. While poking fun at Newhart and improvising a bit in which he was a clerk in an immigration office, Rickles slammed the cigarette box that Johnny Carson kept on his desk while pretending to stamp passports, and accidentally broke the box. When Carson returned to the show and discovered this, he took a camera crew to the studio next door where Sharkey was being taped. Carson disrupted the taping in order to tease Rickles about it, to the delight of the studio audiences of both shows. Carson also teased Harrison Page by speaking to him in an exaggerated jive accent. This incident was often replayed in Tonight Show retrospectives and was considered a highlight of the 1970s era of the show.



The entire series is here on 8 dvds...Quality 7-7.5 of 10.Dvds come in plain envelopes...No refunds, replacement of defective only.