F Troop

• Captain Wilton Parmenter (Ken Berry) – The so-called "Scourge of the West." As military governor of the territory and commander of Fort Courage, he is credited with keeping the peace (which is in fact really kept by O'Rourke's secret treaty with the Hekawi tribe –- though other tribes seem to fear his reputation.[5] Chief Wild Eagle knows him by a different title: "The Great White Pigeon." When the need to keep up appearances arises, the troopers and the Hekawis stage mock battles to fool Parmenter and outsiders. Parmenter is successful at "keeping the peace." He just doesn't know why. He is well-meaning and sweet natured, although essentially clueless and a bit gullible. He also invariably is kind and encouraging to his men, and always bravely leads them into action, albeit ineptly. A stickler for regulation and proper military conduct, he checks the Army Manual for even the oddest situations, such as "If a soldier is captured by horse".[10] A perpetual klutz, Parmenter forever is jabbing himself, pinching his fingers in or on something, banging into, tripping over or knocking things over. He cannot dismount a horse properly and frequently becomes entangled with his ceremonial sword. Parmenter, originally from Philadelphia, comes from a "proud family" with a "great military tradition." Among his ancestors his first cousin Major Achilles Parmenter, second cousin Lt. Colonel Hercules Parmenter, uncle Colonel Jupiter Parmenter (Rod McGaughy), his father General Thor Parmenter[5] and his great-grandfather Major Hannibal Parmenter—who was with Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge. By contrast, Corporal Agarn's great-grandfather was a deserter.[9] Jeanette Nolan played Parmenter's visiting mother (no first name given) in "A Fort's Best Friend is Not a Mother".[11] When his sister Daphne Parmenter (Patty Regan) visits the fort her eyes are on Private Dobbs.[12] O'Rourke frequently calls Captain Parmenter "the Old Man" (in the sense that he is their leader) though Parmenter usually is surprised at being called that because he is fairly young ("What old man?"). In one episode he receives a medal for accidentally capturing Chief Geronimo, who falls into a bear trap while trying to kill Corporal Agarn. (True to form Parmenter captures the bear in the trap and then gets trapped in another bear trap.) In "The Majority of Wilton" (near the end of the series), he turns down a promotion to major because it would mean being reassigned to a new command and leaving F Troop.[13]
• Sergeant Morgan Sylvester O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker) – The Sgt. Bilko of his day (as Agarn said to O'Rourke: "When it comes to shifty, sneaky, double dealing ... you're the tops"[14]). Originally from Steubenville, Ohio, he has been in the Army at least twenty-five years[15] and it took him either 10 years to become a sergeant or has been a sergeant for 22 years as of his 25th anniversary.[15] His brother's name is Morton O'Rourke.[15] O'Rourke's business dealings involve illegally running the local town saloon and an exclusive-rights treaty with the local Indian tribe (the Hekawi) to sell their "authentic" souvenirs to tourists and for the commercial market through the shady, undercover O'Rourke Enterprises operation. He also tries to find ways to fleece the men out of their pay through different schemes such as finding the men mail-order brides.[16] Though most of his business schemes usually fail, he apparently is the only competent soldier in F Troop. It is mentioned that O'Rourke is a veteran of the Mexican–American War,[15] but nothing is said about the Civil War. In "The Sergeant and the Kid",[17] the tall and rugged O'Rourke shows his romantic side by taking an interest in the widow Molly Walker (Pippa Scott) and her son Joey (Peter Robbins). In "Don't Look Now, But One of Our Cannons is Missing," O'Rourke claims he saved Agarn's life twice—once from drowning and once when a rattlesnake bit him.[18] {Ironically Forrest Tucker had actually served in the US Cavalry prior to World War II and played a similar "O'Rourke" cavalry sergeant on Gunsmoke}. Tucker's wife at the time, Mary Fisk, appeared in the series twice. She played Squirrel Girl in "Lieutenant O'Rourke, Front and Center" (which involves O'Rourke being promoted to lieutenant)[2] and Kissing Squaw in "What Are You Doing After the Massacre?".[19]
• Corporal Randolph Agarn (Larry Storch) – Randolph Agarn is O'Rourke's somewhat dimwitted sidekick and business partner in the shady O'Rourke Enterprises (his name is a play on both Randolph Scott and John Agar who were cowboy stars). The character Agarn, originally from Passaic, New Jersey, took six years after enlistment to become a lowly corporal. At the time of the series, Agarn has been in the cavalry for 10 years, and has been posted to Fort Courage for the last four,[20] apparently spending the Civil War years at Fort Courage. He has impersonated Generals George Washington and Ulysses Grant.[18] However, in dual roles, Storch played numerous lookalike relatives of Agarn, including his French-Canadian cousin Lucky Pierre,[20] his Russian cousin Dmitri Agarnoff[21] and his Mexican bandito cousin Pancho Agarnado, known as "El Diablo." (In the same episode he also played Granny Agarn, Uncle Gaylord Agarn of Tallahassee and Pancho's sister Carmen Agarnado).[22] Confrontational and often overly-emotional in every respect, Agarn frequently collapses in tears with the phrases "Oh, Cap'n!" or "Oh, Sarge!" (depending on whose chest he buries his head in). To get the men to attention, he barks out his trademark loud and exaggerated (but unintelligible) "Aaaaa-aaahh" command. Whenever he becomes frustrated by something one of the troopers does wrong (which is often), short-tempered Agarn hits him with his hat which, unlike everyone else's, is white. A hypochondriac, Agarn thinks he's contracted the illnesses he reads or hears about or others around him have (including a horse).[23] Agarn was briefly promoted to Sergeant in the episode "Lieutenant O'Rourke, Front and Center". Larry Storch was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding performance by an actor in a leading role in a comedy series" in 1967.
• Bugler Private Hannibal Shirley Dobbs (James Hampton) – F Troop's inept bugler, originally from New Orleans, who can only play "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" with regularity. Standard U.S. Army tunes like "Reveille", "Assembly" and "Retreat" are only occasionally played competently. One episode had him playing a song, which Wrangler Jane says is a lovely rendition of "Old Kentucky Home", only for him to say he'd been trying to play "Reveille". A southern "mama's boy", he is also Captain Parmenter's orderly, as well as serving in the fort's cannon crew—usually with disastrous results. Private Dobbs is a personal thorn in Agarn's side, with his regular taunts resulting in Agarn's frequent retort, "I'm warning you, Dobbs!", even threatening him with a court-martial. Dobbs learned how to use a lasso on his mama's alligator farm. Dobbs was briefly promoted to Corporal in the episode "Lieutenant O'Rourke, Front and Center". In one episode O'Rourke saved Dobbs from being married by explaining to a golddigging Mail-order bride that Dobbs was not a rich man!
• Trooper Vanderbilt (Joe Brooks) – The fort's lookout who seems all but blind even with glasses (20/900 in each eye, according to Agarn) and answers questions from the lookout tower about what he sees with incongruous responses such as, "No, thank you Agarn. I just had my coffee."[1] He once allowed two Indians wearing feather head-dresses to enter the fort unchallenged. Asked why, he replied, "I thought they were turkeys." Yet in another episode he mistakes a group of turkeys for attacking Indians.[15] In one episode he shoots his pistol in a crowded barracks—and manages to miss everyone. Vanderbilt was a bustle inspector in a dress factory before joining the Army. In the running gag that brings the lookout tower crashing to the ground, it is the heavyset Vanderbilt who comes down with it.
• Trooper Duffy (Bob Steele) – An aged old time cavalryman with a limp, the result of his "old Alamo injury" acting up again. Duffy claims to be the lone survivor of the siege of the Alamo in 1836 and loves to recount his exploits alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, "shoulder to shoulder and backs to the wall" roughly 30 years before being in F Troop (Steele was a Western movie and serial star years earlier, and in fact appeared in With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo in 1926 39 years before F Troop). However, no one ever seems to take his claim seriously and he may be engaged in telling tall tales. Parmenter discovered that Duffy is listed as dead in his service record (as Sergeant O’Rourke noted to Captain Parmenter, Duffy's service record might need some updating).[9]

• "Wrangler" Jane Angelica Thrift (Melody Patterson) – Captain Wilton Parmenter's beautiful but tomboyish, feisty, romantically aggressive Annie Oakley-like girlfriend, dressed in buckskins and a cowgirl hat. She owns Wrangler Jane's Trading Post and runs the U.S. post office in town. She is a telegrapher and the best sharpshooter in the territory.[24] Whenever the fort is attacked she fights alongside everyone else usually shooting more Indians than everyone else. She is determined to marry the ever romantically elusive and naïve Parmenter and is often obliged to rescue him from his various predicaments. When she kisses the very bashful Parmenter he usually says "Please Jane, not in front of the men". In "The Sergeant and the Kid" she replied back "But there're no men here" to which he replied "Well then, not in front of me". As part of this running gag, in the same episode after Jane mistakenly kisses Agarn, he says "Please Jane, not in front of the Captain."[17] While Parmenter is reticent about showing any overt interest in Jane he does become quite jealous if another man shows any interest in her.[25] However, in "Marriage, Fort Courage Style" (one of the last episodes in the series), Parmenter finally shows a direct interest in Jane. He sets a date three months hence as the beginning of their engagement to be married (Parmenter explains the reason he has hesitated to marry Jane is that the Parmenters as military men are rather hard on their wives).[26] The character had her own theme music; a banjo piece usually played on the soundtrack to cue her entrances, or initial appearance in each episode. For more on Melody Patterson see Development and Production section.

The Hekawi appear to be a very small tribe consisting of only one small village. They live an indeterminate distance from Fort Courage, though the directions to their camp are described as: "Make right turn at big rock that look like bear, then make left turn at big bear that look like rock".[1] In "Reunion for O'Rourke", Chief Wild Eagle explains how the tribe got its name: "Many moons ago, tribe leave Massachusetts because Pilgrims ruin neighborhood! Tribe travel west, over stream, over river, over mountain, over mountain, over river, over stream! Then come big day... tribe fall over cliff. That when Hekawi get name. Medicine man say to my ancestor, "I think we lost. Where the heck are we?".[15] "Where the heck are we?" became "We're the Hekawi" (the original name for the tribe in the series, 'Fugawi', was changed after the censors discovered the sentence "Where the Fugawi?"[27]).

The Hekawis are 50/50 partners in everything they do with O'Rourke Enterprises. They make most of the company's products, usually in the form of Indian souvenirs (on a commercial scale) and whiskey for the town saloon. They are a peace-loving tribe, (mainly due to cowardice) and self described as "the tribe that invented the peace pipe", "lovers, not fighters" and "proud descendents of cowards". Profit minded, the Hekawis look to be paid when O’Rourke needs them to do something like orchestrate a fake attack on the fort and will haggle over the price and how many braves would be in the attack (when O'Rourke balks at the price, the Chief reminds him that the Apache will gladly make a real attack on the fort for free). But because it had been such a long time since they had been on the "warpath" when the series started Agarn has to teach the Hekawis how to do a war dance, a clip of which was shown in the first season opening credits.[5] Anytime the tribe wants to contact the fort they use smoke signals which only O'Rourke can read. In one episode[2] (and referred to in another),[3] the Hekawis have a "Playbrave Club" (a parody of Playboy Club) complete with go-go dancing and 1960s style music.

As a sly jest based on the myth that Native Americans are the 13th tribe of Israel, many of the Hekawi Indians were played by veteran Yiddish comedians using classic Yiddish shtick. The regular Indian characters (none of whom were played by Native American actors) include:

Frank de Kova as 'Chief Wild Eagle'

• Chief Wild Eagle (Frank de Kova) – The shrewd, cranky but essentially good-natured leader of the Hekawi tribe, and business partner in the shady O'Rourke Enterprises schemes (in "Reunion for O'Rourke" Wild Eagle says he has been chief for 17 years[15]). In spite of his gruff appearance Wild Eagle said: "Don't let name Wild Eagle fool you. I had changed it from Yellow Chicken".[28] Like all the Indian characters portrayed in F Troop, he speaks with a mock American Indian accent in a semi broken English dialect stereotypical of American westerns (see first paragraph of The Hekawi Tribe and Tribal Members for examples). Often O'Rourke, Agarn, Parmenter, and Jane come to him for advice when they have a problem and Wild Eagle has a wise old Indian saying for every occasion (such as "Wise old Indian say you cannot make a fur coat out of a goose feather"), which he often admits even he does not know the meaning of or how it applies to the situation at hand. On differing occasions, he says he is the son of Crazy Horse, the brother-in-law of Sitting Bull, and the cousin of Geronimo. De Kova and the character of Chief Wild Eagle would become important enough by the beginning of the second season as to merit listing in the show's opening credits sequence.
• Crazy Cat (Don Diamond) – Chief Wild Eagle's goofy assistant and heir apparent. He often speculates on when he will become chief, but is subsequently rebuked by Chief Wild Eagle. Appearing sporadically in the early first-season episodes, he became a regularly featured character later in the first season, as Roaring Chicken and "Medicine Man" were phased out of the series. "Craze" (as O'Rourke and Agarn sometimes call him) does become "acting chief" in the episode titled, "Our Brave in F Troop" (when O'Rourke and Agarn have to somehow sneak Wild Eagle into Fort Courage to see the Army dentist so he can get his tooth pulled).[4] Crazy Cat humorously comments on the situation, "When Wild Eagle away, Crazy Cat play."

• Happy Bear/Smokey Bear (Ben Frommer) – An overweight, usually silent Hekawi brave in black braids and a Fire Ranger's hat (a parody of Smokey Bear of "Only you can prevent forest fires" fame). In the first season Frommer appears (usually uncredited) as Happy Bear, sometimes as Smokey Bear, once as Papa Bear and also Red Arrow and a few times without a name. In the second season he appears solely as Smokey Bear. Overall, Frommer appeared in 52 episodes in rather minor mainly non-speaking roles.
• Trooper Duddleson (Ivan Bell) – A sleepy, slovenly, 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. He is sometimes upbraided by Agarn for having gravy stains on his shirt. Duddleson typically wears a printed piece of cloth instead of the standard yellow neckerchief. According to his service record Duddleson was a female impersonator with a carnival in civilian life. He appears in 45 episodes, but in a minor, often non-speaking capacity.role.
• Trooper Hoffenmueller (John Mitchum) – A trooper who can either (a) only speak in his native German or (b) speaks English with a German accent, depending upon the episode. According to his service record Hoffenmueller can speak Cherokee, Sioux, Apache, and Hekawi. "We can use you as an interpreter ... just as soon as you learn to speak English" —Capt. Parmenter.[9] He appears in 11 episodes, but in a minor role. Mitchum did make an uncredited cameo in the second-season episode "The Day They Shot Agarn" as the man singing the ballad (for which singing he was credited) of the same name. John Mitchum's much more famous brother is tough guy actor Robert Mitchum.
• Stagecoach Driver (Rudy Doucette) – He briefly appears in 7 episodes including one as Slim.[21]
• Roaring Chicken (Edward Everett Horton) – An ancient Hekawi medicine man and son of Sitting Duck.[29] He appears in only 6 episodes in the first season. And he "invented" the RoarChick test (a parody of the Rorschach test). Longtime veteran actor Horton parodied the role on the 1960s Batman TV series as "Chief Screaming Chicken". Horton was also the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales, a popular segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series.
• Pete (Benny Baker) – The bartender at the saloon, appears in 5 episodes.
• Charlie – The town drunk (veteran stuntman Harvey Parry and Frank McHugh). Fort Courage got Charlie from Dodge City. As Capt. Parmenter says: "We were lucky to get him – Dodge had a spare"[29] and "We're all proud of you Charlie; you're the fastest drunk in the West".[16] The role was created especially for Parry to show off his skills (he was in his sixties by then, but appears in only 3 episodes). In "Will the Real Captain Try to Stand Up", Charlie (Frank McHugh) temporarily pretends to be the captain of F Troop while Charlie's daughter, Cindy Charles (Linda Foster), is visiting because she thinks he actually is the captain of F Troop rather than the town drunk.[30]
• Major Duncan (James Gregory) – Captain Parmenter's superior from Territory Headquarters, who usually "brings a saddlebag full of trouble," according to O'Rourke. According to the episode "Too Many Cooks Soil the Troop", Major Duncan had taken F Troop's quartermaster, clerk, blacksmith and cook and transferred them to his own fort.[14] Gregory appeared twice as Major Duncan and once as the land baron Big Jim Parker who bought the town and the land the fort sits on.[31]
• Secretary of War (William Woodson) – He appears in 3 episodes.
• Trooper Leonard "Wrongo" Starr (Henry Gibson) – A jinxed soldier (the name is a play on Beatles drummer Ringo Starr). He appears in "Wrongo Starr and the Lady in Black"[32] and in "The Return of Wrongo Starr."[33] Alternative explanations are given for the origin of the jinx.
• Medicine Man (J. Pat O'Malley) – An unnamed Hekawi "doctor" who prescribes various tribal dances to treat diverse ailments. He appears in 2 episodes.

Many established actors and comedians appeared as guest stars in the series including Bernard Fox (as the master of disguise, British Major Bently Royce),[34] Don Rickles (as the crazy renegade Indian Bald Eagle, son of Chief Wild Eagle),[35] Jack Elam as the outlaw gunfighter Sam Urp),[36] John Dehner (as conman Prof. Cornelius Clyde),[37] Lee Meriwether (as Lily O'Reilly who is out to take over the town saloon),[38] Jamie Farr (as Geronimo's friend[39] and standup comic Standup Bull[14]), George Gobel (as Wrangler Jane's cousin Henry Terkel, whose inventions parody the telephone, radio and steam automobile),[40] Pat Harrington Jr. (as secret agent "B. Wise" – an imitation of Don Adams's character on Get Smart),[41] Zsa Zsa Gabor (as the Gypsy Marika),[42] Willard Waterman (as former Capt. Bill "Cannonball" McCormick, F Troop's first commanding officer),[7] Paul Petersen (as Wild Eagle's nephew and Sitting Bull's sharpshooting son Johnny Eagle Eye),[24] Paul Lynde (as the phony singing Canadian Mountie Sgt. Ramsden),[20] Harvey Korman (as the wacky Prussian Col. Heindreich von Zeppel),[43] Milton Berle (as Wise Owl),[44] Julie Newmar (as the long lost Indian daughter Yellow Bird),[45] Jacques Aubuchon (as Gideon D. Jeffries her real father),[45] Jay Novello (as Emilio Barberini),[46] Sterling Holloway (as nearsighted Sheriff Pat Lawton),[47] Mako (as a Samurai warrior),[48] Phil Harris (as the 147-year old warmongering chief, Flaming Arrow),[19] Vincent Price (as the spooky Count Sforza),[49] and Cliff Arquette (aka Charley Weaver – as Gen. Sam Courage).[4]

Other notable and well-known character actors who appeared in the series are (usually only once or twice): Henry Brandon (as a chief of the vicious, but fictitious, Shug Indian tribe),[5] Jay Sheffield (as Lt. Jefferson Hawkes),[5] Alan Hewitt (as Col. Malcolm),[5] Don "Red" Barry (as Col. Donnely),[18] Willis Bouchey (as Col. Herman Saunders),[34] Forrest Lewis (as Doc. Emmett),[23] Vic Tayback and Robert G. Anderson (as the notorious Colton Brothers),[23] Linda Marshall (as Parmenter's old girlfriend from Philadelphia),[29] Laurie Sibbald (as Flying Sparrow[29] and Silver Dove[50]), John Stephenson (as General Custer),[16] Nydia Westman (as Dobb's mother),[51] Patrice Wymore (as Laura Lee[51] and Peggy Gray[52]), Parley Baer (as Col. Watkins),[53] MaKee K. Blaisdell (as War Cloud),[50] Jackie Joseph (as Agarn's old girlfriend Betty Lou MacDonald),[39] Mike Mazurki (as a very big Geronimo),[39] Tony Martinez (as Felipe),[22] Del Moore (as Dapper Dan Fulbright),[40] Andrew Duggan (as the Indian-hating Major Chester Winster, inventor of the Chestwinster 76 rifle – a parody of the famous Winchester 73 rifle),[1] Abbe Lane (as the beautiful counterspy Lorelei Duval),[41] Jackie Loughery (as the Gypsy Tanya),[42] Marjorie Bennett (as Ella Vorhees),[15] Eve McVeagh (as Wilma McGee, O'Rourke's old girlfriend from Steubenville, Ohio and now a widow woman from Brooklyn, NY),[15] Ben Gage (as Mike O'Hanlon),[15] Richard Reeves (as Jim Sweeney, O'Rourke's old friend),[15] Victor Jory (as Apache Chief Mean Buffalo),[28] James Griffith (as sharpshooting Sgt. Crawford),[24] Cathy Lewis (as Whispering Breeze, mother of Johnny Eagle Eye, wife of Sitting Bull and sister to Wild Eagle),[24] Les Brown, Jr (as Lt. Mark Harrison),[54] George Barrows (as Pecos),[55] Paul Sorensen (as Tombstone),[55] Mary Young (as the Widow O'Brien),[55] Charles Lane (as Mr. S. A. MacGuire),[55] Don Beddoe (as the Hermit),[56] Lew Parker (as George C. Bragan),[57] Tol Avery (as Derby Dan McGurney),[57] Tommy Farrell (as Jenks),[58] Richard X. Slattery (as Col. William Bartlett),[58] Joby Baker (as Mario Maracucci),[46] Letícia Román (as Gina Barberini),[46] I. Stanford Jolley (as Col. Ferguson),[59] George Furth (as Capt. Jonathan W. Blair),[59] Pepper Curtis (as Lily),[60] Peter Leeds (as Mr Larson),[60] Victor French (as the deserter Cpl. Matt Delaney),[8] Fred Clark (as Major Hewitt),[8] Arch Johnson (as Col. Adams),[61] Mary Wickes (as marriage broker Samantha Oglesby),[26] Joyce Jameson (as Sally Tyler),[52] and Charles Drake (as Major Terence McConnell).[52] Lowell George, later the leader of the rock group Little Feat, appeared with his earlier band The Factory on an episode as a group called the Bedbugs.[3][62] William Conrad was the uncredited voice announcer in the first episode "Scourge of the West".[5]