Gomer Pyle

Gomer Pyle
The Andy Griffith Show character
Barney Fife (left) and Gomer Pyle (right).
First appearance	1962
Last appearance	1969
Portrayed by	Jim Nabors

Gomer Pyle is a television character played by Jim Nabors and introduced in the middle of the third season of The Andy Griffith Show.

A simple-minded and gentle auto mechanic, he became a character when actor Howard McNear, who portrayed Floyd the Barber, took a respite from the show for health reasons. Nabors played Pyle for 23 episodes, from 1962 to 1964.

After two seasons on The Andy Griffith Show, McNear returned, and Griffith proposed a show based on the Gomer Pyle character. In 1964, the character was spun off to Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which ran until 1969.

He is a good-natured, naïve single man with a high tenor speaking voice from Mayberry, North Carolina. The only apparent employee at Wally's Filling Station, he initially lived there in a back room; and, according to Andy, was "saving up for college" and wanted to be a doctor. Wide-eyed and slack jawed, he usually wore a service station uniform and a baseball cap with an upturned bill; a handkerchief dangled from his back pocket. He initially displayed scant knowledge of automotive mechanics: in "The Great Filling Station Robbery", for example, he thought a carburetor was a hood ornament. In the same episode, he admitted all he knew how to do was fill cars with gas, oil, water and air. However, he learned over time, and in other episodes, he was able to diagnose mechanical problems for the average layperson. In his first appearance, in an episode called "The Bank Job," Gomer is shown operating a blow torch to cut through a bank's vault. In another episode, Gomer diagnoses a problem with a car belonging to a visitor from out of town who is delayed by a mechanical breakdown.