text: OK I'm not an American, but in my humble Scottish opinion Steve Martin is not, never has been, and never will be a funny man as long as our posteriors point in a southerly direction. Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko was a funny man, no doubt due to the skilled writers and directors and all the other talented team working characters in the series who contributed perfectly to one of the funniest and dateless situation comedies America has ever produced. How anyone could have the audacity to even attempt to replicate the Phil Silvers character is beyond me. To compound things the exercise was repeated in Martin's unfunny attempt to be Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau, another abortive attempt, in my opinion, to rekindle a demonstrably unfunny career. Some of your contributers say 'Steve Martin puts his own stamp on the character', to that I would say 'balderdash' , his portrayals will be long forgotten when those of Silvers and Sellars will be treasured for generations to come