It's a bit odd to think about the politically incorrect comedies of the '60s, knowing that a show about a Nazi prisoner camp (Hogan's Heroes), or about the American Army fighting the Indians in the Old West (F Troop), couldn't be made today -- but that Jersey Shore and Las Vegas Jailhouse can.

Surely they aren't more distasteful than those deliberately offensive shows are. And consider this Exhibit A: Aside from its dated, shtick-y tone, my current DVD guilty pleasure -- the mild, light-hearted F Troop -- had no lack of wit and ingenuity when subverting hardened stereotypes and sacred cows, all within the bounds of conventional taste and TV standards of the day.

F Troop, which premiered on ABC in 1965, lasted only two seasons, and both are available on DVD. F Troop: The Complete First Season can be purchased HERE, and The Complete Second Season HERE.

The show's premise is as simple, and solid, as a log fort. Slacker Army Troops stationed at Fort Courage, a Kansas outpost, try to wait out the frontier conflicts of American expansionism, alongside the equally passive Hekawi Indian Tribe.

(According to legend, the wandering tribe, constantly lost, got its name, "We're the Hekawi," by a slight mistranslation of its its oft-repeated plea for information, "Where the heck are we?" -- a diluted-for-TV derivative of the otherwise identical old joke about another native American tribe, the Fugawi.)

F Troop is de facto controlled by the ranking Sergeant O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker) and his cowardly sidekick, Corporal Agarn (a great comic and slapstick performance by Larry Storch.) O'Rourke and Agarn conspire to keep as their leader the bungling and unassuming Captain Parmenter (Ken Berry), who's too dim and distracted to interfere with the illicit operation of O'Rourke Enterprises -- the O'Rourke-Agarn souvenir business selling cheap Indian goods manufactured by the mild-mannered Hekawis.

O'Rourke and Agarn are business partners with Hekawi Chief WIld Eagle. Frank De Kova, an Italian-American character actor, known for playing heavies, bronzed up for this role. He gives a great, burlesque-style performance as the harried, grumpy head of the tribe, much a like an out-of-sorts New York garment district owner with indigestion.

(One article cites the Hekawi shtick as based on one myth that the Native Americans are the 13th tribe of Israel, explaining why some of the Hekawis were played by veteran Yiddish actors.)

And so the wacky antics of two years of shows began, first with Agarn teaching the Hekawis how to war dance, and following with a parade of such guest stars as Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Harvey Korman, Vincent Price and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Series creators Seaman Jacobs, Ed James and Jim Barnett never missed the chance to show the American military as witless and inept (the modern American military, at the time, was fighting in Vietnam) -- the leadership easily fooled in their expansion west, ignorant of local ways. This wasn't a show about an "A Troop", but about soldiers failing all the way, with an F grade.

The Hekawis, as peaceable and conflict-averse as the troopers of Fort Courage, were such precisely because it was good business. When asked if the tribe could stage a mock attack on Fort Courage to keep the higher-ups fooled that F Troop was up to the job, Wild Eagle says they must do the war dance first. Then, after thinking for a moment, adds, "Hekawi don't remember war dance. We very peaceful."

De Kova had many of the funniest moments on the show, particularly with old Indian sayings he cannot remember the meaning of, such as: "Sparrow fly high, but cannot build dam with tail of beaver."

So, while the locals are tripping on the newcomers, and the newcomers are illegitimately led by wartime profiteers, other roles are reversed.

Parmenter's love interest, the beautiful, sharp-shootin' Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson), literally wears the pants in their relationship, letting Will have the appearance of patriarchal authority, all the while gently steering him in the right direction.

Wild Eagle, concerned mostly with production deadlines, is the driving force of the operation, keeping the entire capitalistic venture on track... another enterprise doing very well, courtesy of the U.S. Treasury. (O'Rourke funnels paychecks for fictitious troopers into the operation.)

After the successful DVD initial release of a few episodes in 2005, the entire complete two seasons of F Troop were released by 2007.

Made in the days when a half-hour comedy produced 30 episodes per season, there are 60 episodes on eight DVDs -- proving the F Troop credo that in 1967, war was, and continues to be, good business, good for the economy and, for those willing to read between the lines, good television comedy.

When Crazy Cat (Wild Eagle's ambitious assistant) tells him he sees smoke signals, Agarn asks, "What does it say?"

Wild Eagle squints and replies, "Crazy Cat, give me my reading glasses."