Vacation: 10 Ill-Advised Comedy Movie Comebacks

If one man sums up the spirit of American sitcom in the twentieth century it's Phil Silvers, aka Sgt Ernie Bilko. Fast-talking, slippery as an eel but oddly loveable throughout, his schemes at Fort Baxter soon passed into the TV Hall of Fame. With a grinning anti-hero in their living rooms ever week, viewers took Bilko straight to their hearts. Translating the format into a movie was never going to succeed without the late Mr Silvers.

Brit satirical supremo and Sgt. Bilko director Jonathan Lynn acknowledged the folly in a sense by casting Steve Martin in the title role, a much-admired talent who didn't physically resemble his predecessor. Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman, Glenne Headly (who'd made an excellent collaborator with Martin on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and Chris Rock filled out the cast, but they were essentially trying to climb a comedic Everest.

Silvers' presence was so unmistakeable, and so interwoven into the lives of potential cinema attendees, that the film became a stark lesson in treading on another man's territory. Martin should have taken the hint perhaps. Unfortunately he didn't, as a later entry on the list will demonstrate...