Gomer Pyle was 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. Character Gomer 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...