1960 started much as the fifties had ended with The Army Game as the top sitcom, but there were now a few other sitcoms snapping at its heels, and it would come to an end itself the following year anyway. There were in fact 4 sitcoms within 1960's top 20, plus from 1960 I have details of all the shows that made a weekly top 20, and in 1960 there were a further 4 sitcoms who made a weekly top 20 without making the annual. I should say that for shows in the weekly top 20s but not in the annual one I can only state the highest viewing figure for the episode or episodes that actually made the weekly chart, and that it is entirely possible that another episode below the top 20 in a week of higher viewing figures could actually have had a higher viewing figure than the charting episode(s), but nonetheless the figures are still indicative of the relative success of the various series.
Making the weekly top 20s, but not the annual one, were:
The Love Of Mike - AR - 4.8mh,
The Charlie Drake Show - BBC 5.3mh,
Arthur's Treasured Volumes - ATV 5.8mh, and
Mess Mates - Granada 6.0mh.
At #17 in the annual chart, on a peak viewing figure of 6.18mh was The Dickie Henderson Show, in which Dickie appeared as a fictional version of himself, keeping busy on the stage, in film and on tv, and also being seen at home with his (fictional) family. The series began in Nov 1959 and ran until 1968. The most watched episode of the year was on Mon 19th December 1960 and featured, as a guest star, Richard Wattis.
At #9, with a figure of 6.99mh, were ATV's The Larkins, now in it's third and fourth series, although it would now take a break before two more series appeared in 1963 and 1964. The most watched episode of the year was entitled Stranger Than Fiction and was broadcast on Mon 14th March 1960
The top two sitcoms were both very close together in terms of viewing figures, and in terms of the actual productions, the one, Bootsie And Snudge, being a Spin-off from the other, The Army Game. Bootsie And Snudge, at #7, had begun this year, as the characters Pte Montague 'Bootsie' Bisley and Sgt Major Claude Snudge were demobbed from the parent show and entered civvy life as a handyman and a porter of a gentlemen's club, alongside elderly employee Henry Beerbohm Johnson, an 'befuddled old man' role for the then quite young Clive Dunn, who would then go on to use the same character traits to perfection some years later in Dad's Army. I have two sources for viewing figures in the year 1960, one of which says Bootsie and The Army Game were tied that year on 7.2mh, and one that says Bootsie achieved 7.12mh to The Army Game's 7.18mh, and I'm inclined to believe that latter source, since its figures are to an extra decimal place, and one of the two would indeed round to 7.2mh, whilst the other was presumably a rounding error in the former source. According to the former source the highest viewing figure Bootsie achieved in 1960 was for the Fri 11th November episode. Bootsie ran from 1960-63 and reappeared in 1974.
The most watched sitcom in 1960 was thus The Army Game for a fourth year running, but it only had another 6 months to run, so could it defend it's title into a fifth and final year? The most watched episode this year was the first episode of the fifth and final series, The Return Of The Pig, broadcast on 27th September 1960, and marking the return of the future timelord William Hartnell as Sgt Maj Bullimore, after two series off.
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