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The name was Milton Berle. We called him Uncle Miltie and NBC claimed he ruled the airwaves every Tuesday with his madcap comedy. But did he?

Arts and Entertainment Editor Bob Sokolsky declines to debate that topic.

However, he notes, there was a pretty formidable rival on CBS where another veteran comic, Phil Silvers, more than held his own.

Silvers did it with his hilarious Ernie Bilko character, a wily Army sergeant always thinking of outrageous ways to make money and annoy military top brass.

But, as a newly released DVD set from CBS Video shows, it was always in the spirit of fun and it often remained so close to some real things that World War II and Korean War veterans could laughingly identify with the situations Bilko created.