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Season 5, Episode 117: Movie Tonight
Original Air Date: 2/22/77
Written by: Gene Reynolds, Don Reo, Allan Katz, Jay Folb
Directed by: Burt Metcalfe
Without any wounded to take care of, the 4077th is bored and cranky. A simple session of cleaning up the O.R. leads to each of the staff yelling at one another. Col. Potter gets so frustrated he walks out on all of them.
But Father Mulcahy, coming from Seoul, brings some good news: a movie that Potter requested and he is clearly very excited about. He's so excited, in fact, he announces that his "all-time favorite movie" will be shown after dinner.
The crankiness continues through dinner--everyone's in such a bad mood, no one's talking, so dinner is a tension-filled event. But Potter comes in and announces the night's movie is the classic Henry Fonda picture My Darling Clementine. This--and Potter's enthusiasm--seems to cheer everyone up.
Later, the movie starts, to the cheers and applause of the audience. Unfortunately, just a few minutes into the picture, the film goes off the reel and the screen goes dark.
As Klinger fixes the film, Col. Potter organizes a community sing-along, and after some cajoling they all sing "The Tennessee Waltz."
The film starts again, and runs for another few minutes, when--at a crucial scene--it goes out again. The crowd starts to get really annoyed, when Father Mulcahy--via piano--breaks into "Gee Mom, I Want To Go Home", causing everyone to sing along, and add their own specific sets of lyrics.
Radar then does some impressions, followed by everyone doing impressions of Father Mulcahy (Radar doing the best job), ending with Hot Lips singing a song all on her own, getting so wrapped up in the performance she doesn't even stop after the movie starts up again.
During the film's climactic shoot-out, everyone gets in on the act, play-pretending shooting each other, with them all falling over in mock agony. It leads to everyone laying on the floor as the movie rolls on.
The mood is broken when a jeep arrives carrying wounded, snapping everyone into action.
Fun Facts: Hawkeye and B.J. have an argument about a shirt Hawkeye bought for B.J.--one sleeve is longer than the other. Hawkeye says that nonsense, and puts it on as proof. Unfortunately, one sleeve is indeed longer than the other. One of the show's all-time great props, Hawkeye shifts his shoulders like Quasimodo to make the sleeves even out, a great bit of physical comedy.
The scene of everyone adding their own lyrics to the "Gee Mom" song brushes up against being completely improbable--how do Hot Lips, Radar, the Nurses, et al, manage to come up with perfectly-fitting lyrics so fast? (Ironically, the most realistic addition is from Frank, who clearly was sitting in his seat quietly trying to come up with something, and breaks into the song long after everyone else has stopped)
The episode's final scene features everyone in O.R., quietly singing "My Darling Clementine" in perfect harmony--a nice, mellow ending, and a great way to wrap-up an episode partly about the transformative power of movies and their ability to bring a group of people together, if only for a short while.
Favorite Line: Col. Potter: "Now this movie's a classic--it has the three things that make a movie great: horses, cowboys, and horses."
Season 5, Episode 102: The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan
Original Air Date: 10/26/76
Written by: Allan Katz & Don Reo, and Gene Reynolds
Directed by: Gene Reynolds
In the middle of night, Hot Lips and Klinger (who is on guard duty) are met by a young Korean girl, who is in distress and asks for help.
Hot Lips, understanding a certain amount of Korean, explains that the young girl says her mother is giving birth, and needs her delivering. She grabs her medical bag and takes off with the girl.
The next morning, Hot Lips is nowhere to be seen. Radar looks everywhere, but can't find her. Frank decides to go find her himself, loading his gun with macho pride.
Unfortunately, as Hawkeye says, "Frank's as good a marksman as he is a doctor", and he accidentally fires the gun, with the bullet nicking B.J. in the leg.
Col. Potter, not knowing what else to do, brings in Army Intelligence. Unfortunately, that means...Col. Flagg.
Flagg does some investigation, including mistaking Hawkeye for B.J., and insisting that Frank's reading material--Reader's Digest--is, in fact, a Commie rag, Red's Digest.
Flagg turns up nothing on Hot Lips, and in Col. Potter's office he has Radar order some artillery strikes! Potter is aghast, but Flagg is not deterred.
But suddenly, Hot Lips wanders in--wondering why everyone is so shocked to see her. She tells them where she was (having successfully delivered the baby) and Potter has Flagg call off all his elaborate plans.
Flagg, though, won't depart until everyone closes their eyes so he can leave mysteriously--like his codename, "The Wind." Everyone initially refuses, but when Flagg says he won't leave unless they do, they shut their eyes immediately.
They hear a grunt and a crash, and see that Flagg has jumped out the window! Hawkeye looks out the hole, and says, dismissively, "'The Wind' just broke its leg."
Fun Facts: A very, very funny episode, featuring one great laugh line after the other, and that's even before Col. Flagg arrives!
Previous episodes have shown Hot Lips learning the Korean language, a nice little character touch that pays off in this episode.
The scene where Frank accidentally shoots B.J. is hilarious. As they drag him to the hospital, he demands that Hawkeye and B.J. not tell Potter who it was that shot him. They promise Frank, just to shut him up.
When Potter asks what happened, Hawkeye doesn't pause for a moment before answering: "Frank shot B.J."
Favorite Line: Radar reveals he's searched for Hot Lips everywhere, except...the Nurses' Showers.
Potter insists he check there, too, but Radar refuses. He thinks for a moment and says, "Can't we find somebody else...like Captain Pierce?"
Potter retorts, "No, we'd never get him out of there."
There's another line just too good to not mention: when Potter is asking Burns what happened, Frank tries to blow past his incompetence and says: "Sir, I think the Chinese have captured Major Houlihan."
Potter replies, deadpan: "I see. So naturally, you shot Captain Hunnicutt."
Okay, one more. Col. Flagg enters Col. Potter's office, not knocking, dressed in some ridiculous costume. Potter, signing some papers, looks up, and without breaking stride, says: "Be with you in a minute, Flagg."
Flagg looks a little disappointed he's been so easily recognized, and then Potter rubs salt in the wound: "Nice suit. Your clown outfit in the cleaners?"
