39. Officers Only

December 22, 1973 (K-415)

Written by: Ed Jurist
Directed by: Jackie Cooper
Guest Stars: Robert Weaver as Private Gary Mitchell, Ralph Grosh as Captain's Aide.
Semi-regulars: Odessa Cleveland as Nurse Ginger, Jamie Farr as Corporal Klinger, Robert F Simon as General Mitchell, Clyde Kusatsu as Kwang Duk, Sheila Lauritsen as Nurse Watson.
Clyde Kusatsu went on to make a handful of appearances as Admiral Nakamura in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He often turns up playing authority figures on US TV.

Plot: The boys operate on and save Private Mitchell, son of General Mitchell. The General is very happy and wants to reward everyone who helped. Hawk 'n' Trap get a pass for leave. While on leave they get into all sorts of trouble. They return to see the camp has got an Officers' Club. Burns insists that it stays an officers-only Officers' Club, which puts a divide between the officers and the non-commissioned people. Trapper and Hawkeye can't get Burns or Hot Lips to turn around on this issue, so they hatch another plan. They bring Private Mitchell to visit his father in the Club, but say that he can't come in if he's not an officer. A concession for family members is made, and Hawkeye and Trapper introduce all of the enlisted personnel as family members.

Great Lines: Trapper: 'Wake up Hawkeye.' Radar: 'While he's asleep?'
Hot Lips: 'I think it's only fitting that a captain be assisted by a major when operating on the son of a general, Colonel.' Hawkeye: 'I think you just conjugated the Pentagon.'
Henry to the 'pregnant' Klinger: 'Well, it's none of my business...but should someone in your condition be smoking a cigar?'
Henry, referring to affairs with women: 'You know how it is.' Mitchell: (sigh) 'I used to.'
Burns: 'That's a cute name.' Kwang-Duk: 'We're a cute people.'
Henry orders a daiquiri: 'You just take some bananas, and some rum, and some crushed ice, and some cream, and you just put it in a blender.' Kwang: 'We've got no bananas, no rum, no blender, and only powdered cream.' Henry: ''k, just gimme a beer.'

The Klinger Collection: He pretends to be pregnant this week, and wears some pillows underneath a vermilion skirt and white top which doesn't really do much for him. (I mean, maternity wear can sometimes be a bit frumpy, but really...) He tops it off with a reddish headscarf. Later, we get the nurse outfit, and a lavender sequinny number at the club, which is far more stylish.

They All Look the Same to Me: Enter the legend that is Clyde Kusatsu. He'll be back.

Notes: The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo is run by a Mr Yukuri.
Burns drinks Shirley Temples. Hot Lips drinks Scotch Old-Fashioned, no fruit.
The film tonight is an animated VD cartoon called Hansel and Regretel.

Comments: Sticking up for the little guy is the theme this week - it just took us a long time to get to it. That, or something about everyone being in it together, which can go just as well with the other one. Some quite funny moments, especially superdry bartender Kwang Duk taking about two seconds to develop an opinion of Burns. Really, though, he just has that effect on people, doesn't he?
The O-Club, of course, will be a mainstay of the series from this point on, making us wonder if the mess tent was just getting too hard to film in every time they needed a chill-out scene.

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