49. The General Flipped at Dawn

September 10, 1974 (B-308)

Written by: Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum
Directed by: Larry Gelbart
Guest Stars: Harry Morgan (!!!) as General Bartford Hamilton Steele. Theodore Wilson as Marty Williams. Brad Trumbull as Colonel Atkins. Dennis Erdman, as Harrison.
Semi-regulars:: Jamie Farr as Corporal Klinger. William Christopher as Father Mulcahy. Lynette Mettey as Nurse Baker.

Plot: General Bartford Hamilton Steele is pushing lots of rules about calisthenics, uniforms, parades and inspections. He shows up to see the 4077th to make sure the regs are being enforced. Everyone plays along - except Hawkeye and Trapper, who think the General is absolutely potty. (Not Potter - yet). This theory is reinforced by the General's behaviour when encountering Klinger - he thinks our favourite Lebanese cross-dresser is his wife Marjorie! The General springs Hawkeye and Nurse Baker in the supply room, and Hawkeye pretends to be a journalist. Steele decides the unit needs to move closer to the front. Hawkeye has just put a critical patient on the chopper which the General wants to use to supervise the move, and orders the pilot to take off, in direct contradiction of the General's order. General Steele wants to bring Hawkeye up on charges of insubordination and impersonating a civilian, but at the hearing he completely flips out, leaving the room singing Mississippi Mud. With nobody left to press them, the charges are dropped. The General is shipped back to the US, promoted, and assigned to the Pentagon.

Glitches: While putting him in the ambulance, Klinger's stole is hitting the hurt soldier in the face. Is that altogether good for a guy with a head wound?
Henry introduces Burns as Frake Burns. (Perhaps he meant 'flake', which is certainly accurate).

BIMOL: Hot Lips was very under-used this episode.
Mulcahy seemed only there to wave his cross at the General at inspection as well.

Great Lines: Henry: 'That's our four-place latrine, sir.' Steele: 'Good thinking. The men can encourage each other.'
Steele: 'For the record, I predict an early end to the war, if it doesn't rain and we get all wet.'
Steele: 'You might also tell Mrs Steele that the dried prunes are working out fine. Best thing since the Gatling gun.'
Steele, when under attack by snipers: 'Well, we can stand and fight, or we can have lunch.' Henry and Burns: 'Lunch!' Steele: 'Yeah, I'm a little hungry myself.'
Steele, at Hawkeye's preliminary trial: 'Thought I'd forgotten about you in the storage room, didn't you?' Hawkeye: 'It was a night I'll never forget...'

The Klinger Collection: A kilt and white blouse with a fur stole. Then he wears a blue spotted dress with red trim, white stockings and a lovely red floppy hat when meeting the General at inspection. (Well, you could hardly expcet him to turn up in a house frock - the man has standards, after all).

Notes: General Steele is a two-star general, aged 62. Hawkeye is making a necklace of kidney stones for his on-again off-again sister. (The one who will turn out not to exist later on).

Comments: A fantastic performance by Harry Morgan, which has been said to have won him an Emmy. (Although according to his file on the IMDB he only won one Emmy, in 1980 for his performance as Colonel Potter). A not-too-highly placed source on the Internet informs me that this was the performance that got Harry Morgan the part of Colonel Potter.
Quite a silly episode, it was well-directed and well-performed all round. A good start to what is really a very good season. I loved Radar muttering instructions to Henry on how to act in front of the General. It was very interesting to see that Williams, the chopper pilot, has the military courtesy thing down pat (he stands up, salutes, greets the General appropriately etc) and it looks utterly out of place in the 4077th. Incidentally, there is a definite similarity between this episode and season one's 16. The Ringbanger, except this time the crazy general was crazy before Hawk and Trap went to work on him. Either way, I definitely prefer Harry Morgan as Colonel Potter.
In the final part of this episode we see something rather interesting - the politically-correct alteration of song lyrics. When General Steele is singing Mississippi Mud he sings '...the darkies gather round and they all begin to shout', as the song was originally written. But by the time Hawk and Trap are singing it, it's been changed to '...they all gather round and they all begin to shout', which is just one of the different ways modern singers have performed it to avoid using the perjorative 'darkies'. I'm not sure how widespread this trend would have been in the 1950s, but if anybody was going to pioneer the cause of political correctness in the Korean War it would have been Hawkeye and Trapper.

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