This may be the funniest episode ever on Car 54, Where Are You....although humor is in the eye of the beholder so many others may disagree. I just found myself laughing louder at some of the insanity in this episode as I have on any of my other favorites.
I can thank Charlotte Rae and Al Lewis for many of the laughs in here. Rae, who played a bank teller robbed by the same man - Officer Mudoon (don't ask) - was so good she was hired to play Schnauser's wife in the rest of the short-lived (two years) run of this great TV show.
Lewis had already just won his part in this show by two previous appearances. In here, he's the hospital hoping to get a nice sum of money from the precinct's benevolent fun. His extreme reactions from anger to unbelievable joy, back to disappointment are all hilarious.
Any episode that has Toody dressed up as a beatnik is going to draw a lot of laughs, to begin with, and Joe. E. Ross doesn't disappoint. It's just one of many crazy scenes in this episode.
I also said Nat Hiken was one of the great genius writers of early TV, and it's shows like this that demonstrate that.