User Reviews

Taratupa, we learn, has been subjected to a daily air raid for a whole month-one that is a nuisance more than a danger. A lone Jap Zero flies over and drops one bomb, harmlessly, each day. Because he is there and gone, the men of Taratupa have so far been unable to shoot down this enemy plane.

McHale and crew were all set for (yet another) vacation pass to let them go to New Caledonia where they planned to make money selling war souvenirs, including the wing tip of a Japanese Zero that Gruber paid $50 for. It seems this hunk of metal has a 50-caliber hole that makes it a perfect beer bottle opener.

But the Admiral has ordered all leaves cancelled until the Japanese bomber, nicknamed "Washing Machine Charlie" has been stopped. While McHale is called away to plan which islands to search for to find Charlie's hidden air strip, Gruber leads the men on one of his most insane schemes yet. They will use the wing tip Gruber bought and tell the captain that Virgil shot down Charlie that afternoon.

The scheme seems to have worked, as McHale and Parker return and the crew is all set to take their trip. But McHale learns about the lie. Before he can ask Gruber what in the world he was thinking of...didn't he realize he would be caught in his lie when Charlie attacked the following day?-Captain Binghamton shows up furious because he had examined the wing tip they left him, and saw that it reads inside "Property of USN."

He wants to put the men in the brig, but McHale points out that Binghamton will be in a jam if the admiral learns he sent in an incorrect report. So Binghamton lets McHale and men go out to try to find Charlie and actually do what was previously claimed.

They find Charlie and a small company of Japanese soldiers on an island. Most of the crew is captured. McHale KOs the real pilot, put Parker in his uniform with directions to go across the compound to release the captured men. But other Japanese crew members put Parker (thinking he is their guy) into the plane and while McHale frees the others, Parker is somehow able to get the plane to take off.

He flies haphazardly, but somehow gets to where he is over Taratupa. This time he is shot down and he parachutes out, calling out "Hiawatha" as he jumps, not remembering the traditional "Geronimo" call.

Of course much of this is hard to believe-particularly that Ensign Parker could get the plane to take off without crashing---but this episode was packed with laughs. Parker was at his funniest as he tried to slink around disguised as the Japanese pilot.

You can get a brief glimpse of Mike Farrell near the end, in his TV debut. Of course, Farrell is known as B.J. from M*A*S*H*. Before he joined M*A*S*H* a decade later, that series had a parallel plot named "5 O'Clock Charlie" whereby the Army hospital suddenly had an ammo dump near the edge of camp, and they too were subjected to a wayward solo bomber who came by every day-at 5 O'Clock-and drops one bomb trying to destroy the ammo dump.

I use this occasion to note the different attitudes toward our country's military between the two episodes. In McHale, the crew stole and destroyed the enemy plane and captured the Japanese crew on the island where they were stationed. In MASH, our doctors helped make it possible for the enemy to destroy the US ammunition dump and get away cleanly, with the regular characters happy that their "Charlie" won't be bothering them any more.

The McHale show had some logical problems but it was a really, really funny show, worthy of a 9 from me.

5 O'Clock Charlie is a very important episode of M*A*S*H because it introduces Jeff Maxwell as Private Igor Straminsky. It happens that in 2018, Jeff and superfan Ryan Maxwell launched the M*A*S*H Matters podcast, which I love listening to. I always enjoy listening to Jeff's recollections about M*A*S*H. Interestingly, Jeff saw his role as a job, but only over time did he realize just how much cultural impact M*A*S*H had. Roy Goldman is also introduced, and Kelly Nakahara makes her second appearance. It happens Kelly was a guest on M*A*S*H Matters, as was the late Roy Goldman's son, who spoke about growing up on the set.

The idea for this episode is inspired by real-life incidents where enemy pilots would harass U. S. military bases by flying over them at night. In this case, a North Korean pilot is flying over the 4077th at 5 o'clock each day. But typically, the enemy pilots would do their flyovers in the middle of the night, to disrupt the sleep patterns of military personnel.

Reported incidents of this occurred during the Guadalcanal campaign of WWII, involving Japanese flyers. These annoying harassers would be nicknamed Bedcheck Charlies or Washing Machine Charlies, because the noise of their engines disrupting sleep sounded like washing machines.

Since the writers are trying to milk comedy from this situation, emphasis is put on the fact that the North Korean pilot is not hitting his target. However, the goal may not necessarily have been to hit a target, but to just drop grenades or other small bombs to cause disruptions. In addition, the writing of the episode tries to get comedy from the fact that Frank wants an anti-aircraft gun to shoot at the overhead Charlie, and General Clayton (Herb Voland) must assess whether this is actually needed.

When Clayton's jeep is blown up, he agrees to give the camp an anti-aircraft gun. But of course, Hawkeye and Trapper who seem to be pacifists at heart, oppose Frank's new military toy. So they use it to blow up an ammo dump that is perceived as the target, thus eliminating the need for any more Charlies to show up. Of course, this is highly unrealistic, since the Charlies would have still continued to harass the camps.

In reality, the army had to commission a group of night raiders that attacked and probably shot down the disruptive Charlies so that personnel on these bases could sleep. Also, the U. S. military would take the extra step of bombing nearby airfields that the Charlies would land on, to discourage them from these maneuvers. Of course, M*A*S*H writers don't include that, because that would make the U. S. military seem intelligent, and the goal of this series, in its most ardent anti-war stance, is to undermine and criticize U. S. military operations.