The second season was as solid as the first for McHale and the men of the PT-73.
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"Sgt. Bilko" made the peacetime military seem funny, but how could you possibly play WWII for laughs? Answer: Isolate the servicemen on a remote Pacific island and shift the conflict so it's mostly between a rag-tag bunch of Navy irregulars versus their by-the-book captain. And as long as the public was enamored with a youthful President Kennedy, who commanded the PT-109 during the war, why not make the show about PT-Boats? While you're at it, why not cast in the lead role a dramatic actor who appeared in one of the most honored WWII films, "From Here to Eternity" (1953), and who won an Oscar two years later for his portrayal of "Marty"?
As it turned out, Ernest Borgnine (Lt. Commander Quinton McHale) was also the only one of his TV crew who actually served in the Navy. Maybe that's why he looked so comfortable behind the wheel of that 70-foot plywood boat, which is all that those PT-Boats were really made of. But Borgnine also proved to be a natural straight man for comedians like Tim Conway and Joe Flynn, both of whom forged a comfortable career making Disney live-action comedies. In fact, this half-hour sitcom is very much in the same mold as those lightweight, straightforward comedies.
"McHale's Navy" debuted in 1962, three years before "Hogan's Heroes" and 10 years before "M*A*S*H," and it was truly a situation comedy. Yes, the cast and characters delivered the laughs, but the formula was what gave them the jokes. Week after week you knew what you were going to see: Capt. Binghamton (Flynn) and his toadie, Lt. Elroy Carpenter (Bob Hastings), would try to catch McHale's "gang of pirates" in the act, just as Bilko's commander kept trying to nail him and his men. One major difference was that Bilko was the instigator, while here McHale was the benevolent commander who let his men get away with murder as long as they didn't go too far, and as long as they did their duty when called upon. And almost always, McHale and his men would get off the hook because they did their jobs--fighting the enemy--really well. Sometimes it was by design, other times by accident, but the PT-73 had an uncanny knack for thwarting the Japanese almost every week as a means of avoiding courts-martial or transfer by their commanding officer.
Yes, there are racist elements here, and not just Japanese. The "natives" of the South Pacific are as negatively stereotyped as can be. But the show became a "must-see" on ABC, and cracked the Nielsen Top-25 its second and third seasons. The writing was just good enough, but it was the cast that made the show fun to watch. Anyone who's seen Tim Conway in later films will appreciate his style of comedy here, which bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Don Knotts bumbling school of slapschtick. And Flynn? He was born to be the clueless authority figure, with his horn-rimmed glasses and his "What, what, what?," along with that stubborn determination to get the offenders, though he had no idea how. When the two of them work together, it's pure magic. Even the dynamic between the rotund McHale and his bumbling second-in-command would be one viewers would appreciate so much that they'd see it repeated in "Gilligan's Island" with the portly Skipper and his goofball "Little Buddy."
The supporting cast on "McHale's Navy" was also fun to watch. Comic magician Carl Ballantine played the fast-talking Lester Gruber, whose schemes drive many of the episodes, while Gavin McLeod ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") was Seaman "Happy" Haines, who wore a pirate's bandana long before he'd don that "Love Boat" captain's cap. Billy Sands was the goofy "Tinker" Bell, Gary Vinson was "Christy" Christopher, and Edson Stroll played the somewhat slow Virgil Edwards. Oh, and the unofficial crew member who lived on an island off the main island base of the PT-Boat squadron was Fuji (Yoshio Yoda), a Japanese soldier who ran away from the war and was adopted by McHale and his crew. Kindness may have led to their initial acceptance, but one reason they never shipped Fuji off to a POW camp was that he was an incredible cook. Great food, "native" girls, gambling operations, hammocks, beer in the torpedo tubes--what more could a seaman ask for? Plus, they were such an annoyance to Binghamton that they weren't even allowed to stay with others at the base on Taratupa. They had their own little island that was close enough to where you'd take a launch to get there, and that was just fine by McHale and his men, who turned that island into a little corner of paradise . . . and gambling.
And there's no sophomore slump with this show. Season two was every bit as strong as the first, with only a few "turkeys" in the bunch. Thirty-six episodes of this light sitcom are included on five discs that are housed in three slim plastic keep-cases with a cardboard sleeve:
1) "The Day the War Stood Still." When Binghamton captures Fuji, McHale concocts an elaborate plan to fool the Captain into thinking the war is over so they can spring their personal PW.
2) "The Binghamton Murder Plot." An annoying bird drives McHale and his band to try anything--including guns and grenades--to get ride of him, but the paranoid Binghamton thinks they're after him.
3) "McHale and his Schweinhunds." An attempt to build up Chuck's confidence ends up with Chuck, Gruber, and Tinker posing as Germans to get out of a tough situation.
4) "Is There a Doctor in the Hut?" McHale and the gang plot to reroute an attractive movie star to Taratupa, and it involves Chuck playing doctor.
5) "To Binghamton with Love." After the crew is caught red-handed using the PT-73 to float to a crap game, to make amends McHale plans a testimonial dinner for Binghamton that no one wants to attend.
6) "Have Kimono, Will Travel." This really politically incorrect episode has the gang putting on the equivalent of a Japanese minstrel show, with Binghamton dressed like a geisha.
7) "Today I am a Man!" A nurse Chuck likes keeps one-upping him, and so he requests a transfer. Naturally, McHale has a plan, and it involves the nurse.
8) "Jolly Wally." Parker gets a promotion when Binghamton learns that one of his childhood friends is a famous war correspondent.
9) "Scuttlebutt." This time Tinker needs building up when his girl dumps him for a fighter pilot.
10) "The August Teahouse of Quint McHale." When Fuji gets homesick, McHale and his crew plan a tea party to perk him up.
11) "French Leave for McHale." George Kennedy guest stars as Big Frenchy in a complicated episode that finds McHale and his gang in jail and the PT-73 "borrowed" by Big Frenchy.
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