Fair for Its Day: Fuji, the Japanese POW, was often written to the more benign aspects of the Japanese stereotype, but still was a useful member of the cast who gained some character development (or, as much as you can garner in a sitcom...). During the last season, the PT-73 Gang meet up with the 442nd RCT, the all-Nisei combat unit fighting in Europe. Even though some Hilarity Ensues over Fuji being accidentally "recruited" into the unit (read: to keep Binghampton from realizing they smuggled a POW across half the world, they dressed him in an Army uniform and were trying to palm him off as a detached 442nd member, never suspecting the genuine 442nd were in the vicinity), the 442nd are portrayed as normal Americans doing their job in the war.
Binghamton and Carpenter are often paired together, due to the the latter's Sycophantic Servant qualities.
Due to the 1997 film's pairing of Tom Arnold's McHale with a gender flipped Carpenter, some fan works pair up McHale and Carpenter from the original series as well.
Ensign Parker himself is more Adorkable than Moe, being a clumsy, scatterbrainedManchild, but the way he gets flustered around girls he likes and Tim Conway's round, boyish face may make some audience members feel this way.
Audience-Alienating Premise: The movie updated aperiod sitcom from the 1960s about a PT boat crew in World War II to a misfit gang of modern-day US Navy officers battling a Russian terrorist in the Caribbean. Fans of the original sitcom were turned off by the drastic changes to the source material, while nearly everyone under the age of 40 was turned off by the antiquated source material itself. The result was one of the biggest flops of the '90s, grossing barely one tenth of its budget. It probably didn't help that McHale's Navy doesn't exactly have the iconic status or Multiple Demographic Appeal of, say, The Addams Family, The Brady Bunch, Mission: Impossible, or Star Trek: The Original Series.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The whole Cuba sequence from the 1997 film. Tommy Chong shows up, for some reason. It does give us an explanation as to how McHale got the torpedo to blow up Vladakov, though.
