Hawkeye is bored and tired, the best time to pen another missive to his father. He describes Klinger's sheer white wedding gown (which does little to hide his white boxer shorts) as well as his own naked dining fiasco. After Margaret's recent tiff with Frank, he gets drunk on gin (confiding that his own brother used to call him "Ferret Face") and Hawkeye and Trapper learn that, as awful as he normally is, he's intolerable as a "friend." With Henry's help, Radar becomes a real, honest to goodness mail order graduate. But, Captain Casey, the new boy genius of their surgical team, is not who he says he is. And finally, Hawkeye writes about the camp's charity "No-Talent Night," where Henry conducts the doctors playing, and Margaret singing, "My Blue Heaven" – but no one is listening. Margaret really sells it, but it's hard to get the Army behind any color but olive drab.
Attention, all personnel! A set of tropes to go with the episode... again:
- Bait-and-Switch:
- In the first lines of Hawkeye's letter, he describes something in such a way you would think he's talking about the war.Hawkeye: (narrating) "Korea's pretty much the same story. The fighting goes on; the hatred, the violence, the senseless brutality, men behaving like animals. Then, of course, there's the war."
- Henry gives Radar his father's pen... to get the coffee out of it after he had accidentally placed it in his mug.
- In the first lines of Hawkeye's letter, he describes something in such a way you would think he's talking about the war.
- Big "NO!": Trapper is getting very tired of listening to Hawkeye's terrible knock-knock jokes.
- Brick Joke: Hawkeye makes a comment about Klinger's wedding-gown outfit with the words, "Tasteful without being gaudy". Later, Klinger uses the exact same words to describe Hawkeye walking into the mess tent stark naked.
- The Cast Showoff: William Christopher displays his piano skills for the first time as Father Mulcahy.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Zig-zagged. While Radar is caught out cheating on an exam that would see him graduate from his correspondence course school which sees him remanded by Colonel Blake, he is nevertheless given a passing grade.
- Confessional: Captain Casey admits to Father Mulcahy he's not a certified doctor, after he helps fix Father Mulcahy's bad back:Captain Casey: Can I make a confession?
Father Mulcahy: (smiling) I am a priest.
Casey: I'm...not a doctor
Father Mulcahy: (grabs his back in pain) Ohhh! - Dark and Troubled Past: For the first time, it's revealed that Frank Burns had one of these in his childhood; it's what made him the person he is.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- The O.R. scene, early on in the episode:Trapper: [in disgusted shock] Oh, wow, what a mess. Stomach, kidney, liver...Hawkeye: What is this? An organ recital?Frank: Keep it down. I'm doing something very difficult here.Hawkeye: Trying to tie your shoe again, Frank?Frank: Colonel Blake, could we have some measure of military discipline?Trapper: Good idea. Everybody up for callisthenics.Hawkeye: Care to join me for some push-ups, Hot Lips?Margaret: [offended] Oh really!Henry: KNOCK IT OFF!
- Henry, in response to Frank's hysteria.Henry: How the hell did you get in the army, Frank?!
- Frank practically invites another from Hawkeye at the end of the O.R. scene.Frank: Can't you ever be serious?Hawkeye: I tried it once. Everybody laughed.
- When Hawkeye loses a bet to Trapper, who demands his winnings right there and thenTrapper: Fifty bucks.Hawkeye: I left my pockets back at the Swamp.
- Radar mentions it's final week at the school he's doing a correspondence course with.Henry: And you want me to take you to the senior prom, right?
- Hawkeye (and Trapper) are being kept up at night due to Frank's drunken singing. Every time they tell him to shut up, he manages to remember a song with the particular words they used, driving Hawkeye to do this.Hawkeye: I sure hope that's not a song.
- The O.R. scene, early on in the episode:
- Determinator: Hawkeye states that Klinger will stop at nothing in trying to get out of the army.
- Distinction Without a Difference: This is how Henry replies to Radar asking if his performance at his test so far is a problem. It's also how he reveals he knows Radar's cheating.Henry: No, no. No. No, your answers are right. You just memorized them in the wrong order.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Frank gets really drunk after a severe argument with Margaret.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: As with the first "Dear Dad" episode, there are inconsistencies with Hawkeye's life back home that conflict with the later and more well known one he has in Crabapple Cove. This time, his mother is alive and he has a sister.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Frank reveals his own brother's childhood nickname for him: "Ferret Face".
- Fanservice: Hawkeye's fifty dollar bet with Trapper results in this.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look close while Hawkeye is standing behind the signpost during his naked stroll across the camp, you can see that Alan Alda is actually wearing flesh-colored briefs.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Hawkeye and Trapper are stunned stupid when Frank says he wants a martini.Trapper: A drink? You, Frank?Frank: A double.Hawkeye: Frank, if you have a drink, you'll loosen up. You might even smile. Frank, you could break your face!
- Interrupted Intimacy: Hawkeye is flirting with a nurse when Radar interrupts him to give him the file on "Captain" Casey.
- "Knock Knock" Joke: Hawkeye unleashes a couple of real doozies on Trapper.Hawkeye Knock knock.
Trapper: Who's there?
Hawkeye: Abe Lincoln.
Trapper: Abe Lincoln who?
Hawkeye: Don't you know me? (laughs hysterically)
Trapper: (facepalm) That's awful.
Hawkeye: All right, can I do another one?
Trapper: No!
Hawkeye: Knock knock.
Trapper: Who's there?
Hawkeye: Thomas Jefferson.
Trapper: Thomas Jefferson who?
Hawkeye: Was Abe Lincoln just here? (laughs even more hysterically)
Trapper: Hawkeye, I never liked you. - Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In the letter to his dad, Hawkeye makes mention of Radar's ability to sense things and read people's thoughts.Hawkeye: (narrating) "I've never put much stock in ESP, but if it is possible for one person to read another's mind, Radar has that ability – the little fink."Radar: (walking past) Is that a nice thing to say?!
- Naked People Are Funny: Hawkeye bets that he can walk into the mess tent and order lunch stark naked and nobody in the camp would notice.
- Narrating the Present
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Frank, normally The Teetotaler, wants a martini – "a double", no less. Hawkeye and Trapper are gobsmacked.
- Phony Degree: Radar has sent for a Correspondence Course from "The Triple-A High School Diploma Company of Dellavin, Indiana".
- Primal Fear: Frank panics when shells hit the compound, take out the power generator, and the lights in the O.R. switch off.
- Scenery Censor: Played to full effect in the episode's most well-known scene.
- Shout-Out:
- To A Streetcar Named Desire:Hawkeye: (as Blanche DuBois) I have always relied upon the kindness of strangers.
- Hawkeye labels Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan as "the King Kong and Fay Wray" of the 4077.
- To A Streetcar Named Desire:
- Sudden Musical Ending: Not the ending per se, but before The Stinger, much of the main cast put on a performance of "My Blue Heaven".
- The Tag: When Hawkeye says goodbye to Casey, Casey is now a chaplain.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: Frank becomes this when he's in a drunken mood.
- Uncertified Expert: Captain Casey is the latest addition to the surgical staff at the 4077th, and he's a superb surgeon. However, it's discovered that he's actually a sergeant and not really a doctor (and his real name is Schwartz). He admits that he's also passed himself off as a teacher, a lawyer and an engineer. He's just never had the patience to actually earn a formal degree in any of the fields.
- Vapor Wear: Hawkeye advises Klinger to wear a slip under his wedding gown – "With the sun behind you, I could see through to your shorts."
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The character of Captain Casey is loosely based on real-life con artist Ferdinand Waldo Demara
. - Voiceover Letter: For the second time, Hawkeye narrates a letter to his father back home.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: As Hawkeye explains to his dad, he and Trapper "found out that, as impossible as Frank is an an enemy, he's intolerable as a friend."
