While Col. Potter is away on a second honeymoon in Tokyo, two members of the camp have medical issues: Margaret, who's suffering appendicitis, and his horse Sophie, who has colic.
Attention all personnel! Col. Potter's horse requires treatment with the following tropes:
- Ambiguously Bi: Hawkeye flirts with both B.J. and Margaret incessantly in this one.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Averted and then played straight with Radar when he thinks B.J. and Hawkeye aren't taking Sophie's problems seriously:Radar: Oh...hell!
B.J.: Radar!
Radar: You heard me! H-e-double toothpicks! - Hey, That's My Line!: When Margaret is being operated on (see Ruptured Appendix below), and B.J. is about to put her under:B.J.: All right, Margaret, relax. Take a nice, deep breath.
Margaret: I'm supposed to say that.
B.J.: Shut up, Margaret. - I Have to Go Iron My Dog:
- Hawkeye's reaction to having to give Col. Potter's horse an enema:
Hawkeye: "I think I'll stroll up to the front to see how the shooting's going." - Insane Troll Logic: Frank claims he should perform Margaret's appendectomy because he knows her appendix better than anyone else.
- Only Shop in Town: Hawkeye's summation of Quapaw, Oklahoma:Hawkeye: Where else? A gas station, a grocery store and a fashionable restaurant called "Eats".
- Playing Sick: Klinger's latest discharge ploy, in which he tries (unconvincingly) to pretend he has depression.
- Poor Man's Porn:
- Hawkeye asks Potter to pick up some nudist magazines for him while in Tokyo.
- Instead of the promised reel of Gilda, Radar instead sends Sparky a copy of Ecstasy with Hedy Lamarr, famed for being the first non-pornographic film to depict a sex act. When Radar asks for it back, he's told that Sparky and his friends won't be done with it until next year.
- Running Gag: The previous night's chili dinner is cited as cause for several gastric ailments in the camp.
- Ruptured Appendix: Inverted with Margaret. She has chronic appendix flare-ups that present no immediate danger. Eventually she requests elective surgery to have it removed when she finally gets fed up with it while a lull is going on.
- Shout-Out: When Col. Potter tells Hawkeye about Margaret's appendix (see Ruptured Appendix above), and that she wants Hawkeye to operate on it if necessary, Hawkeye picks up an imaginary sword and says, "Zorro will leave his mark."
- The Tag: Both Hawkeye and Col. Potter take Margaret and Sophie out for walks at the same time (after their procedures), and give similar advice to them (to keep moving).
- Tuckerization: The last name of B.J.'s father-in-law, Floyd Hayden, is the maiden name of his then-wife, Judy Farrell
. He also lives in her birthplace, Quapaw, Oklahoma.
