Plot: Hawkeye and Nurse Bigelow are sent to the 8063rd for temporary duty. In exchange, the 4077th gets Captain Roy Dupree ("that's me!") and Captain Lorraine Anderson, an old friend of Margaret's. Dupree's party-hearty style quickly grates on B.J.'s and Charles' nerves, and they conspire to be rid of him when Dupree seeks permanent assignment with them. Meanwhile, Lorraine makes Margaret take a good look at what her life has become.

To me, this is the episode where Winchester and Hunnicutt become if not friends, then a little more tolerant of each other. I've come to suspect that BJ liked Charles better than Hawkeye in some ways. Certainly Charles prefered BJ over Hawk. (That sounds almost obscene.)

YOu know what was really different about this episode, it is probably the only episode that Hawkeye is barely in.

When Dupree falls off of Sophie and tries to stand up, you can hear him crashing and stomping on the set's floor boards.

57 minutes after Hawkeye leaves for the 8063, Charles tacks up a "Boston" sign at the top of the signpost. Radar makes some comment about wanting to visit Boston and see the sights--including the Red Sox. Charles finds this amusing. Moments later, Lorraine and Dupree drive up.

Lorraine comments on the fact that Margaret's ears have closed up since they pierced them at age 15. Later in the show, she makes a big deal of this: "What happened to your ears? You used to have pierced ears. They've closed over. You've closed over...." She seems to forget that her own piercings had closed over, too. (This information, at their first meeting, is usually cut for syndication.)

Also cut is part of the Mess tent scene, where Lorraine is regaling everyone, including an uncomfortable Margaret, with a tale from nursing school, when they had stayed out late partying the night before a microbiology exam, and hastily wrote out notes and hid them in their bras. The instructor got suspicious about how often they asked to be excused to the rest room, and made them stay in the classroom until the end of the exam (by which time they needed the rest room quite urgently.)

Also clipped in the Mess tent is Dupree giggling uncontrollably when he looks at Klinger, who is serving. Klinger is upset--he wants to be considered crazy, but he hates being laughed at.

I thought it was terrible the way BJ and Charles treated Dupree in this episode. Dupree seemed like a likeable guy to me. I can see how BJ or Charles might be annoyed by Dupree's Good Ole' Boy personality, but that's no excuse for their hostility towards him. Dupree exhibited warm friendliness to everyone at the 4077th, and even when someone said something nasty about him, he took it good naturedly. In return, he gets stabbed in the back. He comes off far better and certainly more tolerant in this episode than either BJ and Charles.
And then there's the trick they play on him to keep him on Potter's bad side and kill his transfer to the 4077th. Usually when BJ does something as malicious as this, it is because the recepient has done something to deserve it. Dupree hasn't.

It would have been interesting to see how Hawkeye and Dupree would interact.

I disagree somewhat with Todd's observation above. B.J. is quite capable of acting maliciously without his victim doing anything to really deserve it.

However, I agree that it would have been nice if Dupree had done something more than just being a boor. You'll notice that he didn't get angry at B.J. and Charles for getting him in trouble. (Of course, he may have forgotten.)

If the 8063 has to deal with Dupree on a regular basis, I can see why they would have found Hawkeye somewhat bland.

Part of the problem is with George Lindsay's approach to the role, he portrays Dupree as jovial and affable instead of obnoxious and abrasive.

I wonder how B.J. would have stood with having Frank Burns as a tentmate?

I wonder how B.J. would have stood with having Frank Burns as a tentmate? - Todd Pence

Try watching the fourth and fifth season to find out.

"Mule fritters!"

Sorry, I meant to say "I wonder how B.J. stood".

I had a feeling there was something wrong with that statement, Todd.

"Mule fritters!"

According to Colonel Potter, Colonel Wheatley of the 8063 is a stickler for regs - especially the ones about hair length. Kinda hard to believe. Dupree's hair is longer than Hawkeye's. Not to mention that Roy's cowboy hat and boots are almost certainly not strictly G.I.

The OR scene is very interesting to me. In it, we see Charles more or less taking over Hawkeye's role. Just as we've constantly seen Pierce hit up on every nurse he works with, we see Charles do the same with Captain Anderson, using lines that wouldn't seem out of place coming from Hawkeye.

Just how easy would it be to get a transfer for Dupree? I would think the 8063^rd would like to keep its chest cutter. Transfering Dupree would leave them short a surgeon. What was Potter going to do, have Hawkeye assigned to the 8063? Somehow I just don't see the transfer happening all that easily.

Just after Dupree says, "I was riding bareback before I could even speak", the view of B.J. and Charles changes and the following shot, the position of Charles' head has changed.

During her conversation with Lorraine in her tent, Margaret, just after saying, "I hated you", looks to her right. However, in the next shot she's looking directly at Captain Anderson. Then after admitting that she was "just plain afraid", Margaret looks away from Lorraine. But again in the next shot, she's looking at her old friend.

Just after saying that Donald's barely a husband, Margaret looks down. In the next shot she's looking up.

I thought George Lindsay did an excellent job overall in this ep. (Despite the fact that Todd's right when he says, "Part of the problem is with George Lindsay's approach to the role, he portrays Dupree as jovial and affable instead of obnoxious and abrasive.") I watch this ep and never once do I think of Goober Pyle or Hee Haw. Lindsay actually plays a rather distinctive character, proving he had some underutilized acting chops.

This is the eleventh episode this season in which Radar O'Reilly does not appear.

"Gentlemen, please. Mozart."

The the uniform National Guard of one of the western states (South Dakota or Montana, I think) still uses cowboy boots. It's mentioned in the movie "The Second Civil War". (A very funny movie, IMHO)

Yeah, but Dupree's in the Army, not the National Guard.

"Gentlemen, please. Mozart."

I suspect he used some lame argument, mentioning this fact, with his CO. Just a theory, besides a by the book CO (like Frank) wouldn't last too long anyway.

Yeah, but according to Potter, Wheatley is a by-the-book C.O. If Wheatley had just taken over the 8063^rd (very likely as you would think Pierce himself would have known about the Colonel's strict military stance before Potter could warn him), then he might start out being strictly G.I., then either cave-in and allow his surgeons some slack, or fail completely. And of course, remember that while Margaret is not a C.O., she is in charge of the nurses and is very much a stickler for the rules. And she lasted quite a while.

"Gentlemen, please. Mozart."

But Frank went to the Funny Farm!

Yeah, but his head wasn't on straight to begin with. Not all by-the-book commanders flip out.

"Gentlemen, please. Mozart."

George Lindsey also played a role far from Goober in the Twilight Zone episode "I Am the Night - Color Me Black." He was under-utilized, similar to James Best, who was also very effective on Twilight Zone and then ended up on "The Dukes of Hazzard" as a buffoon.

I wonder if George Lindsey's character in this episode was inspired by "the Texan" in the opening chapter of CATCH-22?

"The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likeable. In three days no one could stand him."