Plot A: Klinger has acquired a goat, anticipating the money he will make from the sale of milk and cheese. Unfortunately, Hawkeye is paymaster for the month, and the goat ends up eating the payroll. HQ sends Major Van Zandt to investigate. The Major does not believe that the goat ate the payroll--until he finds that his just-completed, due immediately report has been eaten by the goat. (Paper tastes especially well with a little dressing of molasses.) Van Zandt and Hawkeye agree to cover for each other.
Plot B: Anxious to buy what he thinks is a rare antique, Charles borrows money from Rizzo, only to find that Rizzo is a loan shark.
If I'm not mistaken, Hawkeye is the only character we ever see act as Paymaster. The first time he handed out the money ("Payday"), he did so in the Mess Tent. In this ep, the money is doled out in the Officer's Club.
Also, the first time Pierce handled pay, there was controversy surrounding it. Hawkeye, while talking to Radar, accidentally dictated a demand for compensation. This resulted in a an investigator from I-Corp being sent to the 4077th. Hawkeye had to pay back that money. In "I Hate a Mystery", Hawkeye was accused of stealing various articles from the camp. That and a number of other things that should be in the Captain's record, makes you wonder why he's trusted with the pay in the first place.
Judging by this ep, Charles earns $250 a month. At least that's how much he pays Rizzo altogether. Which also means it took the Army four days days to send the replacement scrip. (Charles had borrowed $50 and had to pay Rizzo 100% interest each day. Supplement pay, $50 for everyone who had not yet been paid, arrived the next day. Charles paid Luthor his supplement pay right off. But that only accounted for the interest. Charles still owed Luthor the original $50 loan. At the end of the ep, Charles pays Rizzo another $150 in interest, plus the original $50. This left Charles broke.) It was nice touch by TPTB, by the way, to have a duplicate of the vase in front of Charles as he pays Luthor back the money in the Officer's Club, I thought. Nice bit of irony.
Charles may not have been the only person Rizzo was playing loan shark with. After he gets the first payment from Winchester, you can see the Sgt. turn his attention to another soldier. It looks very much like Luthor was asking if the soldier needed a loan.
The Colonel and Hawkeye must not have put too much molasses on Major Van Zandt's report. The Major certainly didn't notice any on the papers. And the goat had not devoured all of the report.
It's kind of surprising that Klinger didn't say anything when Van Zandt took the goat with him. After all, Klinger was planning on selling everyone goat milk. It also represents a loss of $25 to Max. He gave up that get-rich-scheme without too much of a fuss. Must've already made it up in the sell of milk before that.
Wonder if B.J. ever got a vase for Peg? According to Igor there were plenty of them around.
It's funny, Frank Burns tried to smuggle a priceless Korean vase out of the country, but was foiled by Pierce and Hunnicutt. Charles, here, also tries to gain possession of what he thinks is a priceless vase, and is also thwarted.
How good is the digestive system of a goat? Wouldn't they be able to prove the goat ate the money after it did it's business? Wouldn't there be some traces of paper?
Also, milk has a tendency to take on the flavor of certain foods (at least it does in cows) such as wild onions, garlic, etc.
Boy, talk about rich milk....
What I find amazing is this whole ep...
Is it really likely that a private could play loan shark with a major without getting brought up on major charges. Rizzo has nothing except telling him he owes money...I believe Charles could have said "I have paid you back, now get lost" without any problem.
The opening theme is the proper one and not the closing theme heard the last two episodes.
I don't recall that Hawkeye had to be at "I" Corp at dawn to pick up the payroll the last day he was paymaster ("Payday"). I thought it was delivered.
The camp gets paid once a month, right? So how is it that Hawkeye has been paymaster only other time before this? I would have thought he's had the job several times before.
What's the idea of Rizzo not knowing he's supposed to announce himself to the paymaster (in the case, Hawkeye)? I thought Rizzo was regular Army. Even if he wasn't, he's been paid by the Army before, and therefore should know what the Army protocol for paying its soldiers is.
For those interested in such trivia, Rizzo gets paid $162 a month. Payments made to the entire camp personnel comes to $24,312.
Did the 4077th get a new safe? IIRC, back in Henry Blake's days, just about everyone knew the combination to the camp safe. Now only Potter knows.
And how wise was it of Sherm to announce the combination was Mildred's measurements? All anyone has to do is see a recent picture of Mrs. Potter to guesstimate what the combination might be. And didn't Radar once reveal those measurements?
Why doesn't Hawkeye immediately notice what the goat's eating? You can see some money to the right the goat's head as she eats out of the footlocker.
The money in the locker suddenly vanishes when Pierce and Klinger try to stop the goat from eating.
Well, since the Officers Club is out of booze, why doesn't Hawkeye take the unpaid MASHers to Rosie's? Or was his offer to take them to the Swamp just his way of getting out of having to buy any drinks?
When did the Swamp get enough glasses to serve everyone who accepted Hawkeye's offer? At best, there's four glasses in the Swamp. Not counting whatever Charles might have. But I doubt that'd be enough to service everyone who showed up.
Why didn't anyone show Major Van Zandt the moneybag or the footlocker? Surely that would have helped backup Pierce's claim that the goat ate the money? And why wasn't Klinger interviewed? He was one of the actual witnesses to the goat repast.
Colonel Potter just can't settle on how he wants his paintings arranged. The Hawkeye portrait from "Depressing News" is once again on the upper left side of the door frame. In the last ep, it was on the upper right. In "Heroes" it was on the lower right. Below the "Depressing News" portrait in this ep, is the painting of Klinger throwing the discus. Prior to this ep, the portrait of Father Mulcahy was in that spot. The Mulcahy portrait is below the Klinger one now.
Before Klinger's goat got to the money, Pierce had issued "$1,972" in pay. That's an interesting number. "1972" is the year M*A*S*H debuted.
According to Van Zandt, all Klinger can testify to is that Hawkeye gave the Sargeant a satchel. Well, no. That's not all Max can testify to. Max was in the O Club when it was announced there was wounded at the 4077th. Max saw Pierce stuff the money into the bag. Not only that, but Van Zandt would have to prove that Pierce had time to hide the money. Which, given wounded had arrived, he didn't have time to do anything but stuff the money and hand it to Klinger. Van Zandt's a very sloppy investigator.
"The undrinkable chasing the inedible."