McHale And His Seven Cupids – McHale’s Navy season 1 – originally aired 10/25/1962
In McHale And His Seven Cupids, McHale convinces Parker that he’s suffering from battle fatigue. So that he’ll go to the nearby hospital, where a pretty young nurse is working.
Comedy highlights
- Reporting for innoculation, Parker develops a crush on the pretty young nurse. And Tim Conway’s very funny getting inoculated. Twice!
- Parker gets drunk – on bottled peaches, yet. At a “romantic” dinner with the lovely nurse. The crew tries to convince Ensign Parker so that he suffers from battle fatigue. So he can be hospitalized. And close to the pretty nurse.
- When one of the “seven cupids” sends Parker a love letter (to fool the nurse into thinking he’s a lady’s man) he quotes Cyrano de Bergerac. Leading Parker to think that it’s McHale who’s actually in love with her!
- And — it turns out the nurse is already married.
- n the conclusion, Parker’s being sent to Sydney, Australia for a “health rest”. And several of the crew also pretend to have battle fatigue so they can go along!
Trivia
- One of the few episodes with no Captain Binghamton and Lieutenant Carpenter.
- Ensign Parker’s middle name was Malcolm. His hometown was Schenectady, New York.
- This second episode of the series had Parker say his hometown was Schenectady, NY. All subsequent mentions of Parker’s hometown for the remainder of the series’ four-year run refer to Chagrin Falls, Ohio (Tim Conway’s actual hometown).
Cast of characters
- Ernest Borgnine (The Dirty Dozen) … Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale
- Tim Conway (The Apple Dumpling Gang) … Ensign Charles Parker
- Betsy Jones-Moreland (Creature from the Haunted Sea) … Lt. Casey Brown
- Carl Ballantine (The Shakiest Gun in the West) … Lester Gruber
- Gary Vinson … George Christopher
- Billy Sands (How to Frame a Figg) … ‘Tinker’ Bell
- Edson Stroll … Virgil Edwards
- Gavin MacLeod (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) … Happy
- John Wright … Willy Moss
- Yoshio Yoda … Fuji Kobiaji