|
Moondawggie -> RE: Viti Levu (4/21/2008 5:51:29 AM)
|
Wow---Tim Conway (Ensign Chuck Parker, to those of us who knew him on TV as kids) helped turn the tide at Viti Levu!
How cool!
Captain Binghampton would be proud!
Also, l'm glad to know you are still a free (if kept) man.
On to Tokyo!
A little misinformation about "McHale's Navy" from Wikipedia here:
"(McHale's Navy) was set in the Pacific theatre of World War II and focused on the crew of PT-73, led by Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine).
McHale's second-in-command is Ensign Chuck Parker (Tim Conway), in his career-defining performance as a gentle, naïve but somewhat gung-ho bumbler who usually succeeded in spite of his own ineptitude.
McHale's perpetually frustrated commander is Captain Wallace Burton Binghamton (Joe Flynn), known behind his back as "Old Leadbottom" (nickname he received from a bullet wound to the posterior) and constantly trying to get the goods on "McHale and his pirates." Binghamton's catchphrases were "What in the name of the Blue Pacific" or "What in the name of Halsey" when he saw gambling or native dancing girls on McHale's island. Despite his bombast, Binghamton was not the most effective officer: his only wartime "accomplishment" consisted of launching a torpedo from the PT-73 and destroying a truck on land.
Capt. Binghamton's enthusiastic assistant is the sycophantic Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter (Bob Hastings, a Bilko veteran).
The plots revolve around the efforts of Captain Binghamton to rid himself of the PT-73 crew. Besides Borgnine, the only actors from the dramatic pilot who made it to the series were Gary Vinson as George "Christy" Christopher and John Wright as radioman Willy Moss. Actor and comic magician Carl Ballantine was featured as confident con man Lester Gruber, whose get-rich-quick schemes often got the crew in trouble. Electrician's mate Harrison "Tinker" Bell was played by Billy Sands ("Pvt. Paparelli" on Bilko). The lover boy of the crew was handsome Virgil Edwards (Edson Stroll).
Gavin MacLeod (later of both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat) played crew member Joseph "Happy" Haines. How 'bout that! The skipper of the Love Boat learned his seamanship from McHale!
The most unusual crew member was a privately held Japanese POW called Fuji (Yoshio Yoda), who had become a de facto comrade that the PT-73 crew kept hidden from Binghamton.
Quite often, Binghamton is ready to send McHale and his gang to the brig, only to see them pull off a military success against the enemy that impresses Admiral Reynolds (Herbert Lytton) or Admiral Rodgers (Roy Roberts) and headquarters. Binghamton would then turn to the camera and say, "I could just scream!" "Why me?, Why is it always me?" or "Somebody up there hates me!". With the exception of Binghamton, the Navy brass likes and respects McHale. He had served in the Navy (World War I) and knew the South Pacific as a former Merchant Marine officer, while Binghamton held a reserve commission.
A Polynesian chief, Pali Urulu (Jacques Aubuchon), is as crooked as McHale's men. When McHale and his men are in Urulu's village, the chief displays a large photo of President Franklin D. Roosevelt; when the Japanese troops arrive, Urulu turns over the picture to reveal a photo of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
McHale's love interest is a Navy nurse, Molly Turner (Bilko's Jane Dulo). Parker's love interest is a French girl from New Caledonia, played by Claudine Longet. (Who, as I recall, after divorcing 60's crooner Andy Williams, gunned down and killed Olympic Skier Boyfriend Spider Sabich in Aspen in a "domestic quarrel---and got acquitted just like OJ!
man---this show had it all.
|
|
|
|
