Barco a la vista

I have always enjoyed Mchale's Navy, it has to be one of my all time favourite shows. The show was immensely popular in Australia during the 1960's and has returned regularly since then. The show joins many of those other TV SitComs of that 'Golden Era' of television, such as: Batman, Gilligan's Island, The Addams Family, Gomer Pyle, USMC and many more that kept us amused.

I always made sure I was home from school and seated in time for the show every Monday to Friday to see the wacky adventures of McHale and his crew as they managed to get themselves into yet another 'mess' in their daily battle of wits with their strictly by the book Captain Wallace B. Binghamton and Lieutenant Carpenter.

Ernest Borgnine has always been one of my favourite actors and his portrayal of the long suffering LTCOMDR Quinton McHale was first rate. McHale always seemed to have his hands full trying to keep his 'bunch of eight balls' in line, as well as have to contend with his bumbling Exec Officer, Ensign Parker (Tim Conway).

I thought Ernest Borgnine made the show, being the go-between his men and his stern CO, Capt Binghamton. McHale was always concocting some scheme to get his men off the hook with Binghamton, sometimes himself too, after they got into some mishap or other. Capt, Binghamton was also forever trying to invent some scheme to get McHale and his 'Pirates' shipped out, inevitably this backfired on the good Captain someway or another.

I still enjoy this show, it's as every bit as entertaining now as it was back in those good old days.

My memories of watching this show coincide with the same days I used to stay home sick from, and in some cases "sick of," school. I loved staying home and watching the wacky adventures of McHale and his crew. Borgnine's big smiling face made him sort of my best buddy and his crew my extended family. I think the best appeal of the show was that it seemed to pay homages to so many of my favorites: Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, F Troop, The Andy Griffith Show and Get Smart just to name a few. Conway's character had a lot of Barney Fife in him, and the surreal humor reminded me a lot of Night Court. Maybe that's what makes a show a classic; by it's way to reinvent comedy where everyone can find some interest in it.

This 1/2 hour comedy show centers around the crew of the PT73, Lt. Cmdr, Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine) Stationed in the South Pacific during WW II. The hapless crew and their commander pull of schemes and shenanigans under the nose of their Commander, Capt. Binghamton, played by veteran actor, Joe Flynn. Good fun all around. Watchable today. It is dated however. The Laugh tracks are a little annoying. A 6.5 out of ten.

I know this was Ernest Borgnine's show, and though he played it too broadly sometimes, he was still pretty good in it. However, the main reason I watched the show was for Joe Flynn's Captain Binghamton and Tim Conway's Ensign Parker. Binghamton was always trying to nail McHale and his crew (he kept calling them "you and your pirates") and some of his schemes to get rid of them were hilarious, especially when, as usual, they blew up in his face. Conway's eager but almost totally incompetent Ensign Parker was a a joy to watch, due to Conway's comic genius. It was side-splitting to watch him squirm, stutter and completely fall apart whenever he was given any kind of responsibility at all; he'd try to do a good job, and it usually worked out in the end, but what happened in between was always good for a lot of laughs. I especially enjoyed watching him totally dissolve whenever Claudine Longet put the moves on him. Conway was one of TV's great clowns, as shown by his work on "The Carol Burnett Show," and he's at the top of his form; he had the amazing ability to move his body in three or four different directions at the same time--he would look like a marionette with the strings tangled--and that combined with his twitches, facial expressions and look of total incomprehension was a riot. Another actor I really enjoyed was Bob Hastings, who played Binghamton's loyal, long-suffering and abused underling, Lt. Carpenter. Carpenter was the ultimate company man, so eager to please his boss that he gladly entered into whatever lame-brained scheme Binghamton cooked up to discredit McHale ("Oh, good-o, sir, that's brilliant!"), which usually wound up with Binghamton's shifting the blame to him whenever it went wrong--which Carpenter, of course, always readily accepted ("I'm sorry, sir, of course it was all my fault"). Carl Ballantine's scheming Gruber, always on the lookout to make a (usually dishonest) buck, was a lot of fun, too.

I think the series lost a bit of steam when the location was moved from the South Pacific to Italy, and some of the supporting cast was somewhat weak (Gavin McLeod's Happy was especially annoying), but overall it was a very funny, enjoyable show, with some great byplay between Flynn and Conway.

"McHale's Navy" manages to present THE PERFECT take on "War-Time Comedy", (eclipsed only by "M*A*S*H"). Some may point to "Hogan's Heroes" as being superior, but while I enjoyed that as a kid, nowadays I cannot get past "Hogan's Heroes"' simple-minded take on The Nazis and sugar-coated fantasy prison camp setting. The Nazis were NOT simple-minded, easily-fooled buffoons, and "Hogan's Heroes" is an insult to the ordeals endured by every Allied POW in WW2.

McHale's Navy" on the other hand,never insults the intelligence of The Viewer by taking too many broad liberties with history. The Japanese in Mchale's Navy are a serious enemy,(save for the harmless "Fuji" the escaped POW given shelter by McHale and Crew).

In "McHale's Navy", The REAL Enemy is..... THE BRASS!

That's where honest War-Time Comedy is meant to derive from,and where it is at it's best. When you spotlight the overly- officious asininity of The Higher Ranks, you get Genuine Comedy. It's a Truth that Ernie Pyle, Bill Mauldin, Floyd Gibbons and Richard Hooker understood; and that Truth is showcased no where better than in "McHale's Navy".