Swamp Rats

Cheers! 🍸

↳ Replacement surgeon, Captain Steven Newsome (Edward Herrmann) reaches the breaking point. As sad and poignant today as it was when it aired 43 years ago. Beautifully directed by Mike Farrell. 😭

↪ Frank throws a temper tantrum.

↪ "Beans, beans, beans! Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes! Applesauce, applesauce, applesauce!" 😄

↪ Harry Morgan makes his first appearance on the show, not as Colonel Sherman Potter but the loony General Bartford Hamilton Steele. 🤪

↪ Trying to sneak out of camp as a nun then a "business girl". 😄

↪ Lovers quarrel. (I love that Frank's excuse for being married is that he got trapped because his wife said she liked him.) 😄

↪ Radar arriving early before Henry even calls him. (One of many instances.) 😄

↪ Frank throws his back out (on the way to the shower.) 🤨🤔

↪ Frank wants a transfer. (2/2)

Trivia: The title of this episode, "Major Fred C. Dobbs" is a reference to the character of the same name portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in the classic 1948 film, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". Since the plot of this episode centered around Frank's greed for money and in this case gold, the title is apropos.

On a side note, this was the first appearance of the "officers club" which would become the camp's on site bar through the rest of the series. In this episode since it's brand new it looks pretty nice, wicker tables and chairs, decorative lampshades, etc. As the series went on the officers club progressively got dingier looking, more like a dive bar, the wicker tables were replaced with tires as tabletops, the lampshades were changed, etc. Just a detail that always stuck out to me.

↪ 🎵 Hawkeye loves Frank.🎵 Hawkeye loves Frank.🎵

↪ Loony, liver eating Hawkeye.

↪ Klinger wants to get married.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really do that either. 😕

This like if Wile E. Coyote caught the Road Runner. Of course Hawkeye gets Frank back in the end. 😄