McHale's Navy (TV Series) The Monster of McHale's Island (1963) User Reviews

First season entry --late in the season and it shows

[smithbea · 7/10 · 1 August 2021]

The writers were getting worn down and hard pressed for good ideas. They came up with a familiar bratty kid storyline. At first the story is playing surprisingly well. After all given that Binghamton and Carpenter are so incompetent why couldn't a smart alecky child of an admiral turn those two knuckleheads' world upside down? But when Bighamton dumps the monster on McHale--the PT 73 skipper also cannot (and in his case very suprisingly) handle the kid at all either. How much better it would have been if McHale had learned the kid was coming, learned the boy was a first class smarty, and out-masterminded the bad lad all along.

Mr. Parker looked like he would for sure be the smarty kid's easiest prey but surprisingly Parker is no more so than McHale's other men!

This episode was more uncomfortable than entertaining.,

[kfo9494 · 5/10 · 27 October 2014]

In this next to the last episode of season one, we get a plot that is played out on nearly every sitcom in the history of comedies. We get a spoiled brat kid that seems to take over every situation by his father being in charge. And in this show the young boy happens to be the son of Admiral Hanson so everyone is wearing kid-gloves as the scamp causes problems for the entire cast. The script is so bad that even sailors disobey orders all because of this terror child saying his father is the Admiral.

And of course the kid just happens to get onto PT 73 while on a mission to locate a Japanese submarine and then breaks radio silence so that 73 location is given to the enemy. McHale finally becomes mad as a hornet and takes matters into his own hands. Then, without giving away the ending, the viewer can guess how most of these stories end, you will be correct again in this case.

For some reason I do not find comedy in a child being a disrespectful terror. Most people do not even want to be in the same room with such a child, thus most people really would not enjoy this episode. A great show for the use of corporal punishment.