McHale's Navy (TV Series) Voltafiore Fish-Fry (1965) User Reviews

Nothing wrong with the story but series is in need of fresh scripts

[kfo9494 · 6/10 · 20 November 2014]

Binghamton is at it again, trying to catch McHale and his crew doing something illegal. This time General Bronson has issued orders that anyone caught profiteering will be brought up on charges. Binghamton is sneaking around the city trying to catch McHale and his men doing something that he can throw the book at them.

He gets his chance when the Mayor of the town, Lugatto, thinks up a scheme where he will have one of his broken down fishing boats get struck by the PT 73. In exchange for not reporting the incident, the Mayor asks McHale to catch a load of fish so that he can sell to the townspeople. McHale reluctantly agrees just to keep the crew and Ensign Parker out of trouble.

With the 73 made out to be a fishing vessel, McHale sets off to find the fish. Upon returning Binghamton is waiting for him on shore. Now he has the goods on McHale and will lead him to meet with the General. On the way a German sub starts bombing the town. McHale has to do something to save the town.

Even though there is nothing wrong with this program, it was just too routine. The exact same thing happened a few season ago when the boat was on Taraputa and now only the location is different. Even the same old antics by Parker is becoming increasingly stale. The series is in need of some fresh scripts and not the same rehashed stories that seem to be funneling through the system.

Binghamton's not the only one who wants to scream

[FlushingCaps · 8/10 · 30 November 2020]

Much of this plot is a retread from other episodes, one in particular from the Taratupa years. And, the other reviewer, kfo is correct that some of Ensign Parker's antics in this one were too much of the same thing...yet somehow the twists in the plot made this one decently entertaining to me.

Binghamton is sneaking up on the crew when we begin, but they hear him coming-thanks to the always bumbling Carpenter-and all the captain finds is the men sitting while Mr. Parker is appearing to lecture them about a German weapon. Of course, Binghamton is going to grab for the gun and Chuck, who always keeps his finger on the trigger, starts firing haphazardly with his automatic weapon. Yawwnn. We have seen that before, a few times too many.

After the opening credits, we are at Binghamton's office where he is preparing champagne for his invited guest, the town's crooked mayor, Mario Lugatto. When there's a knock on the door, it is General Bronson that comes in. He is all upset about Binghamton's charges against McHale, even more so when the captain can only tell him about how they hid the evidence of their profiteering and that he has nothing on them.

Now we follow Lugatto and Mr. Whipple, his crooked associate. (The part of Dino is played by Dick Wilson, famous for selling toilet paper for 25 years in commercials.) They have heard about the general's crackdown on profiteering and decide to go straight for a while. Except they don't really want to do that-it might require work. So they come up with a frame up when McHale leaves the 73 to Mr. Parker alone for a short while. They get a pretty girl, Sophia, to cozy up to Chuck and get on board the boat. She pushes the start buttons for the engines while resisting Chuck's feeble attempts to get her to leave the boat.

The result is the boat backs up a few feet before Parker can stop it, lightly touching Lugatto's wreck of a fishing boat. McHale is now returning and Lugatto blackmails him into doing him one favor in exchange for him not telling the captain about what happened. He wants McHale to take fishing nets and take the 73 out to catch tons of fish. Having heard Binghamton would be gone all afternoon at a staff meeting, McHale agrees.

The crew spend time fishing, even hauling in one net full that included Chuck, who fell overboard but didn't want to cry out for fear he might scare away the fish. (I liked that line.) They return with all the fish Lugatto wants, but before they can unload, up pops Binghamton. (The staff meeting was a fake. He was just trying to set it up so he could catch McHale.) He had already called the general to come back to see the evidence he lacked before.

From the place where Binghamton got on the boat is a short boat ride back to the town dock. En route, a German submarine has started shelling the town. They are not attacking the 73 because it looks like a fishing boat. McHale and his men use a torpedo to sink the sub (which looks exactly the same as that Japanese sub they kept sinking out in the Pacific over and over. The torpedo explosion even looked identical.)

They are met at the dock by General Bronson, who starts to congratulate the captain, but Binghamton still thinking he can get McHale in trouble for profiteering, tells him it was all McHale's idea. So our hero gets the handshake from the general, who, on hearing about their boatload of fish, tells Mayor Lugatto that the US government is turning the fish over to him to distribute to the townspeople of Voltafiore-free of charge.

That last bit had the greedy mayor reeling. He wants to join Binghamton in screaming.

The only two parts I would like to have changed were the clumsiness of Mr. Parker in handling the gun, and his inability to control the young woman in keeping her off the boat. He just sort of hemmed and hawed, acting like he's never had a pretty girl near him before-he has, several times in various episodes. An easy fix for this scene, where she had a broken shoe heel, would be for her to tell her that he'll fix her shoe if she stays on the dock. Then he goes below deck to find a hammer and small nail and she comes on board and starts the engine while he isn't there. That would have been better than her just leaning close to him and smiling while he tried to tell her to get off the boat.

The mayor and his buddy were funny, and the general showed sufficient annoyance at Binghamton. Overall, I give this one an 8 out of 10 score.