McHale's Navy (TV Series) Send This Ensign to Camp (1965) User Reviews

Chuck loses memory, thinks he's a boy at summer camp

[FlushingCaps · 7/10 · 24 November 2020]

Moments after receiving an old photo album from his mother, where he saw pictures from his days at summer camp as a 10-year-old, Mr. Parker gets conked on the head during a Japanese bombing attack and when he comes to, he has amnesia.

Unlike the kind we usually see on TV, where the character has no idea who he is, or who anyone else is, here Chuck thinks he's 10 again, back at camp. Of course, McHale tries to hide him from Binghamton without success, so once again the captain is sending for a admiral psychiatrist to get him a medical discharge.

When the admiral arrives, he finds McHale and Co. dressed like Indians, playing "Indian" with Chuck and can tell right away about his amnesia. Then that same submarine starts bombing the main base only this time, boxes blow up where the captain and Chuck are taking cover. Of course, the result is that Chuck gets his memory back and Binghamton loses his.

I enjoyed this, another in a series of 60s and 70s comedies relying on a major character getting amnesia. The most famous ones to me were Rob Petrie on Dick Van Dyke, Lisa Douglas on Green Acres, and Gomez Addams on The Addams Family, but there were many more on many series, even going up to Mr. Monk getting it for an episode of Monk.

When he learned about Chuck's amnesia, Binghamton worked to keep Chuck at his base, happy until the admiral came, so he appointed Carpy as counselor "Uncle Elroy" to play games with Chuck, telling him he was now at Camp Wakisaki.

It wasn't a great episode, but I laughed plenty enough to give it a 7, a totally different opinion than kfo had 6 years ago.

This episode is a disaster of major proportions.

[kfo9494 · 1/10 · 15 November 2014]

It only took about seven minutes into this show and you know this is going to be a disaster. This was a pathetic attempt at trying to film an episode without any material or thought put into the process and then claiming that the public would enjoy such non-sense. I have seen a lot of shows over the many years but I have to say that this is one of the worse attempts at a comedy-sitcom ever witnessed. It was if some juvenile wrote the script as a gag and it slip through the cracks to be made into a show.

Here is the jest of this uninteresting story.-- Parker just has received some photos from home showing the time he was in summer camp as a youth. When an enemy sub bombs the island, Ensign Parker is hit in the head and gets amnesia where he thinks he is back at camp.

Parker runs around thinking the McHale is his Uncle Woody and the crew is his bunk-mates. He goes around playing child games and talking like a spoiled brat child. Binghamton finds out and is happy to lose Parker in a medical discharge.

Watching Tim Conway embarrass himself was bad enough but then you have the rest of the cast having to perform some of the distasteful stunts that the script suggested. You end up feeling sorry, not only for the series, but also for the cast having to act like they enjoyed the story. The low point had to be when they crew dressed up like Indians to rescue little boy Chucky. It is so pitiful, words cannot describe.

From time to time every series has a clunker episode that does not live up to the standards of the show. And after some very good show, perhaps the series was due. Of all the 'McHale's Navy' episodes, this has to be one of the least favorites. In fact, it is a disaster.