After the latest in a long string of pranks, Hawkeye and Trapper seem to have done the impossible: Frank Burns having all he can stand of them and wanting to leave the 4077. Hawkeye however decides to go the extra mile, by playing one more prank as a farewell gesture. Complications set in when said prank also humiliates Major Houlihan, who also puts in for a transfer. This makes Henry furious, as the situation now leaves him without a surgeon and a head nurse, and he threatens to make Hawkeye and Trapper pay for their antics. To the duo's shock, he actually does, by making them take Frank and Margaret's responsibilities and duties along with their own. Hawkeye and Trapper set themselves to a new task: one that in any other scenario that they would not want to do, find a way to convince Frank, and Margaret, to stay. Hawkeye comes upon an answer, using Frank's greed and ambition for wealth.
Attention, Major Frank Burns! Review the following tropes to avoid being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor:
- Accidental Public Confession: Not accidental on Hawkeye's part. The recording of Frank and Margaret together in her tent is put on the P.A. for all the camp to hear.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: With Frank and Margaret leaving, two people are going to have to do their shifts in addition to their own. Carrying out his threat to them, Henry selects Hawkeye and Trapper for the job.Hawkeye: He can't do that to us.
Trapper: He'll wear us to a frazzle. - Berserk Button: Doubled with Rage Breaking Point. Frank does not like the fact Hawkeye recorded a private romantic interlude between himself and Margaret.Frank: You! Pierce! [charges at Hawkeye]
Hawkeye dodges and leaps around the tent. Frank pursues
Hawkeye: Frank, please, Frank! You've gotta pull yourself together.
Frank: You'll regret this as long as you live!
Hawkeye: I'm regretting it right now. - Blatant Lies: Frank tries to keep his discovery of gold a secret as he barges into Henry Blake's tent.Henry: What happened to you?
Frank: I, uh, fell down.
Henry: Really? How many times? - Cheer Them Up with Laughter: Surgeon Frank misses a shrapnel fragment while operating on a patient and then proceeds to not only blame the nurse Ginger but also berate her. To cheer her up, Hawkeye and Trapper play a cruel but hilarious prank on Frank — make him criticize a Soap Opera that is, in reality, a recording of him and his lover talking.
- Chekhov's Gun: Radar searching for gold inspires Hawkeye to craft a plan to get Frank to stay at the 4077.
- Comically Missing the Point: Henry is so preoccupied with finding his missing tooth filling that he doesn't interpret Frank's words properly.Frank: I've decided not to go, sir.
Henry: Frank, if you think you're gonna sleep here tonight, you're crazy.
Frank: I mean my transfer! I want to stay! - Deadpan Snarker:
- Hawkeye starts off with one first thing in the episode. Frank is all too happy to comply.Hawkeye: Can't you work any faster, Frank?Frank: Haste makes waste.Hawkeye: Never at a loss for a cliché.Margaret: Is everything all right here?Hawkeye: Yeah it will be, as soon as Frank stops sewing his fingers together.
- After they finish in the O.R., Hawkeye and Trapper joke about what they can do when they get home.Hawkeye: I can think of better ways to spend the morning.Trapper: Back home, I could be giving some nice blue-haired lady a hysterectomy.Hawkeye: How about selling married couples his-and-her-terectomies?Trapper: Oh, you're punchy.Hawkeye: The natural result of pulling bits of hardware out of teenage bellies.
- Radar tells Hawkeye that there's gold to be found just outside the unit. Hawkeye doesn't believe a word of it.Hawkeye: Come out of the sun, Radar. Your brain is getting a tan.Radar: I'm not kidding. I looked it up. It just so happens Korea is the fifth largest gold producer in the world.Hawkeye: And the first largest producer of Koreans.
- Frank while he's digging for gold.If I dig one foot deeper, I'll be A-W-O-L
- Hawkeye starts off with one first thing in the episode. Frank is all too happy to comply.
- Death Glare: Henry is none too happy when Frank accidentally steps on his temporary tooth filling
- Determinator: Frank transforms into this to ensure he remains at the 4077 to search for more gold.
- Didn't Think This Through: Hawkeye and Trapper come to the shocking realisation that maybe getting Frank and Margaret out of the camp wasn't worth it at all.Hawkeye: I think maybe we finally went too far.
Trapper: You should've thought of that before we started.
Hawkeye: I was too busy going too far. - Failed a Spot Check: Hawkeye notices Frank missed a fragment in the patient they're working on. Frank of course blames the nurse.
- Radar shows Hawkeye and Trapper some gold he found by the creek. The two doctors inform him it's pyrite.Hawkeye: And if you're smart, you'll see your dentist right away.
- Radar shows Hawkeye and Trapper some gold he found by the creek. The two doctors inform him it's pyrite.
- Fatal Flaw: Hawkeye and Trapper use Frank's greed against him.
- Get Out!: After losing a tirade on Hawkeye and Trapper, Henry accidentally storms out of his office. He storms right back in.Henry: What am I doing? This is my office. YOU GUYS, GET OUT!
- Grand Finale: When Hawkeye and Trapper know Frank is leaving the MASH unit, they have to play the biggest prank of all on him to celebrate.
- Identity Denial: Radar refuses to believe his newly discovered gold is pyrite.
- Implausible Deniability: Radar discovers Frank swiping some of his gold digging equipment.
- It's Personal: Their antagonistic relationship was already personal to begin with, but the reason Hawkeye carries out a prank on Frank Burns here is because the major insulted a friend.
- Lampshade Hanging: Hawkeye and Trapper find it strange to find Radar leading a horse carrying equipment as if he was about to go on an expedition to dig up gold. It's subverted when it turns out he has been.
- Large Ham: Both Hawkeye and Frank, even moreso than usual.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Henry tells Frank he brings a lot of the pranks on himself. Frank begs to differ on at least one occasion.
- The Last Straw: Frank's motivation for wanting to leave the camp. He's finally had it with the pranks.
- Moment Killer: When Henry promises to get Frank a transfer out of the unit, he also offers the major a Friendship Moment.Henry: You know, Frank? As – as rough as it's been sometimes, I think I'll miss you.
Frank: Well, it might not have come to this if you'd had the backbone to maintain some discipline around here.
Henry: [slightly frowning] Well, so much for missing you. - Never My Fault: Frank reports Ginger Bayliss for his own mistake to Major Houlihan, calling her an incompetent bungler.
- Noodle Incident: Coupled with Flashbacks. An earlier prank pulled by Hawkeye and Trapper on Frank involved the "The Princess and the Pea treatment".Henry: The Princess and The Pea?
Frank: They nailed five cots on top of each other. I was sleeping twelve feet off the floor!
Kaplan: It's a good thing you don't walk in your sleep. [starts laughing]- Another prank had hamburger meat in Frank's ears and getting said meat licked out by the camp mutt.
Frank: Do you know what it's like being woken up a wet nose?
Henry: Frank, just leave my married life out of this.- A third prank had Hawkeye and Trapper filling a helmet with warm water and dipping a sleeping Frank's hand in it to manipulate him into wetting his bed.
- There was apparently a fourth prank, going by a conversation Frank has with Margaret.Margaret: Why would they [Hawkeye and Trapper] destroy your flowers?Frank: Why would they put cream cheese in my slippers? Do I know?
- Only in It for the Money: Hawkeye notes everything Frank Burns does in life was for wealth.
- Pass the Popcorn: On the third prank mentioned in the Noodle Incident entry, Hawkeye and Trapper sit back and watch as the event unfolds.
- Reflexive Response: After surgery, Trapper asks Hawkeye if he'd like a drink. Hawkeye retorts, asking if gas was inflammable.
- Sanity Slippage: Hawkeye notes that life at MASH is driving him out of his already demented mind.My head's getting wall-to-wall crazy
- Self-Deprecation: Frank doesn't realise that the so-called soap opera Hawkeye is listening to is actually a recording of him and Margaret together and he criticizes it.Margaret: I'll be devastated without you, you know that.
Frank: I'll write you. Every day. Faithfully.
Frank: [mockingly] "I'll write every day, faithfully." Listen to that dribble, that manure. [Turns to Hawkeye] You know anyone who could listen to that...
Margaret: Frank, you're crushing my mums.
[Frank's expression changes to horror and anger]
Frank: That's... that's... that's...
Hawkeye: That's right. Nurse Dribble and Doctor Manure. - Shout-Out:
- Frank paraphrases James Cagney's most famous (non-existent) film quote.
- Fred C. Dobbs was Humphrey Bogart's character in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
- Take That!: An in-universe example. As the recording is played throughout the camp, several people make various reactions. The trope is averted by most of them who are laughing and enjoying it and one soldier commends Frank for one of his quotes as he's on a date with a nurse. However, it's played straight by the cook who hears Margaret say "Some beautiful things can happen even in the army", and he promptly throws a bucketload of wet potatoes at the speaker.
- Hawkeye has a few choice words about some of the human emotions.Hawkeye: Three of the basic human emotions are greed, fear and greed.
- Hawkeye has a few choice words about some of the human emotions.
- That Came Out Wrong: Played for laughs when Frank reiterates to Henry he wants to stay at the 4077.Henry: Is this your final decision, Frank?
Frank: Absolutely and irrevocably, yes. I never want to leave here. I'm yours, forever.
Henry: I gotta tell you something, Frank. I've gone to sleep with happier thoughts. - The Tooth Hurts: A particular Running Gag of the episode involving Henry Blake.
- Threat Backfire: Henry is so enraged at Hawkeye and Trapper for playing such a horrendous prank on Frank and Margaret that made them want to leave the unit that he will not take any of their wisecracks. AT ALL!.Henry: Boy, you guys are impossible!
Hawkeye: Well, fire us, Henry! Fire us!
Henry: Listen, big shot, I'm gonna do more than that. I'm gonna do more than that.- Hawkeye and Trapper threaten Radar not to wake them up. He has to, he's under orders.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Unlike most occasions, Henry Blake comes down on Hawkeye and Trapper like a ton of bricks for the recording prank.Henry: It's absolutely inexcusable! You two guys should be sentenced to life in front of a firing squad!
Hawkeye: Really? We got over fifty orders if we can turn it into an album.
Trapper: Something the matter with your mouth, Henry?
Henry: Yeah, there's something the matter with my mouth. I've got a temporary filling in a tooth that's killing me!
Hawkeye: Why don't we go to my dentist in Detroit?
Henry: Boy, you guys just don't get it, do you? Look, the party is over! Now, I'm holding you both directly responsible for this unit losing a fair but competent surgeon, and now its head nurse!
Hawkeye: Hot Lips is leaving?
Henry: She says she's been publicly humiliated.
Hawkeye: Well she has. And to think of all the times I offered to humiliate her privately. - You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Henry bursts out into this when Frank changes his mind about leaving the 4077.
