After his Jeep rolls over, Hawkeye seeks refuge at a Korean family's home. Because he has a head injury, he has to stay awake, and does so with an episode-long monologue.
Attention all personnel! Hawkeye has to stay awake for the following tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: Not knowing his real name (or how to ask), Hawkeye names the Korean father "Farmer Brown".
- Asians Eat Pets: Subverted. When Hawkeye comes back in the tag-scene, he samples of their dinner.Hawkeye: Meat! Where did you get meat? [Beat] Wait, where's the dog? [the dog barks offscreen; Hawkeye visibly relaxes]
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Hawkeye brings gifts for everyone in the family as a thank you for giving him somewhere safe to stay until Radar could get there.
- Bilingual Bonus: The family only speaks Korean. Much of their dialogue consists of insulting him and telling each other what a buffoon he is. For example, just before they have dinner, the father remarks "Would you close your mouth finally so we can eat?"
- Character Focus: No points for guessing who.
- Closest Thing We Got: The family Hawkeye stays with is impoverished, to the point that the father smokes manure instead of tobacco. (Hawkeye brings him some of the latter as a thank-you gift at the episode's end.)
- Friend to All Children: Even though he doesn't speak their language, Hawkeye does his best to be friendly with the kids, even making them a balloon out of a rubber glove he had on him. It's also noteworthy that he crashed the Jeep because he was swerving to avoid the kids when they and their dog ran onto the road.
- Hidden Depths: His monologue reveals a few things about Hawkeye's character, but the most surprising thing is that he knows how to juggle (to the delight of the Korean family).
- Hypocritical Humor: Hawkeye assures the Korean family (and the audience) that it's a myth that someone will die if they fall asleep while they have a concussion. Hawkeye's monologue to keep himself awake has a far firmer basis — namely, that he's afraid he'll die if he falls asleep with a concussion!
- Large Ham: Hawkeye weaponizes his tendency for mania, trying to stay awake. It really comes through that Alda based Hawkeye on the burlesque girls he saw as a kid in this one.
- Shave and a Haircut: When Radar arrives (offscreen) to pick up Hawkeye, he toots out "Shave and a Haircut" on the jeep's horn, announcing that he is American.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: One of the farmer's children managed to get a note to the 4077 (even though they barely seemed to understand) on foot. Their running in is what tells Hawkeye that his ride is there.
- Shout-Out:
- To Lost Horizon. While talking to the family's ox, Hawkeye refers to himself as Ronald Colman (who played lead character Robert Conway in the 1937 Film of the Book) and the ox as Margo. Which leads to this Hurricane of Puns:"I guess you never saw that movie, huh? You probably never see any. You really ought to, y'know. There have been some great ox movies. The Ox-Bow Incident... A Yank at Oxford... The Wizard of Ox... Cow Green Was My Valley... Nah, that's cheap."
- To several Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, including Oklahoma!, The King and I, and South Pacific. Hawkeye also sings a few bars of one of the latter's best-known songs, "Some Enchanted Evening".
- He also imitates Laurence Olivier to recite the opening to Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York."
- To Lost Horizon. While talking to the family's ox, Hawkeye refers to himself as Ronald Colman (who played lead character Robert Conway in the 1937 Film of the Book) and the ox as Margo. Which leads to this Hurricane of Puns:
