User Reviews

The crew is getting ready for a big gambling party when the fleet arrives on Mother's Day, said to be about a week away. They are making all sorts of food to serve and setting up various gambling tables, and have even sent out printed invitations to get the word out.

While this goes on, Parker is purposely left alone in Binghamton's office while the captain handles some duties. Chuck sets at the captain's desk and starts playing around with his dictograph. He pretends to be sending a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, suggesting it would be a great morale booster if the Navy would arrange for mothers of a given crew, suggesting the 73, to be flown in to visit their sons on Mother's Day. Before Chuck can have a chance to erase his recorded dictation, Binghamton returns.

Unseen, we understand that his aide types up all the dictation, pays no attention to the fact that the voice on one of the several letters is not the captain's, and has Binghamton sign, without reading, the letters and that letter gets sent to the Secretary without the captain, or Parker, knowing it.

We see an aide in Washington, a Captain Bryce, being told on the phone that the Secretary likes the idea and he is ordered to make it happen. Since it was short notice, they were only able to get three of the mothers-Gruber's, Tinker's, and Parker's-and Binghamton has trouble pretending with Bryce that he knows what his letter was all about. Of course, Binghamton is sure McHale did this through forging his name.

With the crew expecting dozens of sailors and marines to come to their little island casino, they suddenly have to hide the gambling devices and welcome the three mothers. The three women who play the mothers are all quite funny, including Naomi Stevens, who I learned from IMDB, is actually 8 years younger than Carl Ballantine, who played her son. Just remember that Ballantine was playing a character supposedly many years younger than the actor was.

Mrs. Gruber wants to play matchmaker with anyone and everyone. She asks Binghamton is he is married. He says he is and she laments, "Too bad...I have just the girl for you." In fact, a funny bit at the end has Fuji asking how long the skipper thinks the war will last, because Mrs. Gruber told him she has the perfect girl for him. (I should mention they pass off Fuji as being Filipino to the mothers.)

McHale even gets the visiting servicemen to go along with this mother's day celebration-while the captain and other brass are around-so they are doing simple things like playing bingo and dancing with the mothers when Binghamton and Bryce and his photographer return, not the gambling Binghamton thinks he can catch them playing.

If this was supposed to be a realistic, serious program, such as The Waltons or Law & Order, we would reject this whole thing as preposterous. There's no way the Navy would send three mothers of sailors half-way around the world directly into a war zone where an enemy attack was always possible. And the timing-it was only supposed to be a week before Mother's Day that Parker dictated his "letter," and I doubt a letter Binghamton sent out from their little base near Australia would have ever arrived in Washington in time for them to arrange for the mothers to get there on Mother's Day, as depicted.

But you often in series like this, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres, Seinfeld, have to accept a totally unbelievable premise to enjoy an episode. It works fine as long as the actions of the characters are otherwise realistic-which they are here.

I agree with the other reviewer, kfo...., that my favorite scene was when they had the photographer taking pictures of the mothers with their sons. Two times McHale is posing with one of his men and his mother and Binghamton jumps into the picture and literally pushes McHale out of the frame just as the picture is being taken. The third time, McHale is not in sight, and Binghamton instinctively makes a pushing gesture toward where McHale had been standing in the previous photo scenes.

To me, that raised my score from a 9 to a 10-a memorably hilarious episode.