Episode Number 237
First Aired November 1, 1982
Production Code 9B01
Writer Dennis Koenig
Director Charles S. Dubin
Guest Stars: George Wendt (as Pt. La Roche) Richard Lineback (as Pt. Scala) Andrew Dice Clay (as Corporal Hrabosky) James Lough (as Pt. Crotty) Herman Poppe (as M.P.) R.J. Miller (as Graves Registration Driver) Arnold Turner (as Graves Registration Assistant) Arlee Reed (as Soldier) Terry Brannon (as Marine) John Otrin (as Ambulance Attendant)
SynopsisIt's Halloween time at the 4077th and party time at Rosie's. Hawkeye is planning to go to the party as Superman, B.J. as a clown, Klinger as a gangster, Potter, a cowboy, and Hot Lips a geisha girl. Charles doesn't like Halloween, and since he's on duty, he has to go get a billiard ball out of a Marine's mouth. The party is ruined when lots of casualties arrive. The doctors have to call for Father Mulcahy, who is at the orphanage for a Halloween party there, because a solider is brought in dead. Col. Potter tries to explain to Charles that Halloween is about getting scared, not partying. He starts off a flurry of ghost stories with his story about his wife Mildred having a dream in 1939 about her brother Calvin coming into her room sitting on her bed, and shaking his head at her kind of sadly; the next morning, she learns her brother had succumbed to a heart attack. The generator then goes half-power and more causalities show up, some of them drunks from Rosie's. Hawkeye regales a tale of his uncle following a ship, The Luck Of The Irish, into safe port, and then watching the ship sail back out to sea; the uncle then finds out that The Luck Of The Irish sank over 20 years ago. And then, even more casualties come. The dead man is still lying on the ground, but he really isn't dead, his hand twitches right as he is covered by a sheet. Margaret tells a story about a woman taking a picture of her husbands car wreck, and when the film is developed, her husband is standing there, wearing the suit she bought for his funeral. The not-so-dead man is finally loaded into a truck by Graves Registration men while Hawkeye tries to get a malnourished soldier, Scala, to eat.
Scala has his own ghost story to tell: he confesses to Hawkeye that all his soldier friends (Bertelson, Wooster and Greenway) were killed while he was in the chow line getting food, so he stopped eating because, if he hadn't been such a pig, he would have died with his friends and wouldn't have to live with the memory of seeing their dead, surprised faces. Hawkeye arranges plans to call for Sidney Freeman and Father Mulcahy arrives from the orphanage. On learning of the dead (?) soldier from Hawk and that he was (is?!) Catholic, Father wishes to give him Last Rites, and stops the men from Graves Registration just as they haul the corpse (?!!) away. While administering The Rites, the man sheds a tear and Father Mulcahy yells for Hawkeye. The soldier was never dead to begin with, but with more holes in him than a golf course and being with no pulse and no heartbeat, the people at the battallion aid station he was brought to passed him on as dead to the 4077th. And the people at the 4077th, after they see the toe-tag on a man, they take it to mean he is dead and don't bother seeing if he is or isn't! Everyone is amazed at the soldier coming back from the dead and Col. Potter congratulates Father Mulcahy on saving a life. Charles is frightened out of his wits when the his lamp starts to move on its own! In reality its only B.J. pulling on a string that is attached to the lamp and brought around the tent to B.J.'s hand.
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