The Ringbanger

"The Ringbanger" was episode #16 of the first season of the TV series M*A*S*H. It originally aired on January 21, 1973.

Hawkeye and Trapper try to have Colonel Buzz Brighton (Leslie Nielsen), an officer with a high casualty record, sent back to America by convincing him that he is insane.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

Plot

Hawkeye and Trapper conspire to take down a colonel who has accumulated twice as many casualties while only gaining as much as half of the ground, marking the first of several such attempts from Hawkeye. In an effort to achieve this, they convince him that Frank Burns is a crossdresser and that Henry Blake is an alcoholic who is having a sordid affair with the promiscuous Margaret Houlihan. These stories achieve the purpose of rendering Hawkeye and Trapper the only two people in camp Buzz can be sure are trustworthy. A little manipulation and some conveniently timed events add some apparent proof to these claims. For example, when Buzz is drinking with them in the Swamp, they leave a pair of gold high heeled shoes by Frank's bed. Later, Frank tries to check Buzz's leg to see if it is healing properly, and he is rebuffed by Buzz, who suspects that he has romantic or sexual intentions. When Margaret becomes suspicious, Hawkeye and Trapper tell her that Buzz is suffering from low self-esteem and heavily imply that he needs intimate contact with a woman to prove that he is still a man. While he is alone with Margaret, they get Henry Blake very drunk and give him a pistol (telling him that he needs to undertake an arms proficiency test) and arrange for him to walk in on the two of them and encourage an angry, drunken response.

Throughout the episode, they undertake more subtle measures to try to convince him that, among these people he cannot trust, he is going mad. Such measures include switching his tent, leaving him confused about whether it has been there the whole time, and telling him to drink his glass of milk that he so fervently asked for, despite his never having asked for a glass of milk. At the end, convinced that there must be something wrong with him, Buzz is shipped back stateside.^{[1][3][2][4][5]}

In this episode's tag, Hawkeye makes a reference to "the Dick Haymes look." Haymes was a handsome pop-singer in the 1940s and 50s, primarily remembered for his appearance in the 1945 film State Fair.

Themes and criticism

In Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America, a sociological examination of the TV series M*A*S*H as an illustration of shifting American values in the 1970s and early 1980s, James H. Wittebols notes the negative treatment of homosexuality in this episode (as Hawkeye convinces Brighton that Frank is gay and sexually interested in him). Wittebols also cites this episode as an example of M*A*S*H using overly gung-ho officers as a way to criticize militarism.^[7]

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wittebols, James H. (2003). Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. pp. 161–166. ISBN 0-7864-1701-3. Retrieved 2009-05-15. 
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Episode Guide". TV Guide. Retrieved 2009-05-15. 
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Classic Sitcoms Guide: M*A*S*H". classicsitcoms.com. Retrieved 2009-05-15. 
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "M*A*S*H: Season One (Collector's Edition) (1972)". Digitallyobsessed.com. 
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Reiss, David S. (1983). M*A*S*H: the exclusive, inside story of TV's most popular show. 
6. ↑ Suzy, Kalter (1988). Complete Book of Mash. ISBN 0-8109-8083-5. 
7. ↑ Wittebols, pp. 28, 35

External links

• "The Ringbanger" at the Internet Movie Database