Just noticed a pretty glaring continuity error, probably the only big one in the series.
Alex Corey (Jeff Allin) tells version one: Father McCabe
died while posing for his portrait.
Recently, I was browsing the Wikipedia entry for the show King of the Hill when I came across the term "retcon", which I had never heard before, but which refers to a phenomenon with which I am familiar. "Retcon", a verb, is a portmanteau of the term "retroactive continuity", which refers to "the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work."
St. Elsewhere pulled a pretty big retcon, and I'm glad they did. In the third season episode, "Give the Boy a Hand", we are introduced to one of my favorite recurring characters, local artist Alex Corey (Jeff Allin). Alex has been hired to paint a portrait of St. Eligius's Chief of Services, Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), to celebrate his long tenure as the hospital's head administrator. The portrait is to hang in the chapel alongside that of Father Joseph McCabe, who founded the hospital in 1934, according to this scene.
I watched St. Elsewhere's seasons in reverse order on the Prime cable channel back in the nineties, and until I saw this episode, I had wondered just how the hell this guy ended up painting Dr. Auschlander's portrait, judging by his three subsequent appearances. Alex Corey is a very serious artist. He resents the assignment, and he's not shy about sharing his feelings. His father painted the portrait of Father McCabe, so he was given the job. In between gripes, he tells Dr. Auschlander that his father was amazed at how perfectly still Father McCabe could sit. That is, until the elder Corey discovered that his subject had died.
This version of events stands until the following season, when the history of St. Eligius was explored in the multiple-Emmy-winning two-part episode, "Time Heals". It starts off with a flashback to the hospital's grand opening in 1935. We learn that Father McCabe, rather than dying in his chair as an old man posing for his portrait, departed the hospital in 1955, dismissed after the hospital was sold to the City by the Catholic diocese, and was re-assigned to Arizona. Edward Herrmann earned an Emmy nomination for his guest appearance as Father McCabe.
Father McCabe (Edward Herrmann) is still alive, though
not exactly kicking, one year later.
Father McCabe returns in the season five premiere, "Where There's Hope, There's Crosby", so there's no doubt that his presumed demise in season three has been re-written. He comes to St. Eligius from Arizona suffering from ALS and about to take up residence in a nursing home. He is paralyzed, depressed, and he wants to be euthanized until he is inspired to carry on by a heartwarming encounter with Dr. Westphall's autistic son, Tommy.
These days, I'm accustomed to having back episodes of my favorite TV series at my fingertips, so I have to think back to my younger days to remember how they used to broadcast network TV shows. A few new episodes, then a rerun or two, either from a previous season or the current one. They'd spread out the twenty-two episodes from September to May. You'd see the old episodes again, but few people had VCRs back then, so it wasn't like you were expected to go back and look up what happened.
So I'm thinking stuff like this wasn't as big a deal back then, unless you were an obsessive detail hound like me. I feel the poetic license was justified in this case. Edward Herrmann as Father McCabe is a great addition to the show's mythology. After "Time Heals", they changed the portrait of Father McCabe in the chapel to resemble Herrmann. It's clear that the "Time Heals" version is the preferred version of events.
Update, February 1, 2014: Spotted another one... In season two's "Vanity", the voice-over in the TV documentary on Dr. Craig mentions that St. Eligius became a public hospital in the late forties. That got re-written in "Time Heals" as well.
Drs. Westphall and Auschlander regard the original portrait
of Father McCabe in "Breathless".
Update, February 21, 2014: The Father McCabe story actually changed twice, I've discovered. Early in season three, in the fifth episode, "Breathless", Daniel is in the chapel communing with the portrait of Father McCabe (he feels remorse over his handling of the nurses' strike and discovering that longtime maintenance supervisor Rawly Moreland is suffering from asbestosis from working at St. Eligius) when Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) enters.
Daniel asks Donald if he ever met the man, and Donald says 'no'. (In "Time Heals"--Father McCabe is a mentor to the troubled young Westphall.) Then he states that McCabe founded the hospital in 1932.
Ah, things were so much simpler before we had all this digitization!
Elliott meets Mrs. Hufnagel's son, Alvin, and bids her a final farewell with a burial at sea.
Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) brings mirth to a
grieving Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd),
with some help from Gary Larson.
At last, we've reached the final chapter in the saga of Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop), St. Eligius's most memorable patient. Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst), is a carrying the box that contains her ashes, which Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) assumes contains cookies. After Elliott explains what the box is for, Wayne tries to convince Elliott that his obligation as a doctor ends when the patient dies, but Elliott feels bad for the medical mismanagement that led to her demise, and he feels that she deserves to have her burial wishes carried out with respect. Elliott intends to have a memorial service in the chapel and bury her at sea, to which Wayne responds by suggesting he just flush her down the toilet.
In the chapel, Elliott is having a solitary moment of remembrance for his departed patient when he is joined in the chapel by a despondent Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd). Auschlander is mourning the death of his old friend, Dr. George Wyler, who was featured in a three-episode arc earlier in the season. Dr. Wyler was a Nobel-winning humanitarian who worked in Africa, but ran afoul of the government in his adopted homeland, and returned there knowing that the consequences would be dire. And lo, they were--he was greeted with a hail of machine-gun fire. During George's visit to St. Eligius, he and Daniel shared some meaningful moments while playing the chapel's organ, so it was a fitting place for Daniel to mourn his old friend. Elliott approaches, and can't but giggle at the Far Side comic in the newspaper sitting on the organ ("The real reason dinosaurs became extinct"), which brings a smile to both their faces.
Alvin Hufnagel (Boyd Bodwell) bids his mother a curt
farewell before kicking his guests out of his new apartment.
Wayne and Elliott then pay a visit to Mrs. Hufnagel's apartment, which Elliott has inherited. Wayne discovers a personally autographed photo of Bobby Orr, and Elliott explains that she was a season ticket holder to the Bruins; however, the seats have been left to Ernest Borgnine. (Wayne feels that Fuji was the real star of McHale's Navy.) He finds a baseball glove that was given to her by Ted Williams, which tells Wayne he can keep. Elliott is planning on selling the stuff, or giving it away, with the exception of the gerbil, which has joined its owner in the great beyond. Then there's a knock on the door. It's Alvin Hufnagel (Boyd Bodwell), who immediately recognizes his glove in Wayne's hands. He gives Elliott a particularly dirty look.
After playing with the dead gerbil, Alvin gets down to business. "You stole mother's affection," he accuses Elliott. Elliott tries to explain how they bonded over the death of Murray Robbin, but Alvin is convinced that he deliberately charmed the old woman with the intent of being included in her will. He's hurt that she didn't leave him anything, but he's a little too sensitive to hear Wayne's criticism about never having visited. When he calms down, Alvin has to admit that they didn't get along. Elliott tries to make Alvin feel better by giving him the computer, but the dejected son wants everything, which the good-hearted Dr. Axelrod concedes without a fight. He invites Alvin along for the burial, but he's not interested, and wishes her a terse, "Goodbye, Mother."
Elliott delivers Mrs. Hufnagel to her final resting place.
In a moving final scene, Elliott delivers what he hopes are appropriate final words, from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake:
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble in the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!
He pours out her ashes, and bids a final "Goodbye, Mrs. Hufnagel," before tossing the rose from his lapel in the water.
And so ends the saga of Florence Hufnagel, ashes to ashes, dust to dust:
There's one last bit of Hufnagel mythology left over. In the season six episode, "Night of the Living Bed", which aired three days before Halloween, 1987, Mrs. Hufnagel is believed by many at St. Eligius to be making her presence known once more. The room where she died seems to be haunted, its lights and TV flicking on and off on their own. Eventually, the bed starts shaking, the floor starts shaking, and the floor opens up and pulls the bed down with it. But it turns out not to be a haunting--the magnetism from the new MRI machine installed on the floor beneath was just too much for the old facility to handle.
So that doesn't quite count as another appearance. As the Gluck family always said: "it is better to be despised than forgotten."
Mrs. Hufnagel is gone but not forgotten as Elliott meets with her lawyer, who is settling her estate.
Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) admires Dr. Elliott
Axelrod's (Stephen Furst) size 10EEE wingtips.
The nineteenth installment in the saga of Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop), the late doctor-tormentor extraordinaire, is much shorter than the previous two installments, but even though the sickly old woman has left the corporeal realm, she still manages to impose on the staff of St. Eligius.
Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) is dressed in a suit, which the wise-cracking Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) comments upon by asking "who died?"
"Mrs. Hufnagel," Elliott deadpans, explaining that the lawyer handling the late patient's estate asked to meet him that night. Elliott is expecting to have been willed something, to which Victor warns, "Whatever it is, you don't want it. The old bat didn't own anything, a ham radio, a couple of gerbils, maybe..." But the goodhearted Axelrod still thinks it pays to be nice to patients.
Elliott meets with Bradford Norton (Michael Fox), senior partner of the law firm Norton & Inch, which had represented the family since Goody Gluck's first Salem Witch trial. It turns out the only beneficiaries named in Mrs. Hufnagel's will were Elliott and a reptile park. Mrs. Hufnagel, ever the early adopter of technology, recorded a video will, enabling Florence Halop to make one final appearance on the show.
Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) leaves Elliott with words
of wisdom: "Try not to use me as a benchmark to judge
other women."
Never one to miss the opportunity to cut someone down, she acknowledges that it must have been hard for Elliott to make friends with "that Mack truck tire around your waist." In a classic comedy device, she accuses Elliott of having a schoolboy crush on her, and when he protests that he didn't, she correctly predicts on video that he would complain, and responds from the beyond "You did, too! Shut up, chubs." But she liked that he cared about her, and that he cried on her shoulder when Murray died. She leaves him with the Gluck family creed--"It is better to be despised than forgotten."
Then they get down to business--her estate was worth $250,000. Elliott gets everything left after $75,000 goes to Earl's Reptile Park, and they deduct medical bills, mortgage costs, gambling debts, helicopter rentals ("Florence was quite an aviatrix"), state and federal inheritance taxes, and legal fees resulting from "a regrettably undecided lawsuit against American Samoa." That leaves $137.65 for Elliott, which should be enough to cover the boat rental and a breakfast special, as he has been entrusted with disposing of her ashes at sea.
Here's Mrs. Hufnagel's final appearance on St. Elsewhere, in "Tears of a Clown":
I've left in the final shot which includes a glimpse at the relationship between Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse) and his college-student girlfriend Clancy Williams (Helen Hunt), who has been reduced to being his babysitter now that Jack has to redo med school on top of his duties as a resident. The argument that erupts in this scene leads to the end of their relationship. I love St. Elsewhere's long, continuous shots that would flow into the next scene.
Other trivia:
The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692. It has been established that Gluck family (Hufnagel is her married name) came to America shortly after the Mayflower, which made the passage in 1620. Goody would have been lucky to have legal representation, as most accused were not afforded the opportunity. The Trials forced the legal system in the new colony to tighten up its game, like not allowing testimony involving specters as evidence, requiring proof and not just hearsay, etc.
Mrs. Hufnagel checks out of St. Eligius one last time, and William Daniels picks up an Emmy.
"Cretan" Nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge) tries to fix
the bed for Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop).
In Edward Copeland's 30th anniversary retrospective, this section covers the show's most memorable recurring character, the acid-tongued patient who just wouldn't go away, Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop). The show's writers had come to love writing the "Hufnagel Spot" in each episode, delighting in spinning out insult after insult at the expense of the show's main characters.
At this point, she's been re-admitted at least six times, each time with a more serious ailment. But the show's medical adviser insisted that in real life, a patient spending that much time at a hospital would have one of two fates: either she'd get better and be gone for good, or she'd succumb to her illness(es), and be gone for good. Left to the whims of St. Elsewhere's writers, the choice was clear.
In "Murder, She Rote", Mrs Hufnagel is recovering from open-heart surgery to repair an aneurysm. She buzzes the nurses' station, where Nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge) is loath to answer yet another call from the abrasive patient. Hufnagel had been trying to adjust the bed so she could sit up, but like most things at St. Eligius, the bed malfunctioned. In her annoyance, she addresses Lucy as "cretin," but then covers by claiming she was referring to Nurse Papandrao's ethnicity, as her descendants hailed from the Isle of Crete. After calling the Greeks "a distrustful lot" and getting a shot in at Aristotle Onassis, Mrs. Hufnagel does something uncharacteristic: she thanks Lucy for the help.
Her bed has malfunctioned again, this time at the foot end, when Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) arrives to check up on the post-op patient. You know she's not doing well when she mistakes the pale blond doctor for his colleague, Dr. Philip Chandler (Denzel Washington), and says her chest feels "like Buddy Rich's snare drum." Victor needs to check her potassium levels, but Hufnagel refuses to be pricked with a needle, and then confuses her doctor for a former regular customer at the diner she owned with her husband (called Flo & Eddie's). She complains about the food, which she claims is causing the bubbles in her head (like Lawrence Welk). Ehrlich, already late for rounds, loses his last shred of patience and leaves, her potassium levels unchecked.
Luther (Eric Laneuville) finds no pulse, and St. Eligius claims
another victim.
Once again, we see Nurse Papandrao get another buzz from Hufnagel's room, but this time she ignores it. Orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville) is making the rounds, collecting garbage. This sets up one of St. Elsewhere's most memorable images -- this time, her bed malfunctioned on both ends, and she's trapped in the folded-up bed. But she's not moving. Luther checks her pulse and her arm goes limp, call button still in hand. Finding no heartbeat, he calls a code.
When we return from the act break, it's official -- after 17 episodes and 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, Mrs. Hufnagel is dead. On the way to the morgue, Luther informs Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels) that one of his patients has passed away. When Luther explains that her cardiac arrest may have been triggered when she was swallowed up by the bed, Chief of Services Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) can't help but burst into laughter. Dr. Craig doesn't find losing a patient so funny. Director of Medicine Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) agrees that the case had been manhandled from the start, but Craig goes a step further -- she "was murdered, same as if she'd been knifed in an alley," and he is determined to see that the guilty parties pay.
In surgery, Dr. Craig tells Ehrlich that he didn't see notes on Hufnagel's chart and informs him that she died ("with a snarl on her face...crushed by her bed like a clam," adds anesthesiologist Dr. Vijay Kochar (Kavi Raz)). Craig doesn't accept Victor's excuses for not cutting through his patient's anxiety and checking her potassium levels, and Craig hasn't ruled out Kochar as a suspect, either. He warns them that they'd better have their alibis together at the mortality conference.
Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels) doesn't appreciate the
conclusion that Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) has
reached.
Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) and an unnamed pathologist perform Hufnagel's autopsy, and Jackie admits that for the first time, she doesn't care about a patient dying. She has found what likely caused her cardiac arrest -- the papillary muscle ruptured. When she reminds Dr. Craig that he nicked it during surgery, distracted by Ehrlich whining about cake frosting, he is aghast at the suggestion that he had made such an error. He insists that it must have been a pre-existing defect, and that the post-op notes he dictated after the procedure will reveal the truth (in his mind, that it must have been Wade who did it).
Later in his office, he listens to the tape. After jumping ahead a few times, he hears his own voice say the words he didn't want to hear: "detected small surgical nick on the mitral papillary muscle..." After ducking a phone call and re-listening a couple of times, he pulls the cassette out of the tape recorder and destroys it. He tries to go about his work, but he can't forget what happened.
The mortality conference begins, and Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) feels like she's in an Agatha Christie novel where everyone is a suspect. Ehrlich offers remorse for ignoring Mrs. Hufnagel's distress when he last saw her, but Dr. Craig is unusually forgiving (though he does tell Kochar, a frequent target of his abuse, to "book a passage to India"). After Dr. Chandler presents the first case, the matter of Mrs. Hufnagel's death is raised. Mark insists on handling it himself.
Here's the clip of Mrs. Hufnagel's blackly-comic end, Dr. Craig's determination to find who's to blame, and (at the thirteen-minute mark) the mortality conference where he must face the music.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 1985 Emmy winner for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, William Daniels.
What I love about this story is that Dr. Craig insisted that he would give hell to whomever was responsible, and despite his ego, he holds true to his word. He may be brutal and demanding, but I have to respect him for eventually fessing up and holding himself to the same standard he holds others.
Some trivia, and by "trivia", and I mean trivial... The case Dr. Chandler presents at the mortality conference refers to the death of one Jeffrey Sagansky, a 32-year-old executive who collapsed in his screening room on Friday night between 8 and 10. I did a bit of research to figure out this joke.
Jeff Altman, Mitsuyo Nemoto and Keiko Masuda, a.k.a. Pink Lady and Jeff. Anyone know which one is Mie and
which one is Kei?
Tartikoff and company had their misses, too (like Manimal, or the decision to cancel Buffalo Bill). One of those weak spots was NBC's 1984-85 Friday night schedule, which featured two new series: the sci-fi fantasy V from 8 to 9, and the violent police action-drama Hunter from 9 to 10. V turned out to be a major flop with critics and viewers--not good when you're making the most expensive series ever produced at the time, at a cost of one million dollars per episode (and yet still filling it out with stock footage).
Hunter had the misfortune of being scheduled against CBS's juggernaut Dallas, but halfway through the year, executive producer Stephen J. Cannell held a private screening of an unaired two-part episode for Tartikoff in an effort to convince him that the show needed more time to attract viewers. The network boss agreed, put the show on hiatus for two months, and brought it back on Saturday nights, where ratings slowly began to climb. The following year, the show was retooled and became even more popular, and it stayed on the air for seven seasons.
I'm guessing the in-joke is that the writers felt that Sagansky's position at NBC became untenable after Cannell convinced Tartikoff that Hunter deserved another chance in a better time slot, coupled with the disaster that was V, or something like that. Things worked out just fine for Sagansky, though; he left to become President of Production and later President of TriStar Entertainment.
One of my goals with this blog is to tell the stories behind these quirky, arcane references. Why? Because I can. Thank you, Internet.
Mrs. Hufnagel offers her opinion of her new doctor, Dr. Mark Craig, and agrees to open heart surgery.
Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) doesn't think much of
Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels) and his family life.
In the last post, I mentioned that the encounter between Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) and Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) was a candidate for my favorite Hufnagel scene. One of the other top contenders is this one, where she gives the straight dope to Chief of Surgery and cardiac specialist, Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels). As fans will remember, Dr. Craig is the most abrasive, arrogant, and short-tempered doctor at St. Eligius. He demands perfection from others, and does not suffer fools gladly. That's what makes it especially delicious when he meets his match in the small, elderly woman with an acid tongue.
In this episode, "Amazing Face", Mrs. Hufnagel meets her new physician in the midst of her attempt to communicate with her dear departed love Murray Robbin in the afterlife through automatic writing. Dr. Craig tries to explain the results of her tests, but she starts in with the personal attacks right away. Once again, the St. Eligius grapevine has provided her with the latest goings-on. "What do you know about communicating with loved ones? Running your own brother out of town the way you did." Four episodes earlier, in "Saving Face", Mark's brother Billy attended the party for the Craigs' 30th anniversary, but Mark embarrassed him in front of everyone, and Billy left in the middle of the night.
Craig tells her that she needs a coronary bypass, but she doesn't want to have surgery. "I've seen the scars you guys make. Andy Warhol might like his, but not this chick." Despite Craig's explanations, she's not interested, not even if he won the Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award, which she discovered by snooping around his office. Craig asks her what she was doing in his office to see the plaster cast of his hands which serves as the trophy. Her response is one of the greatest Hufnagel lines: "I'm surprised they let you keep them, after Eve Leighton's heart went back to Nina."
Dr. Craig reacts to a comment that landed below the belt.
I love William Daniels's subtle eyebrow acting.
Early in season two, Mark had a cardiac patient who needed a heart transplant, Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer). When a donor heart finally became available, it turned out to be from Nina Morrison (Deborah White), whom we had got to know in season one as the wife of Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse). She died of a brain injury after a fall in the bathtub. That comment crosses the line for Dr. Craig, who tells her she'd better have the surgery or she'll be talking to Murray Robbin face to face, but not before Hufnagel gets a dig in about his inability to satisfy his wife. (Mark and Ellen Craig's sex life dried up for six months in season two, the result of Mark's guilt over his affair with a visiting Hungarian surgeon in season one.)
Later, Craig complains to Westphall about him dumping "that Hufnagel creature" on him. I've left in the part where Mark comments on the attractiveness of Captain Gloria Neal (Betty White), the old friend of Donald's who made herself available to him a couple of times, most recently as a member of the White House staff in the previous episode, "Red, White, Black and Blue". We then see Mrs. Hufnagel pay a visit to the O.R., where she tells Dr. Craig that she'll go through with the surgery. She takes the initiative to check out a surgical procedure with her own eyes before experiencing it for herself, but gets the heave-ho from Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.).
Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) complains about the
preferential treatment he feels is being given to Dr. Jacqueline
Wade (Sagan Lewis).
Knowing that Hufnagel will be going under the knife, budding surgeons Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis), who would normally be clamoring for the opportunity to assist Dr. Craig in surgery, do their best to make the case that the other is more deserving of the privilege. It's all for nothing, as Dr. Craig asks them both to participate. During the procedure, Victor complains that Jackie is getting to do everything at his expense. He's still sore about growing up as a middle child, and feels that favoritism is at play. Dr. Craig gets annoyed with Ehrlich (as he usually does), and in his distraction, he makes a cut that nicks the mitral papillary muscle, as Dr. Wade observes. Victor apologizes for his conduct, but gets in one last insensitive joke.
After surgery, orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville) helps Ehrlich and anesthesiologist Dr. Vijay Kochar (Kavi Raz) wheel an unconscious Hufnagel towards her post-op destination, and is delighted to learn that she will be unable to speak for at least a day.
Here's Mrs. Hufnagel in "Amazing Face":
Other observations:
The Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award is an ongoing joke throughout all six seasons of St. Elsewhere. He receives it in the fifth episode of the first season, "Samuels and the Kid", and it gets broken several times throughout the series. I will be tracing those on my next run through the show. It also serves as a crossover point for St. Elsewhere and Chicago Hope, on which Dr. Kathryn Austin (Christine Lahti) won the same award, which is fictional. This page from Thom Holbrook's Crossover and Spinoff Pages tells the story.
The episode titles with the word 'Face' in them are references to the continuing story where plastic surgeon Dr. Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon) performs radical surgery on facial fibromatosis patient Andrea Fordham (Ann Hearn), who now must adjust to life as a non-disfigured person.
Dr. Westphall reviews the Hufnagel case and finds her medical care inadequate, but he soon discovers the rest of the story.
Per the patient's wishes, Paramedic Faith Yee (Christina
Kokubo) skips the E.R. and brings Mrs. Hufnagel
(Florence Halop) straight to the ward.
If I had to pick my favorite Mrs. Hufnagel appearance, this one, from the episode, "Red, White, Black and Blue", would be the one of the top contenders. Paramedic Faith Yee (Christina Kokubo) wheels a gurney towards the nurses' station. Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) directs her to the E.R., where new admissions are supposed to go, but Faith says that the patient insisted. It's Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop), admitted with symptoms of myocardial infarction, and she wants to skip ahead and go straight to her room. Jackie agrees to admit her. Mrs Hufnagel has clearly learned how to work the system, ensuring she gets the side of the building with optimal radio reception.
Later, Dr. Wade presents the case to the Director of Medical Education, Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders). After a round of groans and comments from the other residents, Wade describes how the patient has been re-admitted several times, each time with a more serious condition. Westphall reviews Hufnagel's chart and discovers that different doctors had prescribed medications that combined to create a blood clot and cause an aneurysm to form in her heart, and because of the residents' medical mismanagement, the patient is now seriously ill. He chastises them for not caring and ends up taking the case himself.
Drs. Chandler, Ehrlich, Axelrod and Wade (L-R Denzel
Washington, Ed Begley, Jr., Stephen Furst, Sagan Lewis)
realize the seriousness of Mrs. Hufnagel's medical
mistreatment.
When he arrives at Mrs Hufnagel's room, she is in the middle of fielding an obscene phone call, which she plays along with willingly until the caller gets into the "rough stuff." Hufnagel recognizes Westphall as the "high muckety-muck," and when he informs her of his official title, she balks, "you call what goes on here 'medicine'?" He tries to sympathize, but she soon demonstrates her uncanny ability to seize upon someone's insecurities and turn them into the focal point of the conversation. This exchange is worth typing out.
"The one thing that worries me about dying," she explains, "is being alone. See, I've got nobody. I live alone...just like you. I mean, your wife's dead, you got a daughter in college somewhere, and that retarded kid, boy, that's...that's a kick in the shorts. You poor fellow. The thing I can't figure out is how they can let you run a hospital."
"What do you mean?" Westphall asks.
"You're a jinx!"
"Mrs. Hufnagel..." Donald tries to cut in, but is interrupted.
"Come to think of it, this whole place is jinxed. Auschlander's about ready to kick the bucket; Morrison got his degree from a cracker jack box; Rosenthal isn't exactly symmetrical; Ehrlich, he's got bad luck in his genes...and behind those sensible wrinkles in your forehead, your life's a mess."
And that's all Donald can take. He drops her chart off at the nurses' station, and instructs the nurse to notify Dr. Craig that he will be taking over Hufnagel's case.
Other stuff:
Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) learns firsthand why
the doctors won't treat Mrs. Hufnagel.
I love the reactions on the doctors' faces as they hear about the illnesses that have befallen Mrs. Hufnagel, and each physician remembers that they were the one who treated her for that particular ailment. Their guilt makes it so much funnier when Westphall gets the Hufnagel treatment himself.
In an episode prior to this one, Donald's daughter Lizzie came back home, wanting to drop out of Vassar, but he sent her back in her own best interest, despite missing her and his autistic son Tommy, whom Donald sent to live in a group home after he became unmanageable. Notice how his face drops when she mentions Lizzie.
"Rosenthal isn't exactly symmetrical" -- Nurse Helen Rosenthal (Christina Pickles) found a lump in her breast in season one, and had a mastectomy.
In case you didn't remember what this exchange was about... Before Jackie presents her case, we hear Wayne talk to Phil about his former girlfriend, Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry). "It was weird...Shirley acted like everything was great...she was too up." Shirley is out on bail, facing trial for murdering Dr. Peter White (Terence Knox), the St. Eligius rapist from season two. She wants to plead guilty, proud of what she did. Not long after this scene, she returns to work in the E.R. and pulls a gun on a patient and Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse). It's not a real gun , but we don't know that until after she pulls the trigger. ("Can't anyone around here take a joke?" she responds before walking out.) She makes one more appearance after that, as a prisoner returning to St. Eligius for medical treatment in season five.
I enjoy how well Faith Yee takes the "Suzie Wong" nickname that Hufnagel has bestowed upon her.
The fifteenth installment of the continuing adventures of St. Eligius's most difficult patient, from the episode "Any Portrait in a Storm", begins with an introduction to happy-go-lucky telephone installer Tony Clifton (John Corey), who is using gerbils to run cable through St. Eligius's ducts. He draws the ire of short-tempered ward nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge), then informs her that one of his rodent employees is missing.
I've also left in one of St. Elsewhere's greatest meta gags. Orderly Warren Coolidge (Byron Stewart) moved from Los Angeles to Boston to play college basketball, but he blew out his knee and ended up working at St. Eligius. Television viewers first knew Warren when he was a star high school player on the CBS drama, The White Shadow (1978-81), an MTM production created by St. Elsewhere executive producer Bruce Paltrow. Timothy Van Patten played teammate Mario "Salami" Pettrino, so when Warren sees Dean, the drug dealer/hustler boyfriend of a coke-addicted pregnant fourteen-year-old, who happens to be played by Van Patten, he thinks he's seeing his fellow Carver High alum and calls out to him.. Dean replies, "you've got the wrong guy, pal." Warren stands confused for a moment, then walks away singing "Purple Haze" to himself: "things they don't seem the same."
Warren Coolidge (Byron Stewart) thinks he's spotted his old Carver High teammate (Timothy Van Patten).
Mrs. Hufnagel is once again keeping herself occupied with her ham radiowhen Clifton's runaway employee ends up in her room, and the two hit it off over their shared enthusiasm for gerbils (Tony's are named Ike and Tina). Nurse Papandrao arrives with an IV ordered by Dr. Chandler, and Hufnagel has taken it upon herself to monitor the hospital's charges, having already run up quite a few bills in her previous visits. Papandrao explains that she doesn't need to do that--the hospital tracks billable expenses by placing stickers on a chart on the back of the door. The enlightened patient then takes it upon herself to do some creative accounting.
Later, we rejoin Mrs. Hufnagel in the hospital's financial department, where she has kept a beleaguered administrator long past the end of her shift by refusing to pay charges for items she doesn't feel justified paying for. Chief of Services Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) arrives to settle the dispute.
After calling Auschlander "Jeeves," she once again demonstrates her uncanny ability to hit someone where it hurts when she recognizes him as the guy whose portrait in the "rogues gallery" (actually, the hospital's chapel, where his portrait will be hung next to that of Father McCabe, the hospital's founder, hence the title of the episode) made him look like "death warmed over." Auschlander had been in a particularly cranky mood over the idea and process of having his portrait painted.
Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) counts out the Benjamins as Mrs. Hufnagel pays her bill.
She asks him why she has to pay for things like surgical gloves (which she doesn't even wear) and rubbing alcohol (for that kind of money, they could have used Chivas). Auschlander inquires about her payment options, and we learn that Hufnagel doesn't believe in medical insurance, and when he asks about Medicare, she replies, "A senior citizen with the big C and you're beatng the drum for Medicare? Doesn't cover diddly-squat."
But for all her haggling over the bill, we find out that it's not because she can't afford it. Quite the contrary--her father sold short before the Great Depression, and she's got enough to cover her costs...in cash. The look on Norman Lloyd's face as he counts out the hundreds along with her is hilarious.
Here's Mrs. Hufnagel in "Any Portrait in a Storm":
Observations & trivia:
The callsign Mrs. Hufnagel uses here is Kilo-Alpha-Six-Zulu-Golf-Bravo, or KA6ZGB. You can hear the voice on the radio say "El Salvador." Last time, in "Give the Boy a Hand", she called, "come in, KA6ZGZ." That was the callsign for her compadre in Puerto Rico. The last few letters of a callsign in amateur radio are unique to operators, while the letters at the beginning indicate location.
This is a great episode for commentary on health care costs. Edward Copeland assembled an excellent video essay on St. Elsewhere's treatment of money in medicine in his 30th anniversary retrospective at PressPlay.
The use of the name "Tony Clifton" is a tribute to the recently departed Andy Kaufman (who died of cancer in 1984).
Mrs. Hufnagel needs gallbladder surgery, but she insists on a new physician when she meets Dr. Chandler.
Ham radio enthusiast Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop)
assumes that Dr. Philip Chandler is an orderly.
In her previous appearance, Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) had been discharged from St. Eligius, but a visit from Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) and his gift of a baked ham for his former patient aggravated her gallbladder symptoms and landed her back in the hospital. In "Give the Boy a Hand", her case has been assigned to Dr. Philip Chandler (Denzel Washington). Mrs. Hufnagel, whose racial insensitivity had been established in her first appearance, is trying to get a signal on her ham radio to connect with her compadre in Puerto Rico. Phil enters, but she assumes he's an orderly and asks him to adjust her antenna.
When he explains that he's her new doctor, she's not having it, and insists on someone else. Phil asks her why, and she's not shy about her reason: "You're colored." While conceding that Phil is a snazzy dresser, and despite learning that he went to Yale, Hufnagel is wary of his credentials, as he was likely put through due to affirmative action. Phil defends himself--he graduated pre-med Summa cum Laude with a distinction in biochemistry, his grade point average was 3.9, and he finished in the top 2% of his class at Yale. Her dismissive, racist, yet hilarious reply: "Go tell it on the mountain."
Dr. Chandler handles Mrs. Hufnagel's (Florence Halop)
racially-insensitive remarks with class as only Denzel can.
Her colicystitis requires surgery, and all the physician has to do is see her through post-op follow-up, but when he asks his colleagues Axelrod, Fiscus (Howie Mandel) and Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) to help him out and take over his case, he gets a sharp rebuke from the three doctors who have already done a few rounds with St. Eligius's most infamous patient. So, with the other doctors "too chicken" to take her on, she warms up to her latest physician. She's in good spirits after her operation, especially pleased the whiz of a surgeon was Asian.
It occurs to me now that not everyone might find such overt racism as funny as I do, but if you've got the kind of sensibilities that led you to watch and enjoy St. Elsewhere, then you'd probably get why it's funny coming out of this abrasive, old woman. Things have changed a lot since then. I haven't interacted with an overt bigot in a long time myself.
Despite her racial insensitivity, she's friendlier to Phil than all the other doctors except Dr. Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon). I think she respects people who stand up to her (or in Caldwell's case, those who charm her). Or maybe she just likes the good-looking ones.
Some other observations:
Chandler says he has taken over her case from Dr. Po, who has been called out of town. We met Dr. Alan Po (Brian Tochi) in the third season premiere, when he was one of the first-year residents taking a tour of the hospital led by Wayne Fiscus. Unless some stuff with him got cut out in syndication, this is the only other mention of that character. I enjoyed that the character's name was a goof on "Edgar Allan Poe".
Elliott's neck brace is the result of a headlock applied by a large, agitated patient in E.R. who freaked out while Elliott was taking blood. 1990s TV viewers will recognize him as James Avery, who was hilarious as Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His name does not appear in the credits.
We learn a bit about Mrs. Hufnagel's background. Florence's family, the Glucks, came over on a ship that pulled into Plymouth Rock just after the Mayflower. I couldn't make out the name of the boat. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, feel free to do so in the comments section.
Elliott pays a visit to the recently discharged Mrs. Hufnagel with the gift of a baked ham.
Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) was surprisingly
tech-savvy, especially for 1985.
In "Saving Face", the thirteenth episode of St. Elsewhere's third season to feature patient Florence Hufnagel (Florence Halop), Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) is planning to pay a visit to a patient he has been worried about, and he asks senior doctors Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel), Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.), and Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) for gift suggestions. When Elliott reveals that the patient was none other than the abrasive Hufnagel, Ehrlich suggests he needs therapy.
For the first time, we see how Mrs. Hufnagel lives--in an apartment that houses her personally autographed photo of Ernest Borgnine, and her home computer which she uses to figure out the odds at the track. I enjoy Elliott's reaction to learning that a senior citizen like Hufnagel would be computer-savvy. I'm not sure what the actual percentage of American households had a personal computer in them in 1985, but it couldn't have been that high. (They had already done an arc in season two where a hacker breaks into the hospital's computer system and removes patients' records; it turned out to be a ten-year old girl home from school during a snowstorm, who later learns that she killed someone.)
Elliott has brought a ham for Mrs. Hufnagel, who is grieving the death of her almost-fiancee, Murray Robbin. (The gift is appropriate since Murray, a comedian of limited talent, was quite the ham himself.) He doesn't want to impose, but Mrs. Hufnagel, in an uncharacteristically friendly mood on her home turf, invites Elliott to stay and eat the ham with her, as she could use the company.
Elliott (Stephen Furst) is afraid he's killed Mrs. Hufnagel
with his gift.
Unfortunately, the ham aggravates Hufnagel's gallbladder symptoms, and she ends up unconscious on a gurney in the St. Eligius emergency room, convinced that Dr. Axelrod tried to kill her.
For those who remember this arc, I've left in the complete shot in the E.R. that includes part of the introduction of Maddy and Dean, a pregnant 14-year-old girl suffering from cocaine intoxication and her junkie/hustler boyfriend. Maddy is played by Lycia Naff, who earned a place in pop culture as the three-breasted prostitute in Total Recall, and Dean is played by Tim Van Patten, who had previously played Salami on Bruce Paltrow's The White Shadow, currently serves as executive producer on Boardwalk Empire, and also directed the pilot episode of Game of Thrones among numerous other impressive credits.
This clip also features Karen Austin as Dr. Mary Woodley; prior to this role, she had recently played Night Court's original court clerk, Lana Wagner. She's been working steadily since the late seventies, but I mostly know her as the mom in the John Candy comedy Summer Rental, which was a fixture on Saturday afternoon television in my youth.
Mrs. Hufnagel is discharged from St. Eligius, but suffers a great loss along the way.
Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) isn't about to let
"Butch", a.k.a. Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes),
lay a hand on her.
"Bye, George" features the most of Mrs. Hufnagel we've seen in any one episode so far. For the first time, we see that maybe there's a vulnerable, caring person in there somewhere after all.
Once again, Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) has been passed to another doctor. This time, attending physician Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) gets the nod, having taken over the case from Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse), who can no longer see patients since it was revealed that he had fast-tracked his education and was not qualified to practice medicine.
Fortunately for Annie, Mrs. Hufnagel's treatment for phlebitis has ended. She asks Annie about her decision to propose to her new love, Murray Robbin (Murray Rubin). The rumors about Cavanero that Hufnagel refers to involve visiting surgeon Dr. Christine Holtz (Caroline McWilliams), who became fast friends with Annie and stayed at her home, but then Annie became uncomfortable when she found out that Holtz was a lesbian. Rumors flew that relations between the two were more than platonic. I enjoy the shout out to Miami Vice, which had just debuted a few months earlier.
Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) tries to comfort a
greiving Mrs. Hufnagel.
Mrs. Hufnagel's proposal to Murray doesn't work out as she had hoped, as Murray is not ready to be tied down. Meanwhile, Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) has asked Murray to teach him how to tell jokes. Sadly, their first lesson is cut short when Murray's pratfall turns out to be a fatal heart attack.
Elliott now must tell Mrs. Hufnagel the terrible news. Axelrod, the sensitive son of a callous veterinarian (he'll be played by Louis Nye), can't bring himself to tell her, as he is reminded of the childhood trauma of losing his dog to a passing car and having to bury it. According to Edward Copeland, their scene in the chapel is Stephen Furst's personal favorite.
You'd think that Murray's story would be over, but two seasons later, we find out what happened to Murray once he departed this earthly realm. In "After Life", we learn, courtesy of Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel), that Murray had unfinished business, and as a result, his spirit was still languishing in purgatory, alongside fellow former St. Eligius patient Rockin' Ralph (Richard Marcus), a.k.a. the Birdman of St. Eligius, who had been there since season one. Murray hadn't yet achieved his dream of making people laugh. By the end of Wayne's time there, Murray manages to get a chuckle out of him.
If you haven't seen St. Elsewhere before, I understand if this sounds strange. And I'm surprised that you read this far.
