Wake Up Walmington

Infobox Dad's Army
episode_number episode_name=075 - Wake Up Walmington
script=Jimmy Perry and David Croft
director=Bob Spiers
producer=David Croft
recorded= 8/7/1977
original_transmission= 2/10/1977
series=Nine
length=30 minutes
viewing_figures=???
preceding=The Love of Three Oranges
following=The Making of Private Pike

"Wake up Walmington" is the first episode of the ninth series of the British comedy series "Dad's Army" that was originally transmitted on 2 October 1977.

Synopsis

Complacency is setting in amongst the townsfolk, so Mainwaring devises "Operation Wake-Up". He gets his platoon to masquerade as fifth columnists in "very sinister clothes" to shake everyone up. At first, the plan seems to be working, but then it starts working too well...

Plot

Concerned by the total indifference of the inhabitants to the threat posed by the Germans, Mainwaring decides to do something about it. He and his men dress up as "cuthroats and desperodoes" and begin roaming the countryside, acting menacingly. Their efforts to frighten the locals are predictably unsucsesfull at first, despite their attempts to put on foreign accents.

However, when at last they finally do manage to cause some concern with their talk of "blowing up an airedrome", the frightened locals send out for the Home Guard. With Mainwaring's platoon being obvious absent from their post, the neighbouring Eastgate platoon under Captain Square are called out. Tracking Mainwaring down to a disused flouer mill, he and his men open fire, covering them in flour. The episode ends with Mainwaring and Square exchanging insults.

Notes

Pike dresses up as a Chicago gangster, based on films like Scarface. Mainwaring wore an eye-patch. Jones, taking the whole thing too far, dresses up as a Nun. In the war there were numerous reports that German parachutists were disguising themselves as Nuns, something referenced several times in the series.

Cast