McHale's Navy was one of the more successful of the military comedy series that came along during the late 1950's and early 1960's, running for four seasons, from 1962 thru 1966; only You'll Never Get Rich (better known as Sergeant Bilko) and Gomer Pyle, USMC, ran longer. The series is extremely fondly remembered by a lot of older baby-boomers for several reasons: The presence of Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine in the lead role; the debut of screen funnyman Tim Conway; and Conway's antics with the series' third star, Joe Flynn -- plus a very colorful supporting cast led by Carl Ballantine. And fans of Sgt. Bilko will remember Billy Sands from the latter show, and viewers will also recognize a young Gavin McLeod, a decade before the Mary Tyler Moore Show and five years further from The Love Boat. And it had a really cool title theme by composer Axel Stordahl, Frank Sinatra's longtime conducter/arranger (indeed, this was one of the last things that Stordahl did before his death in 1963). Producer Edward J. Montagne also saw to it that the scripts and the direction remained fresh and lively, so that the show never lost steam across four seasons. This 5 DVD set contains the entire first season of the half-hour sitcom, 38 episodes, and while not all of them are necessarily good by today's standards, virtually all of them have enough slapstick antics involving Conway and Flynn to make them worth more than a chuckle today, and the good ones -- and there are a lot of good ones -- are still very funny (the second show, "A Purple Heart For Gruber", is a stitch, and as much because of Borgnine's and Flynn's comic timing as Conway's). The transfers on these episodes are exceptionally good -- one can actually see the fabric of the uniforms of the men, and the skin textures in the medium shots. It's also good to see the shows restored to full-length (all were cut for syndication), and their sound remastered as well. Apart from a few minor flaws in the film stock -- such as in the opening of the second half of "PT 73, Where Are You?" -- the full-screen (1.33-to-1) black-and-white image is a match for the best movie transfers of the period. Each episode gets four chapter markers matching the break-points for the original commercial spots, and each of the five discs opens automatically (once one jumps past the promos for other Shout Factory DVD releases) to an easy-to-use menu, offering "Play All" and individual episode access functions. The only bonus feature is a delightful reunion of a handful of the surviving cast members -- Borgnine, Conway, Ballantine, and Edson Stroll (who played Virgil Edwards, the real ladies' man in the crew) -- in which they reminisce about the series and its production.