Corporal / Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger

Klinger is a company clerk at the 4077th with one consuming goal: getting discharged from the Army by any means necessary, usually by showing up on duty in evening gowns, wedding dresses, or feather boas and insisting he's crazy. He's a hustler and a schemer, always working an angle, always cheerful about it.

The dresses could've been a one-note sight gag, but Jamie Farr plays the desperation underneath the costume completely straight, which is what makes it funny and oddly touching at once. Klinger genuinely wants out of a war, and his elaborate, doomed plans give the show a running joke that never stops revealing character.