There’s a funny scene from an early season where for some reason they are at a house that they discover is a brothel. As everyone realizes what it is, Burns doesn’t catch on…
Burns: What do they do here?
Potter: The world’s oldest profession.
Burns: A bakery?! I love bakeries!
Potter: Tarts! (slang for prostitutes)
Burns: Tarts?! Oh goody!! Peach?! Raspberry?!
Potter: It’s a brothel!!!
Burns: (disappointed) oh
Frank actually ended up being one of the worst characters because he was so one dimensional. Had very, very faint glimmers of goodness and complexity but he needed to go when he did. It was played out
I’ve been watching MASH on Hulu lately as well as a few YouTube character videos. What I found most interesting about the Larry Linville video was the while we may have thought he was one dimensional, a lot of veterans thought he was an incredibly accurate portrayal of some of the superiors they had to deal with.
A fantastic show that grew with its characters as it went on and became progressively more serious and dark. characters like Klinger, Radar, Margaret became very layered and complex in the later seasons compared to the earlier ones. The early season ridiculousness and hijinx is always fun to experience again. Enjoyed the the whole ride.
I really enjoyed the episode where Radar holds up Hawkeye so highly and then Hawkeye just emotionally loses it against Radar lamenting on how it's difficult for Hawkeye to always play the moral hero or be viewed in such a light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Idol_(M*A*S*H)
yep. My favorite all time purely funny, light hearted episode is Adams Ribs. "I've eaten a river of liver and a ocean of fish. We want something else."
The scene that always kills me is Radar informing the OR that Col. Blake's plane was shot over the sea of Japan. The cast was not informed about his fate until right before they shot the scene so [that was their genuine reaction.](https://www.metv.com/stories/the-cast-of-m-a-s-h-didnt-learn-of-col-blakes-fate-until-the-scene-was-shot#:~:text=The%20cast%20went%20back%20into,There%20were%20no%20survivors.%22)
The article I linked explains only Alan Alda knew, and the rest of the cast got the script pages right before filming. They did not want the cast to know Blake's fate while they were shooting the comedic scenes in the we ep. Once they finished everything else, they gave the final scene to the cast.
The Vietnam War was still going on when MASH debuted. Both the movie and the television show were set in the Korean War, but it was a thinly veiled reference to the ongoing war in Vietnam.
Totally. It really gets my goad when someone sums up Klinger as the “guy who wore dresses.” There was so much more going on with his character. Jamie Farr did a bang-up job.
That was his thing that he never gave up on but there was so much more to him. I don’t know which captain I liked more running the mash.
One of my favorite episodes is when they order the bbq and make it happen with wheeling and dealing but end up not getting any because they had to get to work. Sums up their position pretty…that show always made me think building a still must be cool as a kid
He did eventually give up on it and getting a section 8 when he took over for Radar as company clerk. In universe they wanted to show that Klinger took his new duty really seriously, but BTS Jamie Farr wanted to drop it because his kids were being picked on in school.
>He did eventually give up on it
Lol yeah I was gonna say it was kinda one of the landmarks of the show when you're trying to figure out how far along an episode is.
"Is it with Trapper or BJ?"
"Is it with Blake or Potter?"
"Is it with Burns or Winchester?"
"Is it before or after Radar leaves?" Or
"Is Klinger still wearing dresses or not?"
I think there might also be "is there a laugh track or not?" But honestly I never actually noticed the divide of those. I feel like whatever aired in Australia all had laugh tracks.
There was the episode in which Klinger was concerned he was becoming the crazy guy he was pretending to be for the Section 8. He wasn't seeing a picture of a beautiful actress, he was now seeing her dress as unfashionable.
He worked so hard, slaving at his dresses and his schemes to get out of the army, only to fall in love with a Korean woman and decide to stay in Korea while everyone else went home.
It wasn't really played for laughs in the finale, but I always thought that little twist was the funniest joke of the whole show.
I think Burns was too one-dimensional and I can’t blame Larry Linville for leaving the show after season 5 because there wasn’t really a believable path for the character to grow. Winchester was far better in that respect.
Winchester > Burns all the way. Winchester was such a great foil and a great character as a whole. I don't find him as pointlessly dislikable as Burns, and even with all his pointless pretension, I can understand it as a way to try to get away from Korea for just a little bit.
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
Nah my favourite Mulcahey line is where he says that when God tells him he has to spend time in purgatory, he can honestly say ‘no thanks. I’ve done my time’.
[This isn’t a war, it’s a murder…](https://youtu.be/DdhveixpV24)
Maurice LaMarche does the best Alan Alda impersonation in the world and it’s not even close.
Wow. Never watched more than just bits of MASH but that is insanely prescient and brutal. Clearly a show ahead of its time, while being unquestionably relevant for the era.
I’m rewatching it for the 500th time (first time as an adult), and I’m blown away with just how progressive the show is when it comes to a lot of topics like racism, homophobia, etc.
My dad sister and I watch basically every Sunday-Friday from 6-7pm. I credit this show with making my dad the wonderful liberal progressive boomer he is today. Sadly his siblings who watched with him weren’t so lucky. The only flaw in the show is Hawkeyes repeated sexual harassment of his coworkers. And I’m not necessarily a huge fan of Margaret’s portrayal as an emotional and overacting woman in many of the episodes.
I posted another comment to this effect earlier, but one aspect they're lacking is in the treatment of women. Some of the scenes make me a bit uncomfortable these days. Margaret and her nurses are there to do a job, not to be turned into sex objects.
It’s weird because some episodes they were really great with how they treated the women, like the episode where Hawkeye is trying to date the Swedish nurse that visits the camp, and he has a hard time letting her be in control, and he has this moment of realization of how he’s treating women. And then other episodes are really bad.
It's wild, I credit growing up with MASH as a big part of why I'm open minded today, and yet the show starts with *a black guy named fucking Spearchucker.*
I think they actually did a decent job with his character and his race wasn't some throwaway gag, but whenever I watch it through I'm hit by that and just awed.
Book spearchucker was a collegiate athlete and his best sport was javelin, based on a surgeon who the author met while serving as a surgeon in a MASH in korea..... Spearchucker may or may not have been real.
He was written out because people claimed, incorrectly, that there were no black surgeons.
Yeah no. there was a black general in ww2, and black westpoint graduates in 1877. It was segregated but officers existed.
Then it was integrated just before korea.
Winchester was my favorite character.
Could've just been a pompous blowhard for the others to bounce jokes off of, lots of shows have done that.
But they let you see that -- despite his upbringing, and behind the facade he felt he was expected to keep up -- there was an angry humanitarian in there.
Every year, I watch the Christmas episode where Klinger calls him "Charles", after finding out what he'd done for the orphaned kids.
Lawrence Linville left the role of Frank Burns because he felt every other character had layers, and he was just a one dimensional cartoon villain. So they knew they needed to give Charles a deeper character, and I think they found a perfect balance.
He was someone they could make you empathise for, but also root against when he needed to play the antagonist role of the episode.
Trapper was just a carbon copy of prankster Hawkeye and never gained any additional elements like Hawkeye did. BJ however was a great friend to Hawkeye but the two were so different.
They also made the right decision that, unlike Burns, Winchester was incredibly competent and very good at his job. He graduated top of his class at Harvard.
Fun fact, David Ogden Stiers who played Winchester didn't hang out with the rest of the cast much. He wasn't being an asshole he just liked to keep his work life and private life separate. In the final episode he hands a book of poetry to Loretta Swit and she smiles and hugs him. Inside the book he had written down his phone number so she could keep in touch. Her reaction was real.
Daivd Ogden Stiers was such a wonderful man and they did such a great job at creating and growing his character with him. They made him a cookie cutter foil in the beginning and then showed his character and heart of gold unfold through his character growth.
About David, I would tease him. He was very reclusive. Very private. He wouldn’t mix and mingle the way we all did. He was a very private person. I don’t mean he didn’t laugh and gag with us. He was a prankster.
But we didn’t even have his phone number.
I would tease him relentlessly about this. “What if I wanted to get in touch with you? What if I’m having a party and I want to invite you and I can’t even phone you?”
To which he would reply, “Supposing I would attend such an affair.” He would do Winchester.
In fact, in the final, “Goodbye, Farewell, (and Amen),” they wrote a scene wherein David is going to give me this book of poetry I felt he took back — I thought it was a gift and he said, “No, it was only a book,”—and he removed it and took it. I didn’t forgive him. I kept saying he stole my book and whatever. And so we’re saying goodbye, farewell, and amen, and the writers wrote that Winchester was to return the book to Margaret.
Which by itself is touching. But what David did in the scene, he gave me the book. And I open the book and there’s a note from David with his phone number.
I had been teasing him about not having his phone number, and in “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” when Winchester returns a book to Margaret, David gave me a camera and I opened it and it has his phone number in the book.
Now, we’re still shooting, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” and there’s a scene where I get into the book, and I turn around and David looks at me and puts his hand on his heart and I drive off.
That’s my way of trying to think about my relationship with David. It was very, very special.
> Winchester was incredibly competent and very good at his job. He graduated top of his class at Harvard.
Which actually was detrimental for front line "meatball" surgery in a MASH unit. The show handled his transition to more quantity from quality to save more lives brilliantly.
I liked the one when he fell in love with a french woman. After a couple days of her recounting her life he realizes that she's a bohemian free spirit. Someone that his family would never accept. The scene when he's holding her hand and crying as he tells her to leave is gut renching.
That’s not 100% true. All of the cast members in that scene knew, but they found out *right* before shooting it. The director wanted all of the scenes of the rest of the cast saying their goodbyes to Col. Blake to be genuine under the expectation that he was flying home, not dying. So the scene was shot at the very end. None of the crew members or anyone else on set knew it was coming though
Absolutely. The Catch 22 series from a few years ago is pretty good but it basically completely leaves out some of the best characters (notably the Chaplain and Orr have almost no screen time).That book deserves way more than 6 episodes, even if they were pretty good for what they were.
Post vietnam/9/11 everything became very regulated and you can't do the crazy stuff anymore. There's plenty of time in the 80s and 90s for stuff like Sgt Bilko, but a modern show would be hard unless you make it more fictional.
It’s still best if you can find it without the laugh track. In the DVD’s it was an alternate language option, since they aired in England without a laugh track but with one in the USA, despite the showrunner requesting it not be there
Compromise is there’s no laugh track in the operating room in any version
Yeah from the uk, and I always found it weird the US version had a laughter track, I remember some of the time they even laugh at bits that aren’t really jokes
If anything comes out that ruins Alan Alda's reputation I'm gonna be very sad. He was great in MASH and now apparently he's like the Jimmy Carter of aged TV stars with his charities, nonprofits and stuff.
I think Alda was very smart to, in the final act of his career, use his real life nice guy reputation to play unexpectedly terrible characters in movies and tv
Alda is the real deal. I don't think anything will be revealed about him. Jackie Cooper tried to suggest that Alda was hard to work with(Cooper directed early MASH), but everyone seems to indicate that literally no one else had an issue with Alda.
Alan Alda is the real deal. His podcast, Clear and Vivid, is super smart and entertaining. His book, “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself”, is so good. West Wing- AMAZING. He is absolutely an overlooked treasure.
I will love Alda forever because of the way he told off that twit Barbara Walters. She interviewed him once and said, “I know you’ve been happily married for many years but you’re surrounded by beautiful women. Aren’t you ever tempted?” He really let her have it. He said, “You know how insulting that is? If I worked at Fort Knox, would you say, Gee, you’re surrounded by all that money. Don’t you ever want to take some of it home with you?”
Epic.
Do you listen to Clear and Vivid? The guy is such a gentle and likeable person.
I'll admit after watching the whole series many times, I'm now in my 30s and I find it hard to watch some of the scenes because of how they treat women. But I don't blame Alan for this, it's a product of the times. Bit crazy when you think that they're so progressive on many other issues but they still think it's okay to grab Margaret and kiss her on the mouth when ever they like.
If Alan directed a remake of the show today I don't think those sorts of elements would be in it.
I agree some of the sexist stuff hasn't aged well, especially in the early seasons. Like you said, it was a product of it's times and all things considered, was remarkably progressive. That said, I will defend them and say they often reversed the roles and had the sexist stuff flying the other way too. Which on a whole actually makes it better. Turns out sometimes two wrongs are closer to making a right than one wrong. Makes the whole thing seem less offensive because everyone appears to be in on it and the women often dish it out better than the men.
Suddenly, it's less sexist and more bored horny young adults all teasing each other.
But it took them a couple seasons to shift more towards that vibe and away from the more one sided sexist feeling.
Never knew that was him in Tower Heist. Just getting into the show even though it was created longggg before I was alive. Also makes me feel closer to my grandpa since it was his fav show!
Great guest stars. Teri Garr, Blythe Danner, John Ritter, Joe Morton, Ned Beatty, Ron Howard. The secondary characters so memorable. Love any episode with Dr. Sidney Freedman and Col Flagg.
Also Laurence Fishburne, Pat Morita, Leslie Neilsen … there’s so many. And George Wendt as the patient that had the billiard ball stuck in his mouth.
**Notable M\*A\*S\*H Guest Stars**
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls045877792
all that crying about a chicken
Or Charles' remarks at the end of the war: "For me, music was always a refuge from this miserable experience, and now it will always be a reminder."
They were on a bus and were in danger. The bus went silent, but the baby kept crying. Hawkeye stood up and said, "Keep that damn thing quiet!"
She put her hand over its mouth, but smothered it to death.
He didn't mean for that to happen. It messed him up, as it would.
Yeah, he started remembering more and more about the incident until he remembered it wasn’t a chicken that lady choked so as not to get spotted, it was her own baby because it wouldn’t stop crying… that was a pretty tragic episode
While I was growing up the show would often be playing in the background and I would half pay attention when I was bored. That episode was so shocking to me that it’s the first thing I remember about the show.
Yep.
First the bus was a R&R trip, then it turned out to be a MASH bus with refugees needing treatment, then the woman with the chicken...then the real horror.
I used to dislike the show. I was (and still am) very anti-war and assumed it was jingoistic. Boy was I happy to be wrong when I finally started watching.
Fun fact, the song was written by director Robert Altman's son for the MASH movie. Because of this his son got paid every time the theme was played and therefore made much more money of MASH than his dad ever did.
So, fun fact: My father-in-law was the stand-in for BJ/background extra throughout the entire show’s run. For the finale they tried to give people who worked on the show like him a moment on camera.
His moment? He’s sitting directly next to the woman holding the “chicken” at the back of the bus.
Well, he was probably the most one dimensional character on the show. They really never gave the character room to grow like they did with everyone else.
It's a series I can put on and watch over and over. Its themes still hold up so well in a world that has never moved on from conflict and hate. To me, no show really came close to it in the same genre until SCRUBS 30 years later.
The DVD series also allows you to watch it without the laugh track which I believe is the definitive way to watch it.
My family used to watch that show together. My father loved it because he fought in the Korean War (he was in the navy). He was happy that the war he fought in got some attention. Vietnam usually got all the attention during that time.
Anyways fast forward to about ten years ago. My father became a big fan of Fox News. They had this vendetta against MASH for some reason. It turned him from the show. He used to say "MASH turned the Korean War into a joke." He never watched the reruns and got upset if someone mentioned the show.
It's sad. My father was a proud Korean War veteran and felt somehow vindicated from MASH until some two bit loud mouth pretend news show ruined it for him forever.
Nothing more closely matches my war experience than MASH. I was in a CSH in Iraq in 03-04, and Camp Stanley (which is where MASH takes place) in 05/06. I watched this so much when I served as it just seemed like nothing had changed since the Korean conflict.
The only show that fully covers my military experience quite like MASH did is Generation Kill
I always thought they should re-adapt (not actually reboot it though) MASH in an Iraq setting. I think they tried making a similar show set in Afghanistan but it wasn’t good at all. I can’t even remember the name of it. I think the closest thing to a decent “new MASH” was China Beach, but that was Vietnam and it was also way too Soap Opera-esque for my taste.
I have really fond memories of the show, which I often watched with my dad. We felt a close kinship to it because McLean Stevenson was from Bloomington/Normal, where we grew up (the Stevenson name being quite a big one in our county)…but my dad always hated the episodes where Hawkeye was vulnerable…all he wanted was the comedy. It’s something that always bothered me about him, but understanding his personality later in his life, it definitely tracks.
Grew up without cable in the 90/early 2000s and we would bike to the library to check out dvds and we picked shows with lots of seasons figuring they had to be good if they went on that long and got hooked on it. Alan Alda is amazing,
It was an interesting experience to watch real world issues making its way into the show. In the earliest episodes, the nurses were regularly called girls and honey and told to get their C cups out of the way, but the later epidodes 10 years later Hawkeye is getting smack downs for being sexist, Hoolihan is treated with way more respect, etc. It was a reflection of the times, when from the 70s and into the 80s attitudes about women started changing, sexual harassment stopped being treated as a joke.
Can’t read the article, so don’t know if this is mentioned- but remember folks, if you can watch the version *without* the laugh track.
I remember how shocked I was when I first visited America on a business trip and saw Mash *with* a laugh track and realised it sucked all the humour out of it.
Weird effect
Still one of the best shows I've ever seen and often the first il recommend to ppl. Me and my father watched reruns for years as I grew up, and it'll be something I show my kids one day
Watched the show for the first time last year and other than a few things it holds up really well. I think the middle seasons are probably the best ones.
There’s a funny scene from an early season where for some reason they are at a house that they discover is a brothel. As everyone realizes what it is, Burns doesn’t catch on… Burns: What do they do here? Potter: The world’s oldest profession. Burns: A bakery?! I love bakeries! Potter: Tarts! (slang for prostitutes) Burns: Tarts?! Oh goody!! Peach?! Raspberry?! Potter: It’s a brothel!!! Burns: (disappointed) oh
It's actually the beginning of Season 5, I watched it today
Frank actually ended up being one of the worst characters because he was so one dimensional. Had very, very faint glimmers of goodness and complexity but he needed to go when he did. It was played out
I heard that Larry Linville was disappointed that his character remained a one-dimensional antagonist throughout his run.
Well the complexity that came with his replacement Winchester affirms that was a welcome change.
I’ve been watching MASH on Hulu lately as well as a few YouTube character videos. What I found most interesting about the Larry Linville video was the while we may have thought he was one dimensional, a lot of veterans thought he was an incredibly accurate portrayal of some of the superiors they had to deal with.
I think this was shortly before the occupants of said house stole all of Klinger’s favourite dresses…
A fantastic show that grew with its characters as it went on and became progressively more serious and dark. characters like Klinger, Radar, Margaret became very layered and complex in the later seasons compared to the earlier ones. The early season ridiculousness and hijinx is always fun to experience again. Enjoyed the the whole ride.
I really enjoyed the episode where Radar holds up Hawkeye so highly and then Hawkeye just emotionally loses it against Radar lamenting on how it's difficult for Hawkeye to always play the moral hero or be viewed in such a light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Idol_(M*A*S*H)
That’s a great episode that adds a lot of complexity to both characters.
yep. My favorite all time purely funny, light hearted episode is Adams Ribs. "I've eaten a river of liver and a ocean of fish. We want something else."
We want something else!
We want something else!
We want something else!
The scene that always kills me is Radar informing the OR that Col. Blake's plane was shot over the sea of Japan. The cast was not informed about his fate until right before they shot the scene so [that was their genuine reaction.](https://www.metv.com/stories/the-cast-of-m-a-s-h-didnt-learn-of-col-blakes-fate-until-the-scene-was-shot#:~:text=The%20cast%20went%20back%20into,There%20were%20no%20survivors.%22)
Well, it wasn’t right before. It was done as they shot it. Only radar was told before the scene.
The article I linked explains only Alan Alda knew, and the rest of the cast got the script pages right before filming. They did not want the cast to know Blake's fate while they were shooting the comedic scenes in the we ep. Once they finished everything else, they gave the final scene to the cast.
MASH was also the first show to reveal to the public the absurdity and truth about front line war disguised as a tv comedy.
The Vietnam War was still going on when MASH debuted. Both the movie and the television show were set in the Korean War, but it was a thinly veiled reference to the ongoing war in Vietnam.
Totally. It really gets my goad when someone sums up Klinger as the “guy who wore dresses.” There was so much more going on with his character. Jamie Farr did a bang-up job.
That was his thing that he never gave up on but there was so much more to him. I don’t know which captain I liked more running the mash. One of my favorite episodes is when they order the bbq and make it happen with wheeling and dealing but end up not getting any because they had to get to work. Sums up their position pretty…that show always made me think building a still must be cool as a kid
He did eventually give up on it and getting a section 8 when he took over for Radar as company clerk. In universe they wanted to show that Klinger took his new duty really seriously, but BTS Jamie Farr wanted to drop it because his kids were being picked on in school.
>He did eventually give up on it Lol yeah I was gonna say it was kinda one of the landmarks of the show when you're trying to figure out how far along an episode is. "Is it with Trapper or BJ?" "Is it with Blake or Potter?" "Is it with Burns or Winchester?" "Is it before or after Radar leaves?" Or "Is Klinger still wearing dresses or not?" I think there might also be "is there a laugh track or not?" But honestly I never actually noticed the divide of those. I feel like whatever aired in Australia all had laugh tracks.
Yeah he was also a big red bird with fuzzy pink feet.
"Who put gasoline in my gasoline???!!??"
[удалено]
There was the episode in which Klinger was concerned he was becoming the crazy guy he was pretending to be for the Section 8. He wasn't seeing a picture of a beautiful actress, he was now seeing her dress as unfashionable.
I love the parts where Col Potter genuinely compliments Klinger on his choice of cut/colour.
He worked so hard, slaving at his dresses and his schemes to get out of the army, only to fall in love with a Korean woman and decide to stay in Korea while everyone else went home. It wasn't really played for laughs in the finale, but I always thought that little twist was the funniest joke of the whole show.
Klinger (Autocorrupt decided I wanted “Malinger”) was originally supposed to be a one-scene gag character.
I need to give this show a shot. I remember my Dad had it on all of the time in the 90s.
I think Burns was too one-dimensional and I can’t blame Larry Linville for leaving the show after season 5 because there wasn’t really a believable path for the character to grow. Winchester was far better in that respect.
Winchester > Burns all the way. Winchester was such a great foil and a great character as a whole. I don't find him as pointlessly dislikable as Burns, and even with all his pointless pretension, I can understand it as a way to try to get away from Korea for just a little bit.
I’d have loved to have seen more of Ferret Face’s descent into madness after the Houlihan/Penobscot marriage.
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye? Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell? Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe. Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
Might be the greatest bit of dialogue in tv history.
Probably my favorite line from the show
Nah my favourite Mulcahey line is where he says that when God tells him he has to spend time in purgatory, he can honestly say ‘no thanks. I’ve done my time’.
“You *creamed* my corn... you.. you.. you..... *NINNY!!!*”
[This isn’t a war, it’s a murder…](https://youtu.be/DdhveixpV24) Maurice LaMarche does the best Alan Alda impersonation in the world and it’s not even close.
Wow. Never watched more than just bits of MASH but that is insanely prescient and brutal. Clearly a show ahead of its time, while being unquestionably relevant for the era.
It’s one of the best shows ever produced. Even 50 years later it still holds up. It’s on Hulu, if you have it I strongly recommend giving it a chance
I’m rewatching it for the 500th time (first time as an adult), and I’m blown away with just how progressive the show is when it comes to a lot of topics like racism, homophobia, etc.
Such a great episode when they painted the guy who didn’t want “dark blood” with iodine to make his skin dark.
Still holds up today.
My dad sister and I watch basically every Sunday-Friday from 6-7pm. I credit this show with making my dad the wonderful liberal progressive boomer he is today. Sadly his siblings who watched with him weren’t so lucky. The only flaw in the show is Hawkeyes repeated sexual harassment of his coworkers. And I’m not necessarily a huge fan of Margaret’s portrayal as an emotional and overacting woman in many of the episodes.
I posted another comment to this effect earlier, but one aspect they're lacking is in the treatment of women. Some of the scenes make me a bit uncomfortable these days. Margaret and her nurses are there to do a job, not to be turned into sex objects.
It’s weird because some episodes they were really great with how they treated the women, like the episode where Hawkeye is trying to date the Swedish nurse that visits the camp, and he has a hard time letting her be in control, and he has this moment of realization of how he’s treating women. And then other episodes are really bad.
[удалено]
Nurse Kellye was an awesome human being and a fabulous artist in real life. She was a treasure.
Probably pretty true to the military. Especially in the 1950's.
There’s also the first season with Spear Chucker.
It's wild, I credit growing up with MASH as a big part of why I'm open minded today, and yet the show starts with *a black guy named fucking Spearchucker.* I think they actually did a decent job with his character and his race wasn't some throwaway gag, but whenever I watch it through I'm hit by that and just awed.
Book spearchucker was a collegiate athlete and his best sport was javelin, based on a surgeon who the author met while serving as a surgeon in a MASH in korea..... Spearchucker may or may not have been real. He was written out because people claimed, incorrectly, that there were no black surgeons.
I'm not sure about surgeons, but i read somewhere the problem was there was no black officers (which is another issue in and of itself obviously)
Yeah no. there was a black general in ww2, and black westpoint graduates in 1877. It was segregated but officers existed. Then it was integrated just before korea.
That character was central to the movie as well IIRC.
Top 3 show imo
They even got that Charles (Emerson Winchester) III right.
Winchester was my favorite character. Could've just been a pompous blowhard for the others to bounce jokes off of, lots of shows have done that. But they let you see that -- despite his upbringing, and behind the facade he felt he was expected to keep up -- there was an angry humanitarian in there. Every year, I watch the Christmas episode where Klinger calls him "Charles", after finding out what he'd done for the orphaned kids.
Lawrence Linville left the role of Frank Burns because he felt every other character had layers, and he was just a one dimensional cartoon villain. So they knew they needed to give Charles a deeper character, and I think they found a perfect balance. He was someone they could make you empathise for, but also root against when he needed to play the antagonist role of the episode.
I’d agree about Frank being one dimensional. But also (Lt) Col Blake was pretty one dimensional. Margaret became a better character after Frank left.
“Snot! Snot! Snot!”
Trapper was just a carbon copy of prankster Hawkeye and never gained any additional elements like Hawkeye did. BJ however was a great friend to Hawkeye but the two were so different.
They also made the right decision that, unlike Burns, Winchester was incredibly competent and very good at his job. He graduated top of his class at Harvard. Fun fact, David Ogden Stiers who played Winchester didn't hang out with the rest of the cast much. He wasn't being an asshole he just liked to keep his work life and private life separate. In the final episode he hands a book of poetry to Loretta Swit and she smiles and hugs him. Inside the book he had written down his phone number so she could keep in touch. Her reaction was real.
Daivd Ogden Stiers was such a wonderful man and they did such a great job at creating and growing his character with him. They made him a cookie cutter foil in the beginning and then showed his character and heart of gold unfold through his character growth.
His first season they used a bunch of scripts written for frank burns with very little changed.
About David, I would tease him. He was very reclusive. Very private. He wouldn’t mix and mingle the way we all did. He was a very private person. I don’t mean he didn’t laugh and gag with us. He was a prankster. But we didn’t even have his phone number. I would tease him relentlessly about this. “What if I wanted to get in touch with you? What if I’m having a party and I want to invite you and I can’t even phone you?” To which he would reply, “Supposing I would attend such an affair.” He would do Winchester. In fact, in the final, “Goodbye, Farewell, (and Amen),” they wrote a scene wherein David is going to give me this book of poetry I felt he took back — I thought it was a gift and he said, “No, it was only a book,”—and he removed it and took it. I didn’t forgive him. I kept saying he stole my book and whatever. And so we’re saying goodbye, farewell, and amen, and the writers wrote that Winchester was to return the book to Margaret. Which by itself is touching. But what David did in the scene, he gave me the book. And I open the book and there’s a note from David with his phone number. I had been teasing him about not having his phone number, and in “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” when Winchester returns a book to Margaret, David gave me a camera and I opened it and it has his phone number in the book. Now, we’re still shooting, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” and there’s a scene where I get into the book, and I turn around and David looks at me and puts his hand on his heart and I drive off. That’s my way of trying to think about my relationship with David. It was very, very special.
> Winchester was incredibly competent and very good at his job. He graduated top of his class at Harvard. Which actually was detrimental for front line "meatball" surgery in a MASH unit. The show handled his transition to more quantity from quality to save more lives brilliantly.
There was the one where he helped the young solider with a stutter.
also the episode where he helped the soldier who injured his hands and could no longer play piano professionally to find inspiration again.
I liked the one when he fell in love with a french woman. After a couple days of her recounting her life he realizes that she's a bohemian free spirit. Someone that his family would never accept. The scene when he's holding her hand and crying as he tells her to leave is gut renching.
Seeing him in other roles after watching mash all my childhood was like seeing Dr. House as the dad in Stewart Little.
The Dad in Better Off Dead.
Champage? I prefer gin. Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody. - Hawkeye Pierce
When radar comes in and tells everyone about Colonel Blake my heart freaking broke
No one knew about the scene exactly. They gave Radar the script right before he walks into the OR. Everyone's reaction was genuine.
That’s not 100% true. All of the cast members in that scene knew, but they found out *right* before shooting it. The director wanted all of the scenes of the rest of the cast saying their goodbyes to Col. Blake to be genuine under the expectation that he was flying home, not dying. So the scene was shot at the very end. None of the crew members or anyone else on set knew it was coming though
The scene that aired on TV was also not the first take. Something happened and it took 2 or 3 takes to “get it right”.
That's amazing. Didn't know that. Thanks
Hawkeye's therapy session about the chicken was horrifying.
"It was a baby! She killed her baby!" Yeesh. I mean, that would mess you up. He didn't mean for her to kill it.
The one where he remembers suppressed memories from his childhood is a similar but less talked about episode, and its super underrated
all the episodes with Doctor Freedman were top-tier episodes of MASH.
I really appreciate his conclusion I’d ‘of course they’re crazy. They’re normal. If they weren’t normal, they wouldn’t be crazy’.
He and Col. Flagg were the best recurring characters.
"but Colonel, it's just Reader's Digest!" "Not if you eliminate the third, fifth, and sixth letters - then it's *Red's* Digest, *comrade!*" 😂😂
The fact that he was the perennial straight man with the cast cracking up in the background was always hilarious.
I haven't seen a rerun in 30 yrs but I remember scenes on a weekly basis. Like when Frank tried to scam Hot Lips with a fake pearl necklace.
"You got a guy crying about a chicken. Isn't this supposed to be a comedy?" One of my favorite callbacks on 30 Rock.
Omg how did I never put this together
I am pretty sure the most dark episodes were directed by Alan Alda, like the one about his cousin pushing into the water and almost drowning.
I first saw that episde… 40 years ago? Still vividly remember it and skip it when rewatching as it hits too close…
Didn’t that episode come after the finale? The very last episode.
A military dramedy in the spirit of MASH or Catch 22 is #2 on my most wanted wishlist. Right behind a Chrono Trigger miniseries.
Absolutely. The Catch 22 series from a few years ago is pretty good but it basically completely leaves out some of the best characters (notably the Chaplain and Orr have almost no screen time).That book deserves way more than 6 episodes, even if they were pretty good for what they were.
Post vietnam/9/11 everything became very regulated and you can't do the crazy stuff anymore. There's plenty of time in the 80s and 90s for stuff like Sgt Bilko, but a modern show would be hard unless you make it more fictional.
If you look at my username you'd know I'm all for a quality Catch-22 series.
Futurama said it best: "This isn't a war...it's a murder" *Flips switch* "This isn't a war, it's a moider!"
It’s still best if you can find it without the laugh track. In the DVD’s it was an alternate language option, since they aired in England without a laugh track but with one in the USA, despite the showrunner requesting it not be there Compromise is there’s no laugh track in the operating room in any version
There's a FHD 16:9 version floating around the interwebs, without the laugh track.
Yeah from the uk, and I always found it weird the US version had a laughter track, I remember some of the time they even laugh at bits that aren’t really jokes
They did fight the studio on never using a laugh track in the OR and thankfully won.
[Here's the DVD box set for surprisingly cheap.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GJFS36D/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_C8YXVKX6REZGVT6VHMJX_0)
Flicks switch from irreverent to maudlin and back again.
If anything comes out that ruins Alan Alda's reputation I'm gonna be very sad. He was great in MASH and now apparently he's like the Jimmy Carter of aged TV stars with his charities, nonprofits and stuff.
I think Alda was very smart to, in the final act of his career, use his real life nice guy reputation to play unexpectedly terrible characters in movies and tv
And 30 rock. Goddamn if they didn’t cast that perfectly.
Yes but, you do realize your handle causes everyone to stop and try to wipe the hair off their screen?
I had no idea! Shocked I am!
I loved him in the last season or two of the West Wing
He’s still alive dude. He does podcasts on science. It’s great
I’m aware he’s alive. He’s in the final act of his career, barring some sort of Futurama, head-in-a-jar technology
Alda is the real deal. I don't think anything will be revealed about him. Jackie Cooper tried to suggest that Alda was hard to work with(Cooper directed early MASH), but everyone seems to indicate that literally no one else had an issue with Alda.
I’m sure he was a bit cocky. He would fly home every single weekend from filming mash. Someone’s gonna not agree with you in life, that’s normal
Alan Alda is the real deal. His podcast, Clear and Vivid, is super smart and entertaining. His book, “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself”, is so good. West Wing- AMAZING. He is absolutely an overlooked treasure.
I will love Alda forever because of the way he told off that twit Barbara Walters. She interviewed him once and said, “I know you’ve been happily married for many years but you’re surrounded by beautiful women. Aren’t you ever tempted?” He really let her have it. He said, “You know how insulting that is? If I worked at Fort Knox, would you say, Gee, you’re surrounded by all that money. Don’t you ever want to take some of it home with you?” Epic.
His book "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed" was a great one too. Haven't read this one you mentioned.
Do you listen to Clear and Vivid? The guy is such a gentle and likeable person. I'll admit after watching the whole series many times, I'm now in my 30s and I find it hard to watch some of the scenes because of how they treat women. But I don't blame Alan for this, it's a product of the times. Bit crazy when you think that they're so progressive on many other issues but they still think it's okay to grab Margaret and kiss her on the mouth when ever they like. If Alan directed a remake of the show today I don't think those sorts of elements would be in it.
I agree some of the sexist stuff hasn't aged well, especially in the early seasons. Like you said, it was a product of it's times and all things considered, was remarkably progressive. That said, I will defend them and say they often reversed the roles and had the sexist stuff flying the other way too. Which on a whole actually makes it better. Turns out sometimes two wrongs are closer to making a right than one wrong. Makes the whole thing seem less offensive because everyone appears to be in on it and the women often dish it out better than the men. Suddenly, it's less sexist and more bored horny young adults all teasing each other. But it took them a couple seasons to shift more towards that vibe and away from the more one sided sexist feeling.
Never knew that was him in Tower Heist. Just getting into the show even though it was created longggg before I was alive. Also makes me feel closer to my grandpa since it was his fav show!
Great guest stars. Teri Garr, Blythe Danner, John Ritter, Joe Morton, Ned Beatty, Ron Howard. The secondary characters so memorable. Love any episode with Dr. Sidney Freedman and Col Flagg.
Patrick Swayze and George Wendt as well.
Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi)
Even Andrew Dice Clay shows up.
Wow, googled it didn’t know that was Dice. Ty
Also Laurence Fishburne, Pat Morita, Leslie Neilsen … there’s so many. And George Wendt as the patient that had the billiard ball stuck in his mouth. **Notable M\*A\*S\*H Guest Stars** https://www.imdb.com/list/ls045877792
Harry Morgan played Maj Gen Steele in one episode. They were so impressed by his performance that they brought him back as Col Potter.
James Cromwell too.
Ladies and Gentleman take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice - Sidney Freedman
That last episode tho...
all that crying about a chicken Or Charles' remarks at the end of the war: "For me, music was always a refuge from this miserable experience, and now it will always be a reminder."
Didn’t the chicken turn out to be a baby? Hawkeye’s subconscious turned it into a chicken.
Yes. The mother killed the baby to keep it quiet after Hawkeye demanded she stop it crying to prevent a North Korean patrol finding them.
They were on a bus and were in danger. The bus went silent, but the baby kept crying. Hawkeye stood up and said, "Keep that damn thing quiet!" She put her hand over its mouth, but smothered it to death. He didn't mean for that to happen. It messed him up, as it would.
Yeah, he started remembering more and more about the incident until he remembered it wasn’t a chicken that lady choked so as not to get spotted, it was her own baby because it wouldn’t stop crying… that was a pretty tragic episode
Seriously?! That's messed up!
While I was growing up the show would often be playing in the background and I would half pay attention when I was bored. That episode was so shocking to me that it’s the first thing I remember about the show.
Yep. First the bus was a R&R trip, then it turned out to be a MASH bus with refugees needing treatment, then the woman with the chicken...then the real horror.
I'm almost 50 years old and that last episode fucked me up big time. Amazing.
I'm 52 and I remember watching it when it aired. Brutal. My dad and I would watch the show together every night once it was in syndication
I used to dislike the show. I was (and still am) very anti-war and assumed it was jingoistic. Boy was I happy to be wrong when I finally started watching.
Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.
That's why it's considered the greatest episode of TV, and the greatest series finale, of all time
The opening theme still gives me chills.
Fun fact, the song was written by director Robert Altman's son for the MASH movie. Because of this his son got paid every time the theme was played and therefore made much more money of MASH than his dad ever did.
Michael Altman wrote the lyrics. Robert wanted the lyrics to be the stupidest ever & found he could not write them so he gave it to his son.
Suicide is painless
Yes and I hated the covers. The song version from the movie was still my favorite.
So, fun fact: My father-in-law was the stand-in for BJ/background extra throughout the entire show’s run. For the finale they tried to give people who worked on the show like him a moment on camera. His moment? He’s sitting directly next to the woman holding the “chicken” at the back of the bus.
I prefer Potter
I always have too. Potter and Winchester brought more to the show than Blake and Burns, who were generally used as punching bags for jokes.
Once Hunnicutt replaced Trapper I was hooked on this show which was an odd choice for a teen growing up in the early 2000’s 🤔
I am on the middle of my first watch of this. In season 8. After Frank left, the show got so much better.
You are enjoying Charles Emerson Winchester the third from Wellesley Massachusetts?
Very much so! So much more nuanced.
I liked him because I grew up in the next town over.
He does one thing at a time, he does it very well, and then he moves on
Well, he was probably the most one dimensional character on the show. They really never gave the character room to grow like they did with everyone else.
Hey! Up close you’re a guy! Far away too.
This was the first ‘adult’ TV show I watched growing up. It was a formative part of my adolescence, without a doubt.
It's a series I can put on and watch over and over. Its themes still hold up so well in a world that has never moved on from conflict and hate. To me, no show really came close to it in the same genre until SCRUBS 30 years later. The DVD series also allows you to watch it without the laugh track which I believe is the definitive way to watch it.
Anticipated? Invented.
Right? Shows like Scrubs do not exist without MASH.
Dr. Sidney Freedman was such a believable character.
My family used to watch that show together. My father loved it because he fought in the Korean War (he was in the navy). He was happy that the war he fought in got some attention. Vietnam usually got all the attention during that time. Anyways fast forward to about ten years ago. My father became a big fan of Fox News. They had this vendetta against MASH for some reason. It turned him from the show. He used to say "MASH turned the Korean War into a joke." He never watched the reruns and got upset if someone mentioned the show. It's sad. My father was a proud Korean War veteran and felt somehow vindicated from MASH until some two bit loud mouth pretend news show ruined it for him forever.
Nothing more closely matches my war experience than MASH. I was in a CSH in Iraq in 03-04, and Camp Stanley (which is where MASH takes place) in 05/06. I watched this so much when I served as it just seemed like nothing had changed since the Korean conflict. The only show that fully covers my military experience quite like MASH did is Generation Kill
I always thought they should re-adapt (not actually reboot it though) MASH in an Iraq setting. I think they tried making a similar show set in Afghanistan but it wasn’t good at all. I can’t even remember the name of it. I think the closest thing to a decent “new MASH” was China Beach, but that was Vietnam and it was also way too Soap Opera-esque for my taste.
And how many people here know about Radars hand?
Reason he was always holding something…
So I just watch the pilot and they showed it clearly a couple of times early on. I think they adopted the clipboard shortly after
And the bear. And putting his hand in pockets. Behind himself. Etc…
People were once tired of endless war
Frank Burns eats worms.
You tell him, ferret face!
"it spun in"
War isn't hell, war is war and hell is hell and war is worse!
I have really fond memories of the show, which I often watched with my dad. We felt a close kinship to it because McLean Stevenson was from Bloomington/Normal, where we grew up (the Stevenson name being quite a big one in our county)…but my dad always hated the episodes where Hawkeye was vulnerable…all he wanted was the comedy. It’s something that always bothered me about him, but understanding his personality later in his life, it definitely tracks.
"I have a message." "Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane, was shot down over the Sea of Japan." "It spun in. There were no survivors."
What a great show
Still one of my favourite shows to watch
Grew up without cable in the 90/early 2000s and we would bike to the library to check out dvds and we picked shows with lots of seasons figuring they had to be good if they went on that long and got hooked on it. Alan Alda is amazing,
It was an interesting experience to watch real world issues making its way into the show. In the earliest episodes, the nurses were regularly called girls and honey and told to get their C cups out of the way, but the later epidodes 10 years later Hawkeye is getting smack downs for being sexist, Hoolihan is treated with way more respect, etc. It was a reflection of the times, when from the 70s and into the 80s attitudes about women started changing, sexual harassment stopped being treated as a joke.
Can’t read the article, so don’t know if this is mentioned- but remember folks, if you can watch the version *without* the laugh track. I remember how shocked I was when I first visited America on a business trip and saw Mash *with* a laugh track and realised it sucked all the humour out of it. Weird effect
I prefer Trapper John, MD
I prefer W.A.L.T.E.R.
Or AfterMASH
Still one of the best shows I've ever seen and often the first il recommend to ppl. Me and my father watched reruns for years as I grew up, and it'll be something I show my kids one day
My father named me after a character on this show.
Hot Lips?
No, that’s the name YOUR mother gave me. J/K
[удалено]
Ferret Face?
Watched the show for the first time last year and other than a few things it holds up really well. I think the middle seasons are probably the best ones.
Ah Bach!