M*A*S*H Memories

Very true.

One again, I think set size limitations kicked in. Not to mention all the extras required for patients.

As I have grown older, it has dawned on my how much their boozing would affect their work. I know they covered just that in one episode and it was fairly dramatic. But it seems the warning of "Choppers! Incoming wounded" takes place just before they take their first gulp of gin.

Guess I am over analyzing.

 

I pretty much never try to force too much logic into any television show. They are all just for entertainment purposes and shouldn't be held to standards of logic that would make them flat-out boring. My favorite example is the old Sci-Fi Irwin Allen show THE TIME TUNNEL. Critics just love to point out that the protagonists in the show were always plopping down in the hotbed times and places of history and wondered why they couldn't have laned in a wide-open meadow in Kansas or something. Well, that would make a pretty uninspiring episode of television to watch our heroes walking through an open field for 50 minutes.

It's the same with M*A*S*H. The stories needed to be driven with what was sometimes illogical or even impossible.

 

Yeah, it's pretty clear after season one that there are only four doctors at the 4077th, and they are on-call 24/7. Which is an extremely unrealistic situation (a real MASH unit had at least 9 surgeons working in three shifts, plus anesthesiologists and dentists). It's one of those conceits of the show that we're not supposed to think about, because if we do we realize it doesn't make sense.

That's one of the reasons I really dislike the episode Fallen Idol... because it draws our attention to that fact. Hawkeye is excoriated for being hungover in the OR, yet realistically the same thing could have happened to any one of the guys, since they all drank and they all were on duty 24/7. So it came across as really hypocritical for them to jump on Hawkeye about it. Realistically, none of them should have been drinking ever, because they all were on-call 24/7. And again, it's fine if the audience is just asked to accept and ignore that bit of unrealism. But you can't have it both ways, having a conceit that the audience is not supposed to think about but then writing an episode that forces the audience think about it.

 

Where are the answers?

 

When you pick an answer it tells you if you were right or wrong and what the correct answer is.

 

10/11, and I got the bra manufacturer and size correct!

 

Just another reason why "original Radar" was better than what they devolved him into...

 

5-11

 

Alan Alda: 'It's amazing that most of us live as if we're not gonna die'

 

In season 1 Radar trades Hawkeye's long johns for a roast leg of lamb;
by season 3, when the Greeks send a live lamb to be barbecued for Easter, Radar initially has no clue why the lamb is there and then ships it to Iowa to save its life.

 

Radar got wussier and wussier as the show went on. He was a real little son of a bitch in the movie.

 

He was!
Even in the early episodes of the series, Radar was shown drinking, smoking and had sex on at least one occasion that I recall!

 

There is an episode in season one I saw recently and didn't remember. Radar gets a "Dear John" record from his fiancée. From later seasons, it is hard to believe he was engaged when he left for Korea.

 

A classic scene:

"I'm sure the three of us will be great friends. If you come back alive."

 

9/11

I missed Lt. Dish's first name and Klinger's bra size

Is Hawkeye's alma mater actually mentioned in the series? It's in the novel, but not (I think) the movie. Was it mentioned in the pilot?

 

At least one very early episode has the announcements made by a deep "Ted Baxter" voice (I don't know the actor's name)

 

"As you all know, tonight Colonel Blake will resume his command after a week in Tokyo.

Now, unless I made a few remarks about my recent stint as your temporary supreme commander, I would be derelict in my officiousness.

I think you'll all agree that by trying to introduce more discipline, more order, I have hopefully made this a more enjoyable war for all of us.

Leadership is a lonely business. Your Napoleons, your Kaisers, your Attilas the Hun were all alone there in the front office, as I have been this week.

I have thought of you, and I know you have thought of me.

But some of the notes in the suggestion box were really below the belt... I mean, why drag my mother into this?"

 

I could picture Burns perfectly while reading this. Had a good laugh. Thanks for posting it.

 

He became the least dimensional character and least interesting to watch for me.

 

Again though, that was all Gary Burghoff's idea. he saw that the way he'd played Radar in the film, (& was playing it on the show at 1st), wasn't going to work as well with the other characters as they were being played on the show. So, he adjusted Radar & softened up the character, making him more innocent & naive.

 

Radar's arc worked great for the show. His last episodes are among the best. But it's funny to go back to the first season and/or the movie and see that wasn't the original plan.

 

I took a flight with Klinger at the height of MASH, it was like seeing Elvis....I think if I saw Hawkeye at the time I would've passed out. I was a Mash-maniac?

 

"I think I've been slaked!"?

 

That's the one!
Also, a very cute nurse accepts Radar's invitation to the supply tent during the chaos in The Army-Navy Game episode from season 1.

 

10 Celebrities You Forgot Were Guest Stars On M*A*S*H

I remembered all of these. Some are among the best episodes of the show (Ron Howard, Leslie Neilen, Pat Morita, Patrick Swawze). Others are interesting trivia (a pre-fame Andrew 'Dice' Clay, Shelly Long). Surprised they didn't mention George Wednt.