In the book and the film, Hawkeye had played football in college; in the series, he is non-athletic. He was given the nickname “Hawkeye” by his father, Benjy (Sr.), in the novel and in the series from the character in the novel The Last of the Mohicans, “the only book my old man ever read”. A principal character of the series, where between long sessions of treating wounded patients, he is found making wisecracks, drinking heavily, carousing, womanizing, and pulling pranks on the people around him, especially Frank Burns and “Hot Lips” Houlihan. Fond of practical jokes and revenge, the doctors, nurses, administrators, and soldiers often find ways of making wartime life bearable. It was criticized for trivializing the war, lacking the nuance of the film and TV show.
Nevertheless, the war goes on. All of the front-billed regulars (with the exceptions of Farrell and Stevenson) appeared in the spots over time. In the late 1980s, the cast had a partial reunion in a series of commercials for IBM products, including personal computers and the AS/400 system.
After saying she was recently involved with a colonel named Donald, Margaret comes to conclude he has cheated on her, and she flies into a rage against the nurse. For example, in the episode “In Love and War”, a new nurse arrives at the 4077th. He is mentioned frequently throughout the sixth and seventh seasons, particularly about problems Margaret and Donald are having. Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott was played by two actors, Beeson Carroll and former football player and Tarzan actor Mike Henry.Donald is introduced in name only at the start of the fifth season.
Maxwell Klinger
This marked the first time the series was made available on an internet platform. Seven episodes won for Episodic Comedy in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1981. The series received 28 Writers Guild of America Award nominations – 26 for Episodic Comedy and two for Episodic Drama. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the fifth-best written TV series ever and TV Guide ranked it as the eighth-greatest show of all time. In February 2008, the series was named the number-one smartest TV show of all time by Jim Werdell, chairman of Mensa International, who said that it “had smart repartee and was so much more than a comedy”. The episodes “Abyssinia, Henry” and “The Interview” were ranked number 20 and number 80, respectively, on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time in 1997.
- Trapper spends much of his time on the series engaging in mischief with Hawkeye Pierce, with the two playing practical jokes on Majors Frank Burns and Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, heavy drinking, and trying to seduce women.
- In the episode “The Incubator”, and in this episode only, he is presented as a fool, answering questions of reporters in military double talk.
- Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Samuel Flagg is played by Edward Winter.
- Through the 1990s, the area was occasionally used for television commercial production.
- A nurse at the 4077th, and Henry Blake’s paramour during much of the first season, and is at his side through much of the pilot.
The character is inspired by company clerk Don Shaffer, who also was born in Ottumwa and nicknamed “Radar” by his compatriots, and who served alongside Hornberger in Korea. Radar is from Ottumwa, Iowa, and joined the army right out of high school. After the war ends and the 4077th is disestablished, he returned to Boston, where the position of Chief of Thoracic Surgery at a prestigious hospital awaits him.
- Her nickname “Hot Lips” has different origins in the original novel, film, and TV show.
- The series, which depicted events occurring during a three-year war, spanned 256 episodes and lasted 11 seasons.
- Nevertheless, the war goes on.
- The character’s original defining characteristic was his continual attempts to gain a Section 8 psychiatric discharge from the Army, by habitually wearing women’s clothing and engaging in other “crazy” stunts.
List of M*A*S*H characters
When Radar places a hidden microphone inside Hot Lips’s tent as she and Frank Burns have sex, members of the camp listen in, and Mulcahy at first mistakes their conversation (and noises) for an episode of The Bickersons, leaving abruptly when he realizes otherwise. Afterward, Mulcahy reluctantly helps the doctors to stage the famous “Last Supper” faux suicide, to convince Painless that he should continue with life. In the novel and film, Mulcahy is familiarly known by the nickname “Dago Red”, a derogatory reference to his Italian–Irish ancestry and the sacramental wine used during Holy Mass. In the pilot (and proposed series), the O’Reilly family farm had failed and Radar had moved to St. Louis and become a police officer. Radar was also briefly “promoted” to the made-up rank of Corporal-Captain by Hawkeye in the two-part episode “Welcome to Korea”. He runs the camp public address system and radio station, which are often used in minor gags; in one episode he transmits messages to a Navy carrier by Morse code.
In the pilot episode, to raise funds for Ho-Jon’s education, Trapper “jokingly” suggests selling Spearchucker. He was one of the original Swampmen with Trapper, Hawkeye, and Frank Burns, and was the sole black surgeon at the 4077th. The AfterMASH episode “Madness to His Method” has as its frame Colonel Potter writing a letter in Missouri about the episode’s situation to an unseen Freedman. After leaving Korea and the army, Freedman accepts a post at the University of Chicago.
Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce
In the pilot episode, Ho-Jon is accepted at Hawkeye’s old college, just as in the novel. Ho-Jon is last seen in the film being led away by South Korean soldiers while the doctor tells Hawkeye that he has seen through the trick. In the film, Ho-Jon is drafted, and Hawkeye drives him to the induction center.
Cast
The series varied in style and tone – including broad comedy and tragic drama – which can be attributed to fluctuating writing staff over the life of the show and the variety of sources contributing to the stories, such as actor Alan Alda and surgeons who served in the Korean War. Longtime supporting cast members included Kellye Nakahara, Jeff Maxwell, Johnny Haymer, Allan Arbus, Edward Winter and G. In the episode “A Full Rich Day”, Blake says, “Tony, hit it”, cueing the national anthem of Luxembourg over the PA – Tony could have been the name of the announcer starting a record or the name of a “live” pianist. In the series, it is unknown where on the base the PA announcer is posted, as Radar is the only one seen in control of the radio and PA system.
Forgotten Time
In addition, Potter, who had been managing administrative work before his assignment to the 4077th with the asset of knowing many of his superiors as personal acquaintances, possesses formidable skills as a surgeon and for keeping morale high in the operating room. (In the episode, “Mr. and Mrs. Who?,” for example, Potter approves Hawkeye’s idea to use a low saline solution to replace sodium in a hemorrhagic fever patient, after the high saline solution has been banned by the U.S. Army.) One of his most cherished possessions is his Good Conduct Medal, an award “only given to enlisted men”, Potter explains to Radar while unpacking that he has a “Good Conduct Medal with a clasp.” That means he was an enlisted man for at least eight years before he becomes a doctor. In the Season 10 episode “Pressure Points”, Potter tells Sidney Friedman that he is 62 years old. He was portrayed by Harry Morgan and replaced the departing character of Henry Blake as commanding officer of the 4077th MASH. The characters are shocked by the news; the actors were shocked too, as they were not informed of the script change to have Blake die until just before the scene was shot.
Capt. Spearchucker Jones
Some accounts assert the producers were unable to find evidence for black Army surgeons in Korea; there were, however, several black surgeons who served in the US military at the time. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon in the film, and in Episode 1/04, “Chief Surgeon Who?” in which Hawkeye is named Chief Surgeon of the 4077th, Spearchucker’s specialty is indicated as he struggles to do other types of surgery. The character’s middle name was Harmon in the film and Wendell in the novels. In all iterations, the Spearchucker character is a superior surgeon who was also a stand-out collegiate athlete. He is also mentioned, but does not appear onscreen, in the episodes “Mad Dogs and Servicemen”, “Heal Thyself”, “A Holy Mess”, and “Trick or Treatment”.
In season six, he receives a Dear John letter from Laverne saying she has found another man, whom she later breaks up with, then becoming engaged to Klinger’s supposed best friend. He is later promoted to Sergeant (“Promotion Commotion”) and begins to take his duties even more seriously; the writers had decided to “tap into his street skills” to flesh out his character. The character’s original defining characteristic was his continual attempts to gain a Section 8 psychiatric discharge from the Army, by habitually wearing women’s clothing and engaging in other “crazy” stunts. He tells his friends that he intends to work with the deaf following the war, but only B. In the series finale, while releasing POWs from a holding pen in the path of an artillery barrage, he is nearly killed and loses most of his hearing when a shell explodes at close range.
Frank is last referred to in the second-to-last episode “As Time Goes By”, where the question is asked (by Winchester) if anything that was put in the 4077th’s time capsule belonged to Burns. In the season 3 episode “O.R.”, Frank has a quiet, insightful conversation with Trapper, where he admits that he grew up in a strict family where he could not talk at meals, and that he became a snitch “so I could talk to somebody.” Even Hot Lips, when asked by Frank what she thought of him as a surgeon, replied, “Frank, don’t you have enough pain?” The MASH surgeons get a big laugh when they see a film of his wedding – even then Burns could not hold a knife while cutting his wedding cake. Hawkeye told a court of inquiry that Burns had created more widows and orphans than salmonella, and a psychiatrist that the war “forced me to operate next to a surgeon who can’t cut his toenails without committing malpractice”; Trapper John sneers Burns could not cut salami without bungling it; B. A borderline-incompetent surgeon (he flunked out of two medical schools, twice failed the medical exams, and only passed by buying the answers the third time; even so it took him seven years to complete medical school).
His name is only mentioned in the episode “Payday”, though Hawkeye jokingly introduces him as his “brother-in-law Leroy” at the Officer’s Club. An African American private with a mustache who is occasionally seen in group shots in early seasons. One of those names, however, applies to Roy Goldman (see above), thus one can assume that the name was merely a one-time usage.
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Harry Morgan admitted that he felt “the cracks were starting to show” by season 9 (1980–1981). While the series dmt dimethyltryptamine abuse signs and symptoms of dmt abuse remained popular through these changes, it eventually began to run out of creative steam. The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 was a significant factor as to why storylines become less political in nature and more character-driven.
Its final episode, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”, was the most-watched television broadcast in the United States from 1983 to 2010, and it remains both the most-watched finale of any television series and the most-watched episode of a scripted series. The character’s name is a reference to the character “Captain Spaulding” played by Groucho Marx in the film Animal Crackers. (The absence of Miller’s considerable baritone resonance would suggest the latter.) There were a few different voices in the series, among them Todd Susman’s and Sal Viscuso’s as well as Jamie Farr, marking Corporal Klinger’s arrival from the first episode, albeit unseen. For the film, the voice is sometimes listed as that of Marvin Miller and sometimes as that of David Arkin, who played Staff Sergeant Vollmer. The actor himself not only served as an extra and the “Dennis Troy” character, but was primarily on-set for the duration of the series as the stand in for McLean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers, then Mike Farrell, as they had similar stature and skin tone. In the episodes “For the Good of the Outfit” and “Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde”, Dennis is General Clayton’s jeep driver.
He convinced a reluctant Hawkeye that the best thing for him now was to return to duty for the last days of the war. Freedman’s first appearance was in the episode “Radar’s Report”, as Milton Freedman. Margaret receives her official divorce decree from Donald in the episode “Hot Lips is Back in Town”.
Although he is ordained as a Catholic priest, Mulcahy demonstrates both an inclination towards Christian ecumenism and a studious interest in, and familiarity with, non-Christian faiths. This is despite being told by Cardinal Reardon, a prelate visiting Korea to evaluate the effectiveness of the chaplains serving there, that “you’re a tough act to follow” after listening to his sermon concerning a soldier diagnosed with leukemia, at that time a death sentence. He is an amateur boxer and boxing fan; an old priest and mentor in Jesuit school taught his students that boxing built character and Mulcahy coached boys in the sport at his local CYO chapter before being assigned to the 4077th.