M*A*S*H was a fictional account of Dr Richard Hornberger’s years at the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War.
Hornberger’s book (written under his pen name, Richard Hooker) was turned into an award-winning film by Twentieth Century Fox, who fortuitously did not destroy their collection of green army tents as Fox president William Self then wanted to try a television series.
Despite the certainty of network advisers that the grisly humour of doctors delving into the shrapnel-ridden torsos of wounded soldiers would be entirely unsuitable as entertainment, a pilot show was duly made.
New York stage actor Alan Alda was persuaded to take the lead role of the Martini and nurse-loving Chief Surgeon Captain Hawkeye Pierce for $10,000. Alda flew home from LA to New Jersey every weekend for seven years, but his salary did rise to $5 million a year.
Hawkeye – who had been drafted from his hometown of Crabapple Cove, Maine – was a brilliant surgeon. Although he had some dubious interests (he subscribed to Nude Volleyball Monthly), he was one helluva doctor.
Diligent and dedicated to his profession, Hawkeye was sickened by the pointless bloodshed and spurned military discipline, refusing to doff his cap to the powers that be.
American daytime soap star Wayne Rogers came in as Hawkeye’s equally irreverent yet caring colleague, Trapper John. The two became roommates in a tent known as ‘The Swamp’ and alleviated the horrors of the war by playing practical jokes, making advances to the nurses and distilling their own liquor.
The frequent butt of their humour was the self-centred and pompous Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville), who was happiest when he was spoiling everyone’s fun.
Loretta Swit played the bossy, busty Major Margaret ‘Hotlips’ Houlihan (pictured), a gutsy blonde nurse with a voice like a foghorn. Despite Frank’s well-publicised marriage, he and Margaret conducted a covert love affair that was the worst-kept secret of the camp.
In charge of all this mayhem was the easygoing and none-too-sharp Colonel Blake (McLean Stevenson). His only concern was discipline within the operating theatre, and he was admirably supported by his shy and squinting company clerk, Walter O’Reilly (Gary Burghoff reprising his role from the film version), who was nicknamed ‘Radar’ because of his long-range hearing and his ability to appear a split second before being summoned.
Radar brought out the mothering instinct in all the nurses. He slept with a teddy bear and drank only Grape Nehi on his visits to the well-frequented Rosie’s Bar.
Spiritual comforter to the unit was chaplain Francis Mulcahy (William Christopher), who was mild-mannered but never afraid to speak his mind.
After the first series, a new arrival added some extra colour in the shape of Corporal Max Klinger (Jamie Farr). A reluctant soldier from Toledo, Ohio, Klinger was desperate to wangle a ‘Section VIII’ (a discharge for those judged mentally unfit for service) and routinely wore women’s clothing to help make his case.
M*A*S*H, the series featured the antics of the (fictitious) 4077th MASH, immediately south of the frontline in Korea – and only 6,133 miles from Toledo.
At first, the show was only a moderate success. Network bosses had insisted on fewer serious stories and more skirt-chasing. They had also censored out such words as “breasts” and “virgin” – though writer Larry Gelbart snuck that in the following week, inventing a soldier from the Virgin Islands.
A great improvement came after Gelbart interviewed a bunch of real MASH doctors and went to Korea with Gene Reynolds.
Several true stories couldn’t be included in the show as they were too bizarre – one whole unit dying their hair red for a party, for example, or deliberately getting frostbite to get demobbed.
The stories of the doctors, nurses, patients and administrators of the 4077th brought both comedy and pathos into the viewing audience’s homes. The sitcom broke many traditions and set many new standards.
It also was one of those rare occasions when the series was better than the movie it sprang from. Cast transitions were made effectively, and a whole new concept to the meaning of television comedy was born – the introduction of “dramedy”.
The jokes were brilliant . . .
Frank Burns: “Why do people take an instant dislike to me?”
Trapper John: “It saves time, Frank”.
“This Man has a chest wound; he should be in surgery.”
“But he’s Chinese.”
“OK, we’ll operate with chopsticks.”
“Anyway, Klinger’s not a pervert.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a pervert. We have meetings. He’s never there.”
The series ran for 11 years – 8 years longer than the war it depicted! Similarly, its impact on the television viewing audience may, fortunately or unfortunately, be more significant than the Korean War.
There were a number of important cast changes over the years. Colonel Blake was discharged and left for home, only for his plane to be shot down over the Sea of Japan with no survivors. His replacement was the horse-loving former cavalry officer, Colonel Sherman T Potter (Harry Morgan) – a genial commander with plenty of bark, but his bite was reserved – like Blake’s – for medical discipline.
Trapper shipped out when actor Wayne Rogers left the series to be replaced by Mike Farrell as Hawkeye’s new accomplice, BJ Hunnicut.
BJ (the initials were never explained) was a real family man, shunning all advances and longing to rejoin his wife, Peg, and their little daughter, Erin.
Nevertheless, he was as much a joker as Hawkeye was, so Frank Burns found no respite.
Indeed, Frank’s days were numbered. The beginning of the end came when Margaret married Lt. Colonel Donald Penobscot. Although he was seldom seen and the marriage was short-lived, it brought her involvement with Frank to an end.
After the breakup of her marriage, Margaret mellowed somewhat and found herself more in tune with the rest of the camp. But by this time, Frank had gone AWOL and was then dispatched to another unit to be replaced by aristocratic Bostonian Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers).
Pompous Winchester found himself rooming with Hawkeye and BJ in The Swamp and was just as easy a victim as Frank had been.
He genuinely believed his blue blood placed him in a higher circle than his army colleagues, and he bitterly resented the waste of his enormous medical talents in the “patch-up” operating theatres of a MASH unit. He did, however, earn a modicum of respect, which sly, sneaky Frank could never have done.
When Radar was allowed to return home to help his elderly mother run their smallholding, his place as clerk went to Klinger, who abandoned his female wardrobe and switched back to traditional military attire.
Eventually, after 251 episodes, M*A*S*H ran out of anecdotes to turn into plots, and Alan Alda tired of putting boot polish on his hair to hide the grey. The show had collected 14 Emmy Awards, received 99 nominations, and Alda had won awards as one of the show’s writers and directors as well as its leading actor.
The extra-long final episode, ‘Goodbye, Farewell and Amen’, aired on 28 February 1983, attracting a record-breaking audience of 125 million people.
Sadly, Charles Winchester had the enjoyment of his beloved classical music marred permanently when a group of Chinese soldiers he’d taught to play Mozart were killed; “For me, music had always been a refuge from this miserable experience,” he observed. “Now, it will always be a reminder.”
Max Klinger fell in love with a Korean woman named Soon-Lee (Rosalind Chao), married her and later joined Father Mulcahy and Colonel Potter at a stateside VA facility in the After Mash spin-off.
The last we saw of Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, she was off to the 8063rd after loading a jeep with so much luggage there was no room for Winchester, who was supposed to share it with her.
But she didn’t go without a parting gift – Winchester’s copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets From the Portuguese, which she’d wanted so badly.
Hawkeye faced and overcame an emotional breakdown via a stint in a psych facility to return to the 4077th and the ensuing goodbyes.
He and BJ managed one of the most touching farewells ever to hit the small screen as Hawkeye’s chopper lifts off, and he sees the word “GOODBYE” spelt out in stones, which his friend hadn’t been able to speak in person.
TRIVIA Apart from the announcements periodically made over the camp PA system by Radar and Klinger, all PA announcements were made by actors Sal Viscuso or Todd Susman, both of whom appeared in an episode or two themselves.
The controversial laugh track was removed from all scenes in the operating room. The track was removed completely when the series aired in the UK.
While After Mash and Trapper John MD both proved to be popular spin-offs from the series, a third, usually forgotten spin-off also made it to the pilot stage.
W*A*L*T*E*R focused on the post-military police career of Walter O’Reilly, who had now dropped the “Radar” part of his identity. Directed by Bill Bixby, the pilot never made it to a series.
Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce
Alan Alda
Captain John Francis Xavier “Trapper John” McIntyre
Wayne Rogers
Colonel Henry Blake
McLean Stevenson
Major Margaret “Hotlips” Houlihan
Loretta Swit
Major Frank Burns
Larry Linville
Corporal Walter Eugene “Radar” O’Reilly
Gary Burghoff
Colonel Sherman T Potter
Harry Morgan
Captain B J Hunnicut
Mike Farrell
Major Charles Emerson Winchester III
David Ogden Stiers
Corporal/Sergeant Maxwell Klinger
Jamie Farr
Lieutenant (Reverend) Francis Mulcahy
William Christopher Dr Sidney Freedman
Alan Arbus
New York stage actor Alan Alda was persuaded to take the lead role of the Martini and nurse-loving Chief Surgeon Captain Hawkeye Pierce for $10,000. Alda flew home from LA to New Jersey every weekend for seven years, but his salary did rise to $5 million a year.
At first, the show was only a moderate success. Network bosses had insisted on fewer serious stories and more skirt-chasing. They had also censored out such words as “breasts” and “virgin” – though writer Larry Gelbart snuck that in the following week, inventing a soldier from the Virgin Islands.
Trapper shipped out when actor Wayne Rogers left the series to be replaced by Mike Farrell as Hawkeye’s new accomplice, BJ Hunnicut.
Hawkeye faced and overcame an emotional breakdown via a stint in a psych facility to return to the 4077th and the ensuing goodbyes.
