M*A*S*H

[Cessandra]

I was laying in bed last night thinking, and I remembered a bit from an episode of M*A*S*H. It was the one where Hawkeye and his companion (don't recall if it was BJ or the other one) met up with an old army doc doing seminars in Tokyo. They invite him back to the front, and he ends up unable to operate due to the fact that he's plastered. Hawk goes on one of his rants (why should this patient suffer because YOUR to cowardly to stay sober, etc.). So here's the question: Wasn't there an episode once where Hawkeye was to drunk to operate, and he defends himself against a disillusioned Radar (I'm not here to be a role model; I'm here because I have to be, or something like that)?

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Cessandra

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[tomndebb]

Yes. There was an episode where Hawkeye couldn't operate because he was drunk. Radar had been injured and Hawk couldn't deal with it. Radar got all upset with Hawk for failing to perform, Hawk flamed him, and the rest of the show was about everyone in the 4077th pissing on Hawkeye. At the end, Hawk and Radar are both in the canteen and Haweye swaps Radar a beer for a Ne-Hi.

Rather wierd episode IMO.

(Consistency was not a great aspect of M*A*S*H. You can find several shows that "violate" or contradict the "messages" in other shows. But that is the fallout for spending 11(?) years on the air with different writers.)

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Tom~

[Northern Piper]

an alternative theory is that Hawkeye was a self-centred, self-righteous jerk - consistently

[Cessandra]

But Alan Alda was soooo cute! :)

[Pickman's Model]

Maybe. But he didn't look anywhere near as sweet in a pair of tight fatigues as Loretta Swit did. Hubba hubba!

[Koxinga]

Wasn't there a kind of sequel to M*A*S*H (and I don't mean "After M*A*S*H") that showed the life of one of the main characters thirty years later--maybe "Trapper John, M.D."?

Also, do you remember that there was some computer or office equipment maker (HP? Xerox?) that had most of the cast of the original M*A*S*H TV show starring in a series of commercials in the mid to late 80s? Henry Blake and Radar and some others were there, I know, except they had some sort of soul transmigration into the bodies of a bunch of office workers. I always thought that was bizarre.

DHR

DHR

[divemaster]

Re the OP,

IIRC, the part of the other doctor that was to drunk to operate was played by Robert Alda, Alan's father. It's been quite a while since I've seen that episode, so my memory could be faulty.

[AWB]

Doghouse Reilly: Wasn't there a kind of sequel to M*A*S*H (and I don't mean "After M*A*S*H") that showed the life of one of the main characters thirty years later--maybe "Trapper John, M.D."?

Yes. "Trapper John, MD" was quite successful on it's own, running for 7 seasons. It's only real link to M*A*S*H was TJ himself. No other characters were brought over.

[Cessandra]

DIVEMASTER, I think you're right about that. I remember reading it either on the M*A*S*H website (the url for which I have long since lost), or maybe in the biography of Alan Alda's that I read.

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Cessandra

My Homepage (http://www.shsu.edu/~stdmed17/Home.html) (http://www.shsu.edu/~stdmed17/Home.html)
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[Satan]

I recall this supposed hypocrisy, but this is just one of the reasons I think M*A*S*H was such a great show. Like in real life, and unlike most TV (certainly at the time) it showed good guys with faults, bad guys with redeeming qualities, especially in the later years.

That show, I like to say, explored the "gray areas" in all humanity, where nothing is absolute, much like All In The Family did as well.

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Yer pal,
Satan

[SkeptiJess]

But Alan Alda was soooo cute!

Nah, Wayne Rogers was DEFINATELY the hottie in that cast! Maybe we should take this to GD: Hawkeye or Trapper John?



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Jess
Full of 'satiable curtiosity

[Shirley Ujest]

I always thought that Will Farrell ( From SNL who plays the spaztic cheerleader guy) looked like Wayne Rogers son.

[Sam Stone]

How come Trapper and Hawkeye were always drinking when they were on call, huh?

I can remember zillions of episodes where they were sitting around in the swamp knocking back a martini when the alert goes off and they run out of the tent to the operating room.

[Rodd Hill]

Of course, the real star of the show was Larry Linville, as Frank Burns ("It's nice to be nice to the nice.")

[Rysdad]

As I recall, Hawkeye flamed Radar for his "Iowa naivete," which Radar took as an insult to Iowa.

And Nurse Able was the cutest.

[Ukulele Ike]

How did Hawkeye get away with insulting Radar/Iowa like that? I remember him being from Maine, right? That down-east bastion of suave urbanity and jaded cynicism.

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Uke

[AWB]

Ukulele Ike: How did Hawkeye get away with insulting Radar/Iowa like that? I remember him being from Maine, right? That down-east bastion of suave urbanity and jaded cynicism.

They finally settled on Maine, though he once said he was from Vermont.

He interned in Boston, so he probably got his cynicism there.

My question: where's his New England accent? No dropped/added "R"'s, no "dooryards", no "ahyup"'s.

[Ukulele Ike]

AWB: Yeah, it occurred to me, just as I was hitting the "send" button, that he probably got the heck out of lobsterland to pursue his medical studies. And I also remembered that he had a hankering for spare ribs from a barbecue place in...was it Chicago? Or St. Louis?

Maybe that explains his accent...the midwesterners got hold of him at some point and steamrolled all the "ayuhs" right out of him.

[Boris B]

I have a bunch of questions now. First, could you guys explain to me what "dooryards" and "ahyup"'s are? I'm trying to imagine a New Englander saying these things, but I can't. What are these words/phrases translated into non-New Englandish? I've never been great at figuring out regional accents, in case you hadn't guessed.

Second, does anybody know where Alan Alda's reputation as the epitome of the sensitive guy came from? On M*A*S*H he's an arrogant sexual harasser, and I don't remember what he was like in the movies. But I always here people saying stuff like, "Oh he's so sensitive he's a regular Alan Alda".

[Jophiel]

And I also remembered that he had a hankering for spare ribs from a barbecue place in...was it Chicago? Or St. Louis?
Chicago. Adam's Ribs - across the street from Dearborn Station. Near a dry cleaners. I always wondered if it was ever a real place or not. Anyone from the city want to investigate? ;)


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"I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn't."

[Yankee Blue]

In my humble opinion M*A*S*H was actually two shows one good, one bad. The first 5 years (all of Trapper and the first mustache-less year of BJ) were the good show. Clever, witty, occasionaly touching. The second five years (BJ with a mustache) sucked. Santimonious, preachy, and redundant. Maybe it was cause Frank was gone, but they sure lost something.

[Cessandra]

Second, does anybody know where Alan Alda's reputation as the epitome of the sensitive guy came from? On M*A*S*H he's an arrogant sexual harasser, and I don't remember what he was like in the movies. But I always here people saying stuff like, "Oh he's so sensitive he's a regular Alan Alda".


From everything I've read, in real life, Alda was a really good guy. He lobbied for the ERA, and was a big supporter of equal rights for everybody. Plus, he had a really good relationship with his wife. No huge scandals of him cheating or actuing like a jerk in Hollywood. The only thing I've ever read dennouncing him was an isolated webpage of some guy who claimed to have met Alda once, and gotten snubbed.

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Cessandra

My Homepage (http://www.shsu.edu/~stdmed17/Home.html) Updated 9/27/99!
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[Mr. Blue Sky]

Re the original post. The episode in question was entitled "Fallen Idol".

[astorian]

Interestingly, the BOOK on which the movie and series "MASH" were based was one that would horrify Alan Alda and his bleeding-heart fans. The author was extremely conservative, and went out of his way to be politically incorrect.

I was not a fan of the film, but I give the film credit for keeping with the spirit of the book. Pauline Kael correctly called Robert Altman's "MASH" the great anti-everything movie. No matter WHO you are, and no matter WHAT you hold sacred, you'll be offended by something in the book and the film.

The TV series, on the other hand, was tepid, wimpy, standard preachy liberalism. And if you disagree, ask yourself, What happened to Spearchucker? The book and film were unafraid to offend minorites- the TV series copped out quickly, for fear of offending favored minorities.

TV shows that pride themselves on being cutting edge, but which show not guts, are a waste of time.

[Lawrence]

In the book Hawkeye was from Crabapple Cove, Maine. He was the alter ego of the author, Richard Hooker (pseudonym of Richard Hochberger), who really had been a doctor in a MASH unit in Korea, and was from somewhere in Maine. Hochberger didn't like the TV show at all, since he was a conservative, but I suppose he didn't have any problem with all the money he must have received.

[Sam Stone]

On the TV show, Hawkeye hated guns and wouldn't touch one. He had to be coerced to fire one into the air.

In the book, Hawkeye and Trapper took 'Shaking Sammy' (the priest before Father Mulcahy) out away from the camp, put him in a jeep and then shot his tires out with their .45's. Of course, later they crucified him.

The early M*A*S*H shows actually were fairly faithful to the book (like, the first season or half-season). Spearchucker was there, and some of the early shows actually re-created episodes from the book. As I understand it, the show began to change as Alan Alda's power on the show grew and he started getting involved in the writing and directing.

[Kat]

Cess--is this the website you lost:
http://www.mash4077.co.uk/ ?

[SkeptiJess]

Something that I've always wondered about M*A*S*H (the TV series): In the book (definitely) and the movie (IIRC) it was Hawkeye who was married and Trapper who was single. Why the switch for TV? As has been mentioned, the early TV episodes were similar in tone to the book and movie -- aggressively non-PC with something to offend everyone. The show eventually became Alan Alda-fied into a didactic mess (IMHO). So. My working theory is that Alda refused to play a cheating husband, and handed the "likable married horn-dog" roles over to Trapper and Henry. And, once McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers left the show, the way was paved for Harry Morgan and What-his-name and the downward spiral into schmaltz. But, at the beginning of the show's run, Alda surely didn't have the power to make such a demand. Has anybody heard an explanation for this baffling switch?

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Jess
Full of 'satiable curtiosity

[Ukulele Ike]

Boris, I'll try to clear up the Maine accent thing, even though I'm only a Summer Person up there. I did spend four years getting a degree in Connecticut, but THAT place has about as much New England Flavor these days as Minneapolis.

"Dooryard" is Maine for "yard." Back or front, I'm not sure. I DO know that Mainers don't ever USE their front doors...sometimes they even push furniture up against them (from the inside) and remove steps (from the outside). You're supposed to go 'round back and knock. (Got this information from John Thorne's marvelous books on Maine life and foodways.)

"Ayuh" is Maine for "yes."

Rent the video of PET SEMETERY (1989). Pretty vile flick, but Fred Gwynne does a GREAT Maine dialect.

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Uke

[Hungry Boy]

Since the original question has all but disintegrated, I'll add one more related query?

If M*A*S*H is an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, why is there no * after the H?

[John W. Kennedy]

Inland urban Maine doesn't particularly go with the "Maine" accent, which is mostly found on the coast. I grew up in Waterville, and the only real peculiarity of my speech then compared to, say, northern New Jersey was that I regularly used the "Canadian" "Eh?" Even at the time, I was quite aware of the traditional "Maine accent", but not one child or adult that I knew had it; it was strictly something we heard in movies and on TV.

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John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams

[sloth]

I'm assuming it's because the film was based on the book, but does anyone besides me find it odd that the film ends up as a sports movie? Gotta win the big game and all that?

[Cessandra]

Kat:

Cess--is this the website you lost. . .

Yes, thankyou!

[sunbear]

You guys actually read the book? I never even thought to look it up.

Favorite Major Houlahan(sp) show: She's complaining, probably to hawkeye, about the bad deal she got from her men. Hawkeye starts to defend guys.She says that he does not understand. And this part I remember clearly.She says: "That's just it, all you different men are all the same."

It was pretty well done, even if it was in the Alda controlled period.

corrections?

[John Bredin]

"Inland urban Maine doesn't particularly go with the 'Maine' accent, which is mostly found on the coast."

Yes, but one would presume that "Crabapple COVE" (emphasis added) would be a coastal community.

[AWB]

Dooryard: basically, the yard closest to the door.

As my Mainer wife told me, if Mom told you to stay in the dooryard to play and you left it, you'd soon find out what was and wasn't the dooryard.

My wife doesn't have a noticable accent, but her mom does. (The both grew up in the same area, though.) Mom-in-law lives in Brewer (Brewa), across the river from Bangor (Banga). And her daughter-in-law is Tina (Teener).

Pronounciations and such that are arguably part of the Mainer accent The name Campbell. I (and most people I know) pronounce it "cam bell" (silent "p"). But my in-laws pronounce it "camp bell".
Ground beef: we often called it "hamburger meat", especially if we were going to make hamburgers with it. In Maine, it's called "hamburg".

[Ukulele Ike]

More fun Maine facts:

If you take that hamburg (ground meat) and brown in a spider (skillet) with onions and tomatoes and then stir in cooked macaroni, you'll have American Chop Suey (Beefaroni, or Johnny Marzetti).

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Uke

[Beruang]

To answer a couple old questions --

The computer manufacturer who got Alda, Swift, Morgan and various other cast members to appear in commercials was IBM/OS2. Don't recall the disembodied spirits thing, though.

There is an Adam's Ribs in Chicago, but it is not near Dearborn Station (which is no longer an active rail terminal). Of course, the show was set in the early '50s, so the possibility remains that such a place did exist half a century ago.

[Gr8Kat]

If you take that hamburg (ground meat) and brown in a spider (skillet) with onions and tomatoes and then stir in cooked macaroni, you'll have American Chop Suey (Beefaroni, or Johnny Marzetti).

Growing up, that was my sister's and my definition of spaghetti. If we asked for spaghetti, that's what we meant. When we were finally introduced to "real" spaghetti, we differentiated between the two by calling one "homemade spaghetti," and the other "long spaghetti." And, philistines that we are, we prefer "homemade spaghetti."

The only difference between mom's recipe and yours, Ike, is that my mom included cheddar cheese, too. Mmm.... I think I know what we're having for dinner tonight :)


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"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it," Jack Handy

[Gr8Kat]

Oh, btw, the reason I latched on to the hamburger and macaroni post and ran with it is that Ike seems to be insinuating that this is a Maine dish. However, I ate it growing up in Oregon, prepared by my mother from California, who found it on the back of a bag of macaroni from who know where.

Is it the name "American Chop Suey" the part that's Maine's contribution to the dish? I admit, that's a new one on me :)

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"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it," Jack Handy

[Ukulele Ike]

Kat,
Yeah, the stuff in parentheses in my post was the translation of the Maine term, which preceded.

So this is cool...in Oregon, this dish is called simply "spaghetti" ? Or was that the deal just at your house?

My mother made this (from scratch) when I was growing up (1960s-70s Cleveland, Ohio) and we called it beefaroni...since you could buy the same conglomeration in the Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee can. I've read in various foodie texts that it's called "Johnny Marzetti" in some parts of the country, but I've never encountered that.

I've never ordered "American Chop Suey" in Maine, so I'm not sure about the cheese situation. If I were making it myself I'd probably lean towards freshly-grated Romano!

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Uke

[Kat]

Luckily, I didn't spend too long wondering what I'd written that Ike was talking about. ;) (I started scrolling up to see, and saw Gr8Kat's last post.)

[tomndebb]

Hungry Boy:If M*A*S*H is an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, why is there no * after the H?
Because in the Army they just call it MASH or M.A.S.H. The asterisks were inserted into the title of the book in order to "punch up" the marketing.
(I don't know whether the original publisher of M*A*S*H was also the original publisher of The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N or not (although it doesn't really matter too much since I see that Amazon now lists that book as The Education of Hyman Kaplan.

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Tom~

It's been a looong time since I read the book, but as I recall Hyman Kaplan spelled his name H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N because he thought it looked more important that way. So it was the author not the publisher who put the asterisks in.

[Gr8Kat]

Ike, I think it was just us ignorant li'l kids who called it spaghetti. About the only "ethnic" food we were exposed to as children was pizza, so we were socially maladjusted ;) I have no idea what other Oregonians call it, except maybe "hamburger and macaroni and cheese."

Also, in my family, we put cheddar cheese in just about anything. Cheese is in our blood.
http://members.aol.com/gr8kat1/KatGen/Barber.htm

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"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it," Jack Handy

[John W. Kennedy]

Yes, but one would presume that "Crabapple COVE" (emphasis added) would be a coastal community.


Not necessarily. There are coves on lakes, and Maine has a lot of lakes.

I, too, remember "American chop suey" as a Maine term.


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John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams

[jab1]

Did anyone see ER last week? Alan Alda as a doctor.... Gee, where'd they get THAT idea?

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Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana

[Sancho]

What's funny is Alda's character had homemade treatments for just about every patient that came into the ER. For example, he used a blood pressure cuff as a makeshift tourniquet to stem an arterial wound.
At one point, when someone (maybe Carter) was looking at Alda in amazement for his great save, he kind of winked his eye and said, "Old Army trick."
I'm reminded of a time that Hawkeye had to perform a tracheotomy and used a hollowed out ball point pen as the tube. Now I'm just waiting for Trapper or B.J. to show up in the ER as well. Maybe Hot Lips can teach the girls of Ally McBeal what being sexy is all about.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King.

[ExTank]

In '90 I attended the Army Combat Lifesaver course. It's an intensive weeklong course given by medics to standard troops (grunts, dats, cannon-cockers, duck hunters, bubble-heads, wrenches, truckers, butchers, geeks, sparks, spooks, snoops, etc) so that they can supplement the medic's manpower in combat, giving necessary aid to wounded to keep them alive until a real medic can show up.

On of the techniques they taught was the Emergency Tracheotomy, by taking the guts out of the standard Government Skillcraft pen, making an incision in the trachea and inserting the hollowed-out pen into the incision; tape into place and call the meat-wagon for evac.

I don't know if this was actually ever used to save anyone's life in DS/DS.

[b]<FONT COLOR="GREEN">ExTank[i][b]</FONT>
[i]<FONT COLOR="BLUE">"Well, it worked fine on the test dummy. Volunteers?"</FONT>

[lvick]

Using a blood pressure cuff as a tourniquet is no news at all IRL, although direct pressure is much prefered. I've heard of the emergency makeshift tracheotomy and chest tube, in theory they're fine, but I haven't ever worked with one. I am curious though Extank, did they teach you to make the incision horizontally or vertically?
Larry

[KentT]

I am curious though Extank, did they teach you to make the incision horizontally or vertically?

The incision would have to be vertical, since head movements would stretch a horizontal one a lot more, wouldn't it?

On the other hand, a horizontal incision could be made between the tracheal rings (I may have just invented that name, not sure) and that might heal easier. But that wouldn't be a major concern in an emergency situation.

Ofcourse, I have no medical training whatsoever so I'm just guessing here.

[Arken]

I think much more concerning than the lack of an asterisk after the H in M*A*S*H is the fact that a MOBILE Army Surgical Hospital stayed in one place for 11 of the 3 years of the Korean War.

[Arken]

I think much more worrying than the lack of an asterisk after the H in M*A*S*H is the fact that a MOBILE Army Surgical Hospital stayed in one place for 11 of the 3 years of the Korean War.

[Arken]

Sorry. I thought I caught the first post before it went out. 'Concerning problem?' I need help.

[Rodd Hill]

Actually Arken, IIRC the 4077th did move at least once, when a wingnut officer (Colonel?) played by a pre-Potter Harry Morgan made them move across the road.

"Never let a radish stand in the way of victory!--Marshal Foch."

St. Hawkeye got rid of the guy by "exposing" his racist tendencies ("Give us a song, boy--it's in your blood!")

And wasn't there another episode where they had to "bug out" because of a Chicom push?

I recall two episodes where the 4077th was relocated. One was where Frank Burns was temporarily in command and as Hawkeye described "noticed the M in MASH stood for mobile." The other was a more serious episode where they expected the unit to be overrun and had to evacuate and Hawkeye and Margaret volunteered to stay behind with a patient who couldn't be moved.

[torq]

I haven't read the original M*A*S*H book. However, Hooker wrote several sequels (MASH goes to London, MASH goes to Maine, MASH goes to Morocco, etc.) which are set after the war and presume that Trapper moves to Maine along with Hawkeye to establish the Finest Kind Medical Clinic (or something like that). I'm pretty sure that Spearchucker and someone else who didn't last long on the TV series is there with them, but it's been a few years since I've read the books.

Is Burns even in the book? He's not in the sequels that I've read, although "Hot Lips" is.... Radar and Blake are also nowhere in sight. Instead there's an entirely new supporting cast, most notably an opera singer and an incredibly rich oil magnate (sort of like Jed Clampett with a Cajun accent).

[typertrphy]

A couple of things.
First of all, SANCHO? While you may find it a Hollywood-ism for Alda to use a device for something other than it's normal application, I can tell you FIRST HAND that it happens. I drive an ambulance as a volunteer, as I write this, I am in uniform. On more than one occassion, I have seen a Paramedic ( never an EMT, since EMT's cannot administer an IV) "Push" fluids through an IV with great speed, by wrapping the Blood Pressure cuff around the IV bag, and then squeezing the BP Cuff Bulb, therefore crushing the IV bag, and forcing fluids. It happens, if you saw it on "ER", you can bet with over 95% certainty that it happens in real life. The medical consultation on the show is impeccable. My friend, Dave Chamiedes, shoots every episode.
As for the show where Robert Alda, daddy to Alan, was there? It was NOT the "too drunk to save Radar" show. Rather, it was a show where they wound up with each one having an injured arm, in the field, doing true meatball surgery with one guy's left hand working and stitching along with the other one's right. Hokey, but hey- when you are acting with Daddy, you make allowances.

Typer

"If you want to kiss the sky, you'd better learn how to kneel"

[typertrphy]

Sorry for the added posting, but this show was a big deal to me. Arken? I have been to South Korea twice, and also to the Hills above Malibu, Calif. I don't know how to tell you this....but....KOREA LOOKS LIKE MALIBU !!!! Funny, but true. Softened hills, green more or less. I loved South Korean, and hated LA. But..there IS a similarity between the 20th Century Fox Ranch backgrounds, and South Korea.

Typer

" If you want to kiss the sky you'd better learn how to kneel "

[Nickrz]

Please continue your discussion in MPSIMS.

[jab1]

Hey, what about the FINAL episode? The one that lasted two hours? I think they moved once in the middle of the episode when Hawkeye was seeing the shrink and then at the end, of course, when the war was over.

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Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana

[Arken]

I guess it just never LOOKED like they moved... or maybe all of Korea looks the same. Ah, Hollywood.