Bonanza cast reunion at the Heavenly Ponderosa--Pernell Roberts dead at 81

Cafe Society
1

Pernell Roberts, last member of the original Cartwright clan, is gone.

2

Trapper John! :frowning:

3

Yeah, did anyone ever buy that he was supposed to be the same guy as Trapper form MAS*H?

4

Sure, I sort of did. It was supposed to be 15 or 20 years after Korea. You’d expect Trapper John to be balder & fatter. He had matured and settled down. They had a young doctor that did the same rebellious stuff that Trapper had done decade earlier. Once in awhile Trapper would loosen up and you’d see glimpses of his younger personality.

5

I doubt he’d be at the reunion. Didn’t he leave due to “creative differences?”

6

Hey, I was just a kid of the 70s who had never (at that point anyway) even seen MAS*H to compare. So he’ll always just be Trapper to me.

7

He was way the sexiest Cartwright. RIP.

8

I will always remember the MAD magazine introduction to their satire of “Trapper John MD,” both for the jokes and the dreadful factual error. It went something like this:

Interviewer: So, you’re playing Trapper John in the new series. Did you play him in the movie?
Roberts: No, that was Donald Sutherland (NOTE: Sutherland played Hawkeye. Trapper was played by Elliot Gould).

I: DId you play him in the MASH TV series.
R: No, that was Wayne Rogers.

I: So what have you played on tV
R: Well, I was on Bonanza.

I: I remember that show. What is the actor who played your father doing now?
R: He’s hawking ALPO dog food.

I: What about the actor who played Little Joe?
R: He’s living with a bunch of kids in a little house on some God forsaken prarier.

I: And the actor who played your orher brother Hoss.
R: He die in a horse related incident.
I: Did he fall off of a house?
R: No, he exploded after eating it.

9

Not I. After that thread that I started asking for examples of people who underwent drastic psychological changes, in that strict sense I can buy it. But to me they were two completely different people who just so happened to share the same name.

10

Technically, Trapper John, M.D. was a spin-off of the movie, not the TV series. I suppose Pernell resembles Elliot Gould in an older, losing-his-hair kind of way.

11

No. And neither did my girlfriend of the time who was a huge MAS*H fan.