I guess I am the only one who thought her mind was “sick and it’s twisted”.
mmm
We’ve discussed the fluctuating ages of Potter on MASH. I believe 1900 or so is a reasonable birthdate for him. He lied about his age to get into WW1, which actually means 1901 or 1902 would work as well.
He is, in theory, 50-52 in the show. However, Morgan was 59-60 when he began the role. His age was definitely not pinned to the actor at all.
And then, of course, the show rain from 1975-83 even though time did not pass for the characters.
The show also had a single episode that covered an entire year, with the same cast, even though it had so many significant cast changes that I don’t think there was a full season without one.
Yep. Continuity and so forth was irrelevant. It was the Korean war, but it easily could have been “generic ongoing war” show, especially once Trapper, Burns, and Blake were all replaced.
They did have seasons without casting changes. The first three seasons maintained the same cast. Once Radar leaves the show in season 8, I think things stayed the same. Seasons 8-11 were:
Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, Loretta Switt, David Ogden Stiers, and William Christopher.
In fact, only Radar left the show from seasons 6-11.
Abe Vigoda was 50 when he played Tessio in The Godfather but he seemed like he was ancient even then.
In A Hard Day’s Night Paul’s Grandfather was in fact 52.
But he was very clean.
Huh, I guess the cast turnover was more frontloaded than I realized.
I will say that I’ve occasionally been watching it with my mom, lately, and they just last week rolled back over from the end of the series back to the beginning, and it’s really disorienting to be hit with ALL of the cast changes at once.
Oh, and an amusing example of lack-of-continuity: There was one episode where Winchester was upset that his sister was marrying an Italian, because Italians are all uncultured brutes. The very next episode, he’s enjoying his records of Italian tenors, the very pinnacle of culture, and looking down his nose at the cultural inferiority of everyone else in the camp.
I’m not sure that’s a lack of continuity in the series as much as it is an accurate reflection of the lack of continuity in mid-20th Century WASP racism. That actually seems to me like a pretty realistic depiction of the typical attitudes of a Boston Brahmin of the era (1950s or even 1970s).
One of Winchester’s main storylines over 5 seasons is him coming down to earth a bit. The war was a shitshow of violence and despair and it grounded him quite a bit by the end. He’s still a jerk, but a lot less by the end.
The best decision they made in re-casting on that show was to always cast someone very different than the person they are replacing:
Henry Blake - incompetent draftee replaced by a competent regular-army guy…who they all really like(they liked Blake too)
Trapper - unfaithful husband and jokester replace by faithful easy-going guy(who does enjoy jokes, though).
Burns - Incompetent and hateful person replaced by very competent and…well, racist but learning to be less so guy.
Plus Burns was regular army and expected everyone else to be. Winchester was a doctor wanting to get home to civilization ASAP.
Winchester didn’t necessarily want to go home, just to someplace more prestigious. He was usually trying to arrange transfer to Tokyo General Hospital.
But yeah, the change from Burns to Winchester was a good move. He was still a jerk that nobody likes, but he had his redeeming qualities, that made him much more interesting.
Winchester was pretty much what Larry Linville wanted, but could not be. He realized Frank was too much of a jerk and too irredeemable. They had no plans for the war to impact him and change his views of the world.
It must have been at least somewhat irksome to see that they replaced him with the type of character he would have been happy with.
That’s because he thought she was marrying an Italian-AMERICAN. An Italian from Italy (in the eyes of WASPs like Winchester) bears the cultural status of deep culture.
And I agree with everyone who says that replacing Burns with Winchester was one of the best things the show did. There was basically nothing about Burns that was ever good, but Winchester, in addition to being an excellent doctor (however much Hawkeye and Trapper hated to admit it), he was also generally able to back up his boasts, unlike Burns, who was always exposed as a lesser man than he claimed to be. I loved the scene where he actually proved that he had been on a date with Audrey Hepburn. Also, Winchester knew how to zing back. My favorite scene in the entire series was at the end of the episode in which Winchester is introduced. “Please…Mozart!”
Of course, an Italian-American is an immigrant, or probably just a generation removed from one. Which is to say, either a poor, or (possibly worse) “new money.” Winchester would likely not have minded nearly so much if his sister married a wealthy Italian with an aristocratic background.
IIRC, They had to grudgingly admit he was better, but not as fast for the meatball surgery they excelled at. I want one of those guys for the ER, but Winchester for my surgery later.
Also Potter was better than Blake, imho.
I re-watched some early episodes, they do not age well. Hawkeye and Trapper are too sexist.
It’s insane how much the males in the unit saw the nurses as only female companionship and gave little or not thought to their professional services. One early episode has the nurses sent away for their safety, and the men (including this one guitar-strumming character who was a staple of season 1 but was dropped pretty soon after) are just complaining about how much they missed female companionship. I also remember a particularly cringey later episode where a Swedish female doctor is visiting the 4077th and Hawkeye basically spends the whole time acting like she’s a) guaranteed to be blond, shapely and in heat and b) there for his personal sexual fantasies. Even though Hawkeye gets his comeuppance in the end, it’s cringey that the character who is essentially the protagonist of the series had that personality.
There was an episode where the men were deprived of sex for a while–I’m thinking maybe the nurses were holding out for some reason–and Trapper John says something to the effect of “They look like girls, but I forgot what they’re for.” Cringe.
“Edwina” Season 1, Episode 13
Hawkeye ends up drawing the short straw and has to date an amazingly klutzy nurse, played by Arlene Golonka.
Winchester: “My family has had trouble with immigrants ever since we came to America.”