I caught an episode the other day on TV Land or one of those channels. I used to watch it pretty regularly in first run. After all these years, it took a night scene in the camp for me to realize that it was too quiet. Where was the roar of a diesel-powered electrical generator or two? They were, after all, a mobile field hospital and not tied into any kid of civilian power grid. The electricity for all those lights, X-ray machines, and stuff had to come from somewhere.
Don’t you think it would cause havoc with the microphones?
Suspension of disbelief, my son. I’ll bet the liquid in the straws during the moon shuttle in 2001 bothered you, too.
And what about all those voices out of the ether that were laughing at every wisecrack that came out of Hawkeye’s mouth? I mean, it’s so out of character for 1950’s Korea.
I missed that. Did the liquid return to the container from the straw after drinking? Perhaps there was some elasticity to the container that “pulled” the liquid back down after suction was released?
According to Kubrick, who admitted it, that was the only techno-flaw in the picture. They were traveling in zero gravity and when they sucked on the straw, then released the suction, the liquid rapidly returned to the container. In zero-G, it should have remained where it was, of course.
I guess your explanation didn’t occur to Kubrick.
In all fairness to MASH, the generator could have been over a hill, in a bunker, or inside a soundproof hut.
When I was in Vietnam, we had several generators for the entire base, but the one that supplied our juice was far enough away that it couldn’t be easily heard from our quarters. The sound wasn’t a problem, but the AC frequency and voltage was. They ran it around 50 hz and typically supplied only 90VAC, supposedly to avoid overtaxing the old generator. Better to have some electricity than none at all.
So all the standard electric clocks were useless (they were designed for an unwavering 60hz signal); the movie projector ran slow or at irregular speeds, and the refrigerators overheated and crapped out from the low voltage. Some of us bought Radio Shack power boosters (autotransformers) and even cascaded 2 of them to get the voltage closer to 120.
There has been some debate over whether that is an error or not. The food would be pulled back into its container not just by gravity, but also by the difference in air pressure; i.e., sucking on the tube would create a partial vacuum in the food container.
I guess it depends on whether the straw makes a tight seal with the hole it is inserted into. In a modern drink container, it doesn’t; an outer space design might. I’d have to look at the film to see the detail, even if it is visible. Did they insert the straw just before drinking, or was it integral to the container?
I think the fact that Kubrick acknowledged it means it was an “oops – we goofed”. Everything afterwards would be just creative excuses.
I still want to know who it was that we heard over the speaker all the time. There was a disembodied voice that made announcements all the time. But, unless the s cript called for it, it wasn’t Radar or Klinger or anyone else you could identify making those announcements. For those 12 years of the Korean War, somebody else was in the CO’s tent working the PA system!
The P.A. announcer was played at various times by actors Sal Viscuso and Todd Sussman. Both also appeared in minor parts.
Yeah, but that’s not my question – Who WAS he? We never saw this guy going in and out of the office, and they never mention “Corporal so and so” making the announcements. He seemed totally disconnected from everything else in the show.
I’d apologize for the hijack, but I’m nott sure this IS a hijack.