# Things that bother me about M asterisk A asterisk S asterisk H (the TV show)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted
**Created:** [June 4, 2021, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583 "2021-06-04T02:10:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/101 "2021-06-05T20:14:06Z")
You’re correct about hair regs not changing, but military haircut rules can go out the window pretty quickly in any combat environment. I was pretty much rear echelon in 'Nam, so we were expected to more or less adhere to regs, but men in remote locations could get pretty shaggy without anybody giving much of a shit. Much of that was because there wasn’t a barber anywhere nearby. When they came in for R&R, then it was back to normal.
I agree that the hair styles in MASH screamed '70s civilian, and I also agree that the show-runners were pushing a Vietnam Era anti-war vibe with the show.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/102 "2021-06-05T21:41:24Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#):
>
> I wonder what his idea of a futuristic haircut was?
Trimmed with a Phaser!
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/103 "2021-06-05T21:42:52Z")
Set phasers on “trim”.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/104 "2021-06-05T21:50:36Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> Trimmed with a Phaser! -
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#):
>
> Set phasers on “trim”. -
" Just a little off the ear, please."
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/105 "2021-06-05T21:58:39Z")
Thus, the song, “Radar Lobe” from Golden Earring.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/106 "2021-06-05T23:45:06Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#):
>
> > [@kenobi\_65](#):
> >
> > I mean, we’re talking about a series where they established that Henry was married, but then _changed the name of his wife_ – she was “Mildred” in the first season, and then “Lorraine” from then on.
>
> [Wikipedia confirmation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_characters#Henry_Blake)
> I’m trying to remember him referencing her as Mildred…Lorraine I remember. It seems like actors would get into their roles and catch these things, but maybe McLean Stevenson didn’t?
>
> Of course Blake’s replacement (Potter) was married to Mildred so you remember hearing it but there’s confusion about who said it.
I remember catching this when watching reruns too. Henry called his wife “Mildred” in a very early episode, one of the first thirteen I would think.
Other glaring inconsistencies: Margaret’s father was dead, then alive; Hawkeye’s mother was alive, then dead. I’m sure there were more, but I can’t think of them right now.
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### Author:  [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/107 "2021-06-06T00:10:33Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> Other glaring inconsistencies: Margaret’s father was dead, then alive; Hawkeye’s mother was alive, then dead. I’m sure there were more, but I can’t think of them right now.
I don’t recall Margaret’s father being dead.
[Houlihan on Wikipedia]
([List of M\*A\*S\*H characters - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_characters#Margaret_Houlihan))
I don’t recall Hawkeye saying his mom was alive. The backstory on his nickname was that “Last of the Mohicans” was the only book his father had ever read, but if his father was also a doctor, I found that hard to believe.
[Hawkeye in Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_characters#Hawkeye_Pierce)
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/108 "2021-06-06T00:14:37Z")
Hawkeye’s sister was existent - and then non-existent.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/109 "2021-06-06T00:26:16Z")
I find it best to assume that the movie, every season, the finale, and the episode _A War For All Seasons_ each happen in a separate parallel universe. All universes are broadly similar, but with subtle differences. Mildred Lorraine Blake goes by her first name in one universe, and her middle name in another. Each universe resets the clock. Past events from previous seasons happened, but took place at an earlier date.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/110 "2021-06-06T00:29:05Z")
Hawkeye was born in Vermont, later he was born in Crabapple Cove, Maine. Not a bad trick.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/111 "2021-06-06T00:29:39Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> I find it best to assume that the movie, every season, the finale, and the episode _A War For All Seasons_ each happen in a separate parallel universe.
MASH is science fiction.🙂
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/112 "2021-06-06T00:31:17Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> Other glaring inconsistencies: Margaret’s father was dead, then alive; Hawkeye’s mother was alive, then dead. I’m sure there were more, but I can’t think of them right now.
The doctors were just that good.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/113 "2021-06-06T00:38:27Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> > [@terentii](#):
> >
> > Other glaring inconsistencies: Margaret’s father was dead, then alive; Hawkeye’s mother was alive, then dead. I’m sure there were more, but I can’t think of them right now.
>
> The doctors were just that good
I’m no great shakes at medicine, but even I could take someone from alive to dead.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/114 "2021-06-06T00:40:55Z")
In one episode, Margaret tells Frank “For a moment there, you looked like you had a chin. You looked like my father just before he died.” (He was later played by Andrew Duggan, of course.)
In one “letter home” episode (I think it was the first), Hawkeye tells his father “Say hi to Mom and Sis for me.” In the one where he’s scared by his father going into the hospital, he reminisces how he gently broke the news of her death when he was a kid by (IIRC) making him a pancake breakfast.
(Maybe in the letter home, he was asking his father to visit his mother’s grave, but it didn’t sound that way to me.)
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/115 "2021-06-06T00:44:59Z")
Sure, but they managed to make Margaret’s father not dead.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/116 "2021-06-06T00:53:15Z")
It was “established” that Hawkeye was an only child? I can believe it, but I don’t recall in which episode.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/117 "2021-06-06T01:01:43Z")
A Season 2 episode had a wounded soldier who’d been beaten up because he was gay. Everyone was supportive of him except, of course, Frank Burns. Really? Nobody but Frank Burns was homophobic in the '50s? In my experience of that time, only a VERY tiny number of people were accepting of gay, especially in the military. The MASH personnel themselves would have beaten the guy up again, then slapped him with a dishonorable discharge.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/118 "2021-06-06T01:02:49Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> It was “established” that Hawkeye was an only child? I can believe it, but I don’t recall in which episode.
[His entry on the MASH Wiki](https://mash.fandom.com/wiki/%22Hawkeye%22_Pierce) says:
> [@](#):
>
> Early on in the series Hawkeye mentioned his mother and a sister, but later said that he is an only child, and his father remained single after his mother died when he was ten years old.
But, it doesn’t provide mentions of specific episodes. Interestingly, the next line in the Wiki is this:
> [@](#):
>
> Only in later seasons, Hawkeye’s father was established as a physician in his own right; earlier on he was referred to (by Klinger and B.J.) as _Mister_ Pierce.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/119 "2021-06-06T01:06:31Z")
From “Hawkeye” - the monologue episode
“I’m an only child. No siblings.
I guess after they had me my parents
decided not to “sibble” anymore”
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### Author:  [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2021, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-bother-me-about-m-asterisk-a-asterisk-s-asterisk-h-the-tv-show/943583/120 "2021-06-06T01:12:16Z")
I’m surprised at how much I apparently don’t remember. I thought I’d seen most episodes. It seems like when they realized they had a winner on their hands, someone would make sure inconsistencies in the storyline didn’t occur.
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