Today, that’d definitely be the case. As noted a few times in this thread, it wasn’t at all uncommon, decades ago, for TV shows (particularly comedies) to not be as careful or fussy about relatively small details of characters and their backstories as they are now. There was no internet to look things up, or for fans to point out continuity errors, and old shows weren’t re-run infinitely on cable channels, both of which help to expose those inconsistencies today.
That I remember. In the episode I described above, Hawkeye was particularly worried about him going into the hospital because he was a physician himself and wouldn’t have done so if his condition hadn’t been critical.
I never saw any humor in Frank Burns incompetence in the OR. There were episodes where Hawkeye and the others criticized his skills. I had the impression the other surgeons were keeping an eye on his work.
I realize the skills of military doctors would vary. Some are better than others. It’s just not a good source for humor.
In another very early episode, Hawkeye et al. were complaining about Frank being such a jerk. Henry Blake defended him by saying “He’s a good surgeon!”
In the “Hawkeye is court-martialed episode,” the presiding officer says Frank should have been drafted as a pastry chef instead of a surgeon.
I might be misremembering here, but I seem to recall Potter calling his wife something other than “Mildred” in one of his early episodes. I would have to watch them again to make sure.
He wanted all the male characters to have a haircut like Spock’s. Leonard Nimoy was the only actor who agreed to style his hair that way. (I think I learned this when Roddenberry was giving a talk at UVA, but I’m not sure.)
I can believe this, though in The Making of Star Trek (1968), author Whitfield says Spock’s hair is “in the Vulcan mode.”
Inverse transverse Mohawks?
Wasn’t there an episode where Frank left a sponge inside a patient? IIRC it was portrayed as only “slightly” more incompetent than normal.
Not only that, but Robert Mitchum goes through the entire invasion of Omaha Beach with a cigar clenched in his teeth. After they break through the barrier and finally make it off the beach, he tosses away the one he’d been smoking and lights up a fresh one.
In the book, it’s mentioned that Frank is a master at open heart massage.
Larry Linville was the most talented and funny actor on the show. It’s a shame the writers couldn’t evolve the Burns character beyond a buffoonish and impotent foil for the cool characters to mock.
I went to a speech he gave once. Very nice guy, and clearly very talented.
Important to note here that most Army docs are direct-commission. They walk in off the street, take some minimal training, immediately put on a rank of Captain or Major without a lot of experience or context as to what that means. Same goes for nurses, dentists and most of the other college-educated shortage specialties.
Some don’t give a fuck about the Army and don’t bother cultivating military bearing at all. Less so nowadays that the incentive is massive student loan repayments, but back in the draftee era it was like “listen, you pulled me out of my comfortable private practice to be here, if you don’t want to put up with my attitude, feel free to kick me out of the Army and send me back home.” Many Army docs nowadays can’t take that attitude because they’re under a contract to pay back some heavy loans for med school.
Others are just nerd betas who let their rank go to their head and act like dicks in ways that traditional line officers wouldn’t. Henry Blake and Frank Burns seem different as night and day, but they’re really 2 sides of that same direct-commission coin.
ISTM that they wanted to say that if Hawkeye operated on you, you’d have a 99% chance of survival. With Frank Burns, you’d have a 95% chance.
There was an episode where Hawkeye’s patient wasn’t recovering. Frank taunted him. He’d missed something behind the sigmoid colon and Frank said, “Anybody could have missed that,” to which Hawkeye replied, “Thanks, Frank.”
About Hawkeye’s mother…
Radar arrives at the Swamp for advice from Hawkeye about his mother and her new boyfriend. During their discussion Hawkeye hits a nerve when he points out to Radar that he’s jealous, that he has to “share his mother with someone else for the first time since he was a little kid”. He then tells him about how his dad became interested in another woman not long after his mother died. Though Hawkeye never let on, his father could pick up on his resentment. Hawkeye realized in hindsight that his father must have needed his approval so much that he gave up on the woman, and has “remained alone to this day,”; Hawkeye regretfully adds that, “loneliness is everything it’s cracked up to be.” He suggests that Radar wait and see what happens, to which he agrees, but then offers up the idea that if it doesn’t work out, maybe his mother could be introduced to Hawkeye’s father.
Was that before we got to see what Radar’s mother looked like? Because I wouldn’t wish that on my father.
He also made a great villain on Mission: Impossible.
From what I remember, Frank was not a bad surgeon, but not well suited to the quick and dirty meatball surgery the MASH did.
There were mixed signals sent about this, I think. I know that Margaret, who knew Frank best, made it clear that she did not want him touching her surgically when her gall bladder (or maybe appendix?) was running hot.
mmm
That was after her engagement, so there were other reasons to want Frank nowhere near her.