I still enjoy watching the MASH re-runs (and even watched the original MAS*H movie a few weeks ago on AMC), and was thinking of how Frank Burns and then Charles Emerson Winchester the third were the foils of Trapper John, Hawkeye and B.J.
I think that Frank Burns was actually more fun for them to tease; they seemed to get a good deal of enjoyment from teasing him as well. Ye gods, that sounds sick when written, doesn’t it?! He was such an idiot, and honestly wasn’t great shakes as a physician. Of course, much of that was due to Larry Linville’s portrayal - his Burns was just right on target.
Now this is not to say that B.J. and Hawkeye didn’t give just as much tormention to Winchester! I do think that they actually tried to be nice to him at first, but his upper class airs quickly squashed that. Winchester was, however, completely different from Frank Burns. While there were many funny episodes with B.J. and Hawkeye taunting and tormenting Winchester, I just don’t think they were as funny as the Burns episodes.
I prefer the Winchester episodes because Frank Burns was just, so…FRANK BURNS!!! GAH!
I really can’t stand “fake” characters like that - that are a caricature of themselves. Think Mr. Furley from 3s Company or Raymond’s MIL in Everybody thinks Raymond is a dork.
They’re so obnoxiously written, I can’t stand to watch it. Not funny, just annoying.
If I remember correctly, the idea was for Winchester to be on more of an intellectual par with Hawkeye and B.J. A more able foil, if you will, one who would offer more of a challenge to his tentmates. I thought Larry Linville was great in the role of Burns, but I also enjoyed Winchester. I agree that scenes with Burns were funnier, but Winchester’s were more interesting and satisfying…to me, at least.
As an aside, I didn’t care for B.J. at all and greatly preferred Trapper John as portrayed by Wayne Rogers. B.J. struck me more as snippy and lightweight by comparison with Trapper John. I never felt the chemistry between Hawkeye and B.J. that I did between Hawkeye and Trapper John.
It’s almost like comparing two different shows. The focus of the Burns and Trapper era was so different from the B.J. and Winchester scripts which took on more serious subjects.
Larry Linville, rest his soul, was a fine actor. While the other characters on the show were growing, his character really didn’t have any way of developing. I mean, he really was hopelessly idiotic. Fortunately, the producers didn’t try to replace Linville with another idiot, but chose just the opposite.
Winchester made a great foil. He was obnoxious, but even he could have his moments in which he garnered our sympathy. The writing for his character was also funny as hell. And I can’t imagine anyone else playing the role.
Anyone remember the time Winchester refused to bathe?
Interestingly, the pilot episode has Col. Blake saying of Burns “He’s a good surgeon; we need him” to Pierce and McIntyre, to get them to back off. As far as I know, this was the only time Burns’ surgical skill was described as anything better than incompetent. Combined with the antics of the original film, Pierce et al come off more like bullies and assholes than heroes, and if Burns was as bad a surgeon as was routinely stated after the pilot episode, I don’t see how the 4077th was supposed to have such a high treatment success rate. I actually ended up sympathizing with Burns much of the time.
Unfortunately, by the time they outgrew the juvenile plotlines and brought in Winchester, the show had become, under Alda’s increasing influence, maudlin and preachy. There had been a time when all four male leads (three of them married) were having casual affairs with the nursing staff. This disappeared by bringing in loyally married Hunnicutt and Potter (when they were tempted by extramarital flings, it suddenly became a BIG DEAL) and Winchester, who snobbishness kept him from forming liaisons lasting more than one episode. Even uber-hound Pierce got all sensitive; can’t sleep with her - she’s a bigot. Can’t sleep with her - she’s married. Can’t sleep with her - she’s just joking around to trick me into sharing my liquor with the entire nursing staff. Did sleep with her - but then she walked off and stomped on a landmine. Pierce suddenly became as sexually unfulfilled as Dobie Gillis. He managed to bag Houlihan (who only spoke positively of former lover Burns on one occasion), but then it got weird.
I have to admit, I don’t look back fondly on MASH* from any season.
There was an episode when he refused to speak, but in another episode, it was Pierce and Hunnicutt who refused to bathe, in protest of Winchester’s insistence on practicing on a French Horn, with which he had almost no skill.
Winchester, no doubt about it. He was a much worthier opponent and actually won from time to time. Burns was a one-dimensional idiot; Charles had depth; and he was, in fact, the best OVERALL surgeon in the group, though not the best MASH surgeon.
I too enjoyed the relationship between Hawkeye and Trapper John, Starving Artist; although I liked B.J., I never liked him as much as I did Trapper.
You’re right, Bryan Ekers, the show did change direction over the years and did become a bit preachy; I could overlook that aspect, though, for the entertainment value. Different people see things in sometimes very different ways. That said, the series finale was, I thought, overdone and especially Hawkeye’s role was bizarre, to say the least. I just had a very hard time grasping that he’d be responsible for a woman smothering her baby, and then that he suffered a nervous breakdown but didn’t get immediately shipped somewhere else for treatment. I may be mis-remembering things here, because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that episode. Heh. Probably since it originally aired! When Frank Burns went berserk, they shipped him back stateside and promoted him.
Larry Gelbert hated the one dimension Frank Burns character and when Larry Linville decided he’d had enough and wanted out, Gelbert decided to create “a charcter who was a great doctor and a miserable human being.” Winchester was such a proper Bostonian that I had to love him, having grown up with people like him.
Frank was in some ways funnier… but Frank was a cartoon. I always felt kind of sorry for Larry Linville, since he never got the chance to develop the character any, and because he got rather typecast as the “jerky idiot.”
Winchester, on the other hand, grew. He developed. He changed. He wasn’t as funny, but he was a damn sight more interesting.
Frank was too preposterous. In a broader comedy like Police Squad! that would have been fine but in a serious comedy (if you will) about war he was just annoying. And having him be the “patriotic” guy gave the writers too many easy shots. Also, once he left, Margret was able to grow into a real person.
Winchester was much better. He even got to be the good guy a couple of times, like when he helped the classical pianist who lost a hand. Even as the villain he was more amusing and forced the writers to work harder.
I liked them both. Frank episodes are for when I want to laugh and not have to pay much attnetion, as the jookes wrote themselves. Winchester- era is more that I am really watching and not listening and it tends to the more dramatic.
I agree…plus, he had a heart, as hard as he tried to hide it sometimes. He was an OK enough person that he could be their friend, as well, and so from time to time was in with them on the jokes. Much more multi-dimensional than Frank, who, to me, was just a nothing character. No redeeming qualities at all.
Agreed. Burns was just a jerk, nothing more, nothing less. Winchester was also a jerk, but he had his redeeming qualities which occasionally showed up. Not often, maybe, but he did have those qualities. And when they tried, the other characters could bring out some of his humanity… Remember when Radar wrote to Winchester’s parents, and got them to send him his old knit cap from childhood, for instance? Something like that would never have worked with Burns.
I wish there could have been a special on what happened to them. (AfterMASH? I’m sorry…I don’t understand you.) Houlihan was going back to the states to work in a VA hospital, one of the nurses was going to get out of nursing altogether, Pierce was going to open a practice in Maine, and Winchester, sadly, lost his love of music.
I think my favorite was when he gave chocolates the the orphans, then got furious when he learned the man in charge of the orphanage had sold the chocolates, until the man explained the money would buy blankets and enough rice to feed the children for a month. Klinger somehow got wind of it and brought him a tray of Christmas goodies to him in The Swamp, saying “The person would like to remain anonymous.”
I disagree. In one episode they showed home movies of his wedding to his frowning, presumably frigid wife, and I felt very sorry for the poor bastard. But our protagonists brutally mocked him anyway. It was excruciating.
