What is your favorite M*A*S*H* episode?

[Cat]

I like the one where Charles Winchester helps a pianist whose hand has been terribly injured. He finds a collection of left-handed piano pieces for the man. A very touching episode that reveals a good side to Winchester.

Each episode had so many layers that sometimes the side plots are as memorable as the main plot lines.

My dad served in Korea, in the front lines. He was camp cook and autopsy assistant (yecch). To this day, he is a really good cook (mashed potatoes for 500!)! He has a hard time watching M.A.S.H. because he says that it’s “too real.”

“That’s just how it was,” he says.

 

[Lukelion]

My favorite is when they try to set Frank up by making a phony stock tip for him to do insider trading with. I laugh when I picture Margret dancing around screaming “PIONEER AVIATION! PIONEER AVIATION!”

 

[KevinAK]

MASH was a great show until Alan Alda took over and started putting his political correctness junk in it. I have seasons one through four on DVD.

One of my favorites is I believe in season one and they had an all night poker game going. LTC Blake, Hawkeye, Trapper, Dr. Freedman, Klinger, and a Korean Arnold from Happy Days before the Karate Kid] doctor were in the card game

A young John Ritter was a patient and went nuts and started shooting at Frank. Radar ran into the swamp. They ask what’s going on and he said, “A patient blew his cork!” They all look at Dr. Freedman and somebody said, “Sidney” and he replied, “I’m not going out there without a bullet proof couch."

During that same show Radar runs over the fall down king of Korea, a wounded CID man and Frank is to scared to operate, and COL Flag shows up he’s a Captain going by a name I can’t remember now I think Helderon or something. I believe that was the first time he played in the series.

Another one was the incubator show and of course the pilot.

I don’t think that was Col Flagg, just happened to use the same actor. The episode ends w/him joining the game.

Ironically, in the episode “Quo Vadis Capt. Chandler”(another good one) Freedman and Flagg come to the camp. Flagg remembers the game, even though it never happened.

 

[Simon_X]

Mash was a great show until someone told alan alda he could act.! Because then it was nothing but over acting done by him. LOL.

The first seasons were the best. All of them.

Don’t you think the show “jumped the shark” when Hawkeye and Hot Lips started getting along. And this may be a pet peeve, but thought it was pretty unrealistic that Alan Ada started out in the series with long hair (in style when the show was shot, but not for characters set in the early 50’s).

4077 lives…

 

[Pacbox]

I grew up watching rerums of MASH. One of my favorites was the ep when Father Mulcahy (sp?) was preparing for the Cardinal’s visit. Nothing went right. In the hospital at the time were two patients who were buddies. One had leukemia and wanted to stay with his friend till his friend could be shipped out. Here’s Father running around obsessed with everything being perfect and the only thing this one man wants is to stay with his friend. I love the homily that Father M gives because it reminds us of how human we all are and that we can’t be perfect without God’s grace.

Another favorite is when Sydney is visiting and there are all these pranks going on. Nobody knows who’s doing it. Sydney hears running water and walks out to see BJ filling one of Frank’s air raid ditches full of water. BJ then has Sydney yell “air raid” and Frank comes running out and jumps right into the water filled pit. I loved that scene.

 

[Cat]

I don’t think the show ever became “bad” or “liberal.”

My dad, who served in Korea, has a lot of the same attitudes that Alda inserted into the show. He saw his friends blasted to bits and had to help do autopsies on their bodies. He often said that war is not good. But he was there, just like Hawkeye and Pierce were there. Just because they denounced the war doesn’t mean they were in any way anti-American or “liberal”. There is an a attitude that on the surface seems “liberal,” but it isn’t. It’s just a general disgust with war as a means of solving differences.

Although I haven’t served in the military, I think that as men and women live in close quarters and serve in the military, they become closer, even the ones who didn’t like each other at the beginning. So I think it’s realistic that Hot Lips “softened up” over the years. She saw with her own eyes that even though Hawkeye and his cronies didn’t “act” Army, they were good surgeons and support team members who saved many lives, and that’s the important thing.

Anyway, one of the reasons I love the show is that it upholds a very positive image of the American military without shying away from presenting some of the negatives of war and the military. And yet, even when it shows negatives (e.g., Frank Burns), it also presents positives about these negatives (there were episodes where Burns turned out not to be such a ninny). A very balanced show.

 

[Ghoti]

One of my favourite bits was when Col Potter was giving the morning announcement…it went something like:

“All personnel will gather in the compound for calisthenics at 0600 hours every morning…(pause)…The same to you.”

I also loved the episode where Harry Morgan played a nutbar general who was inspecting the 4077th. He mentions the new latrines, Col Blake says it’s a four-holer, and the general replies, “Good! The men can encourage each other.”

On a side note: That is the weirdest thing I saw in the US Army: their latrine facilities. When I was in Hohenfels, the toilets were all along the walls, with no stalls or dividers. I mean, I’m all for teamwork and esprit de corps, but…gevalt!

 

[magnolia_bloom]

Another favorite is when Sydney is visiting and there are all these pranks going on. Nobody knows who’s doing it. Sydney hears running water and walks out to see BJ filling one of Frank’s air raid ditches full of water. BJ then has Sydney yell “air raid” and Frank comes running out and jumps right into the water filled pit. I loved that scene.

I remember watching this episode with my grandparents, I thought they were going break their ribs by laughing so hard.

 

[magnolia_bloom]

Oooo…which is the one where they had a plane that was always trying to bomb the camp and missed…something Charlie? The camp used the sheets and paint to make arrows and a bullseye, so he could try to blow up the ammo dump the army made at the camp.

 

[Ghoti]

Oooo…which is the one where they had a plane that was always trying to bomb the camp and missed…something Charlie? The camp used the sheets and paint to make arrows and a bullseye, so he could try to blow up the ammo dump the army made at the camp.

Five O’Clock Charlie. They called him tyhat because he came by at exactly five o’clock every day.

 

[magnolia_bloom]

Five O’Clock Charlie. They called him tyhat because he came by at exactly five o’clock every day.

**
That’s the one!! Loved his little PUTT-PUTT plane.**

 

[KevinAK]

I grew up watching rerums of MASH. One of my favorites was the ep when Father Mulcahy (sp?) was preparing for the Cardinal’s visit. Nothing went right. In the hospital at the time were two patients who were buddies. One had leukemia and wanted to stay with his friend till his friend could be shipped out. Here’s Father running around obsessed with everything being perfect and the only thing this one man wants is to stay with his friend. I love the homily that Father M gives because it reminds us of how human we all are and that we can’t be perfect without God’s grace.

Definitely a good one.

Patrick Swayze played the leukemia patient.

 

[KarenElissa]

Five O’Clock Charlie. They called him tyhat because he came by at exactly five o’clock every day.

Ya, that one is quite funny!

I’ve been sick the past couple of days, so I’ll give you one guess what I’ve ended up watching.

I like the one where Pierce runs up to the Peace Talks and tells them off, quite amusing and rather tempting I’m sure!

I also like when the film reel breaks and then end up singing “I don’t want no more of army life…” Great fun!

 

[Little_Mary]

“Respect. I’ll expect nothing more and I’ll accept nothing less.” --Margaret Houlihan

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

One had leukemia and wanted to stay with his friend till his friend could be shipped out.

That actor was a young Patrick Swayze who announced a few weeks ago he has cancer. What a twist of fate.

 

[surfinpure]

I love the April Fools episode.

Colonel Potter: “Good grief, Margaret! Where in the name of Carrie’s Corset is your tent?!”

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

I don’t think that was Col Flagg, just happened to use the same actor. The episode ends w/him joining the game.

Ironically, in the episode “Quo Vadis Capt. Chandler”(another good one) Freedman and Flagg come to the camp. Flagg remembers the game, even though it never happened.

Ah but remember COL Flagg always used different names and rank. It that one he was Captain Helderon or something like that.

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

On a side note: That is the weirdest thing I saw in the US Army: their latrine facilities. When I was in Hohenfels, the toilets were all along the walls, with no stalls or dividers. I mean, I’m all for teamwork and esprit de corps, but…gevalt!

When I join the army I was seventeen and we were in these old WWII barracks and the toilets were in a horse show configuration. So you sat there not trying to look at the other guy. I couldn’t go for three days. I did on the fourth day and that was 3:30 in the morning because I was on fire guard and the latrine was empty.

**I still remember that after all these years. **

**Heck now I could go in the middle of downtown during rush hour and wouldn’t blink. **

The latrines have gotten better over the years

 

[Ghoti]

When I join the army I was seventeen and we were in these old WWII barracks and the toilets were in a horse show configuration. So you sat there not trying to look at the other guy. I couldn’t go for three days. I did on the fourth day and that was 3:30 in the morning because I was on fire guard and the latrine was empty.

**I still remember that after all these years. **

**Heck now I could go in the middle of downtown during rush hour and wouldn’t blink. **

Everyone else might, tho’…

The latrines have gotten better over the years

They could hardly have gotten worse.

Sorry, dude, I don’t care how gung-ho you are, pooping is not a small party task.

 

[LilyM]

Klinger trying to use a glider of some kind to get out of the 4077 … ‘looks like a great big bird, with fuzzy pink feet!’

That and the one where Burns is trying to teach English to some local Koreans and Hawkeye takes over … 'you tell ‘em ferret face!’

And when Hawkeye is requested to carry a weapon, and goes into this huge long spiel about all the other things he will carry but he’ll never carry a gun …