Original subtitles

- Hey, I think we're in the army.

- The thing that I loved about "MASH"

Is that it could be very funny

And very serious at the same time.

- Boy, you really are a sicko. Mental.

- Just 'cause I spend most of my waking hours fixing up

Small wounds so they can go back and get bigger and better

Wounds, you think I'm mental?

- Another thing I loved was we could work

In every conceivable style.

- Ole!

- Burlesque, drama, melodrama, satire, and sometimes

All at once, sometimes all in the same episode.

- Henry, you're not gonna endorse this idiot's

Application, are you?

- That's Major to you, Captain.

- Henry, you're not gonna endorse this Major idiot's

Application, are you?

- They said there weren't going to be any more casualties!

- Frank, if I were you, I'd sue North Korea

For every penny they've got.

- You were dealing with the insanity of war.

- This neighborhood is going to hell!

- And you had to have a bunch of doctors

Who created their own insanity,

So as not to go crazy themselves.

- Where did you get those costumes?

- What costumes?

- The costumes you're wearing!

- These aren't costumes.

We stopped shaving last month.

- Henry, get me a driver!

- Certainly.

- Count off!

- One! - Two!

- That's about it.

- Get me the hell out of here!

- They cared about one thing.

They cared about saving lives.

- Pierce, you're doing good work.

- Oh, yeah, another three or four wars,

I'll be sensational.

- This'll be a real test of my leadership-manship.

So...

No booze.

- You always entertain first, and deliver

The message second, especially if you're

Doing a show about a real war.

- "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy.

War "and" peace?

- Yeah, well, Tolstoy was very flexible.

He went either way,

- I have to give credit to the writers.

I mean, we had great writers on "MASH."

- I'm a communist.

An atheistic, Marxist, card-carrying, uh...

- Bolshevik.

- No, honest.

- The writing was good.

The acting was good.

The producing was good.

The directing was good.

Where can you go wrong?

- There's your Eisenhower, spending

A lot of time playing golf.

- More fun than playing president.

- What's his handicap?

- A lot of people say Nixon.

- We had become a social phenomenon.

- I'm damn proud of these.

Nobody gave them to me.

I earned them.

And I'm just as much a Major as any other Major.

- As it was happening, we knew.

We knew how lucky we were, how... how blessed.

- Fine, I make a motion that the war be ended.

- I second the motion.

- You can't end the war just like that!

- You've all heard the motion.

Those in favor, raise your right hand.

- Aye! - Those opposed?

- Nay!

- The ayes have it.

Uh, let it be recorded that the war was

Ended on this date at 9:32 pm.

- Here they come!

- I don't hear nothing.

- Wait for it!

- This is the story of two indispensable

Military surgeons.

They had the army over a barrel.

But did they take advantage of it?

Yes.

"MASH," a motion picture

That raises some important moral questions,

And then it drops them.

- I thought the movie was funny.

I thought it was terrific.

The outrageousness of it.

This isn't a hospital!

It's an insane asylum!

- The film is its own thing.

We copied the visual style,

Using the same locations, the same sets,

But we developed our own personality.

- Who are you?

- Uh, Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce.

Who are you, sarge?

- What do you think this star means?

- You're tinker bell?

- The one man who was most responsible for the success

Of "MASH" is Gene Reynolds.

Gene Reynolds brought all of the creative people together.

- I loved seeing gene at work.

First of all, he's a great director,

And he's a great producer.

- Fox asked me to shoot a pilot for "MASH,"

And that was a very exciting invitation.

A little hospital where the goal is to save lives,

In the middle of a war where the goal is to destroy life.

The format is just powerful, overwhelming, touching, funny.

Gave us a wonderful opportunity.

- At this particular mobile army hospital,

We're not concerned with the ultimate reconstruction

Of the patient.

We only care about getting the kid out of here

Alive enough for someone else to put on the fine touches.

We try to play par surgery on this course.

Par is a live patient.

- We had an extra ingredient that most shows don't have.

We were telling stories about people who really lived.

- This was Korea early in July 1950.

Among the first to arrive were the medics,

Field surgeons, aid men, litter bearers,

Ambulance drivers.

Nurses arrived in a mobile surgical hospital unit

On the way to the front.

- I think we really wanted to respect them

And be true to what they had lived through.

How long have we been at this?

- I started surgery in 1932.

- I mean this session.

- So do I.

- "MASH" was based on a book by a doctor

Who had served in Korea.

I've seldom had characters handed to me

As unique and outstanding

As the running characters in "MASH."

And so my first challenge was,

Who's gonna write this pilot?

- You know, you can't miss if you've got good material.

- Larry Gelbart was an absolute genius,

His talent and the depths of it.

He could be wildly funny, but at the same time,

He had substance.

- I used to introduce him as my friend the genius,

And he said, oh, don't say that.

But he was just the most extraordinary

Creative force actors could hope to have around.

- Gene Reynolds asked me if I'd seen

A feature film called "MASH."

As it happened, I had just seen it the night before.

And he said, well, 20th century fox has talked with CBS,

And they'd be interested in financing

The writing of a pilot script.

Would I be interested?

And I said, if we could retain the spirit

Of the film itself, I'd be very interested.

- We came up with an original story.

We hammered that out in about a week.

And I came back to la to build the sets and to cast the show,

But I was not receiving the script.

Finally, I called him and I said, look,

We're building the sets.

We're ready.

We're getting warm here.

- And gene said, how's it coming?

And I said, I just mailed it, and hung up.

And then having said I mailed it,

I realized I had to write it.

We had talked so much about it,

And it had been marinating so long.

I know it sounds boastful to say I wrote it

In two days, but I did.

- Radar!

Radar, don't do that.

- Yes, sir.

You wanted to see me, sir? - Yes.

But let me say I want to see you before I see you.

- Yes, sir.

- Hamilton?

- Hot lips.

- Hot lips?

- Your conduct in there was not only unbecoming in an officer.

It was equally reprehensible as a medical man!

- Frank, I happen to be an officer only because I

Foolishly opened an invitation from President Truman

To come to this costume party.

And as for my ability as a doctor,

If you seriously question that, I'm afraid

I'll just have to challenge you to a duel.

- It was a perfect pilot. Perfect.

There was nothing... the best pilot I've ever seen,

In the sense you didn't have to change anything.

It was all there.

We put it on the air.

Our scheduling wasn't as good as the show,

Because the first year, we put it on Sunday at 8:00

Opposite really tough competition.

- We weren't too thrilled to be there.

And of course, it was confirmed by the numbers

Being kind of ordinary.

- Uh, sir, we...

We do have just a little bit of a problem here.

- In the course of that first season,

When you're down in 40th or 50th place, of course,

Your mind runs to the possibility of cancelation.

- Pierce, you're in very deep trouble.

- What do all these people want

More than anything else?

- To go home.

- What do they really want?

- Sex.

- Ah.

- "MASH" didn't come on with a roar.

We had people that liked the show very much,

But the numbers didn't respond.

- I think Freddie Silverman,

Who was then the head of the network,

Deserves a lot of credit.

It took a good network executive, and a lot of them

Don't have that, to hang in there.

Not easy.

- In spite of the ratings, it started winning awards,

And everybody was so high on it that we picked the show up

And moved it to 8:30 Saturday, following "all in the family"

The second year.

And immediately, it was the number-two show.

- We're a hit.

- We were in heaven, because we were

Doing really, really well.

And then the show just kept building

On itself for 11 years.

- It was a very entertaining show,

Which also happened to be about something.

But I firmly believe that people

Tuned in because they wanted to be

Entertained by these people.

- It's galling to hear officers ridicule command.

- I'm not an officer.

Two guys from the draft board caught me

With a big butterfly net.

- There you go.

There's your lounge lizard at war.

- Oh, that hurts.

- I was in the Utah state prison

When they sent me the script.

And it was the best script I'd read while in prison.

I was making a movie in this prison, and I got this script,

And I was really knocked out by certainly

The best pilot I'd ever read.

- Gee, I was standing around minding my own business,

And all of a sudden, poof, a star is born.

- We tested six or seven actors

For that role, and Alan...

He was a wonderful actor with great dimension.

He could be funny, and he could be sensitive.

He just really had every element of it

That we could possibly hope for.

- Does every new nurse fall in love with you here?

- No.

Only the ones with taste.

- Do you think I have any?

- I don't know.

Let me taste you.

- I was worried that it might be hijinks at the front

That the show would slip into.

So they reassured me that I didn't have to worry about it

Turning into McHale's navy or shows that audiences enjoyed

And that were fun, but that didn't deal

With the reality of the situation

In which the characters found themselves.

- Our willingness, our experience, our technique

Are not enough.

Guns and bombs and anti-personnel mines

Have more power to take life than we have to preserve it.

Not a very happy ending for a movie.

But then no war is a movie.

- Hawkeye was a super intelligent, extraordinarily

Gifted surgeon, an angry man who did not

Want to be where he was, made no bones about not wanting

To be where he was, hated the war,

Hated authority, held most people above him in contempt.

- When I got into this war, I had a very clear understanding

With the pentagon. No guns.

- I'll carry your books, I'll carry your torch,

I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,

Carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry,

Carry me back to old Virginia.

I'll even Harry Carey, if you show me how,

But I will not carry a gun!

- I think of Hawkeye as a flawed person,

Much more flawed than people seem to give him credit for.

They think of him as a likable doctor, a humanitarian.

But he was a womanizer.

He drank too much.

He was way too much of a smart aleck

To want to sit next to him for too long at dinner.

- I just don't know why they're shooting at us.

All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread,

Transplant the American dream...

Freedom, achievement, hyper acidity, affluence,

Flatulence, technology, tension, the inalienable

Right to an early coronary, sitting

At your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back.

That's entertainment.

- I've never worked with an actor

Before who didn't have to be told how to read a line.

I didn't have to underline a word

Or italicize it or give him a stage direction.

It was remarkable.

- Alan not only brought a great sense of humor

To the character and an intelligence to the character,

He brought the Joie de Vivre, the life of the show.

- Why don't I trust you guys?

- Because we're not trustworthy.

- Trapper would walk in anywhere,

And you knew he was looking for trouble.

- They're both impossible!

- You stay out of this, hot lips,

Or I'll stop selling tickets to your shower day.

- There was that air about him.

Okay, what can I do here to upset the apple cart?

- I'm taking 10 minutes.

- I'm on 10 minutes.

- Between us, we got 20 minutes.

Let's go.

- Dwayne and I got very close very fast.

- I've never had a martini that way.

May I?

- Oh, please.

Goes great with a soap chaser.

- We both realized that this relationship

Had to be a warm, close, real relationship.

- What could they do? Send us to the front?

- We're at the front.

Maybe they'll put us in front of the front.

- They enjoyed one another's company,

Both on screen and in real life.

That was a chemistry that came through.

- I think the audience perceived that underneath

All of this, that these are two people who

Genuinely liked each other.

If we didn't, it wouldn't have worked.

- Forget it.

He was too impressed to have you arrested.

- We did it again.

Screwed up in reverse.

- I keep telling you, we got to give up

This preoccupation with keeping people alive,

Or we'll never get out of here.

- It's no use. We're doomed.

- Maybe we should start using rusty instruments.

- Stop washing our hands.

- Raise our prices.

- We would go to the dailies and look at a scene

That we had already shot.

It was in the can, gone.

Nothing you can do about it.

And we would go back and do that scene again.

If I had done this instead of that,

Or if you'd done this instead of that,

It might have gone this way instead of that way.

That was a constant massaging of trying to make it better.

We were always trying to make it as good as we could.

- And this is the or, which, of course,

We use as an operating room.

- This war is getting very popular.

Every half hour, another tour.

- Radar, on your way out, drop these by the gift shop,

Will you? - Ha.

These guys love to kid you.

- All right, Corporal, I'll take over from here.

- Uh, if you like, I can show her the ropes myself.

- But who's going to show you?

- He doesn't mean it.

- Get out.

- But she does.

- You had the sophisticated doctors in this horrible

War experience.

A void was there.

- What are you doing here?

- I was drafted, sir.

- Radar... we use Gary Burghoff,

Who had been wonderful in the film.

And Gary was a very talented young actor that I knew of,

And of course, he had established himself

Already in the part.

- Why, uh, "Radar"?

- Uh, sometimes I can tell what's going

To happen before it happens.

- Is that so? - Yes, sir.

The officers' latrine is to the right, sir.

- Thank you. - You're welcome.

- They needed a character that was

From a reflectionary perspective,

Like a little kid.

- You, uh, always sleep with a teddy bear?

- Well, not when I'm on duty, sir.

- You needed a character where the experience of war

Registered on their face for the first time.

- They've already knocked out one of our generators!

They, uh, smashed our water tank,

And we got three people wounded!

Well, listen, if you don't believe me,

Listen for yourself!

Did you... did... did you... hello?

Hello?

- Gary did it brilliantly.

He was the... always the 19-year-old virgin.

- What do you want to be?

- Oh.

A hot lover.

Or even a cold one. I don't care.

- Radar was this captivating naif

Who loved being with the big guys.

- Drink, Radar.

- Oh, no, no.

- What's your problem?

And keep in mind, we can't work miracles with height.

- And not sure what to do, except he knew

How to do his job beyond the ability

Of any human being.

But at the same time, he was innocent.

He didn't know about drinking.

He didn't know about women.

He didn't understand war.

- We're under fire, sir!

- Well, hell's bells, we're a hospital.

That's against the Geneva convention!

- I'm not for it either, sir.

- His boyishness was such a delight.

How could you not like Radar O'Reilly?

- Wow, a citation!

Wonder what my mom's gonna say.

- She'll probably say her boy has changed over here,

And she'll be right.

- Yeah, I guess so.

- Are you still gonna talk to us, now that you're

A hero and everything?

- Oh, sure, I still talk to ordinary people.

- Radar, I'm gonna do something now

I've hardly ever done before.

- You're not gonna kiss me, are you?

- Stay tuned for more "MASH."

- Colonel Blake, you are not listening to me!

- Uh, you'll have to speak up, Frank.

I'm not listening to you.

- I did not hear that.

And if it comes to that, I will deny any complicity

With or knowledge of that sort of cheap,

Low, sneaky, underhanded maneuver.

Think you could do it?

- Colonel Blake personified this small-town doctor from

Bloomington, Illinois, who should never have been over

There and was totally incapable

Of being a commanding officer.

- Well, I'm afraid this is what you call

Your command decision.

It's lonely at the top time.

Strictly something for your leader.

- Well, Henry?

- Oh, golly, whatever you people decide is fine with me.

- His discomfort and his sense of his own inadequacy

Was very rich, in terms of writing

For him, because he just had that marvelous

Bumpkin quality.

- Uh, this month's topic is, uh,

Marital sex and the family.

- Louder, Henry.

- Uh, and the family.

- The first part.

- Marital se... - sex.

- Let's hear it for this month's topic!

- Uh...

- McLean Stevenson.

Oh, what a delight.

- Yes, sir.

- McLean was hilarious.

- At ease, men.

- Mac had a tremendous sense of comedic timing.

- Just give me the needle, huh?

- Just give me the...

- Guard!

Mayday! Mayday!

- 99, 98, 97...

- His genius was in his reactions.

- He didn't have to make the thing.

He just had to react to it.

That was his brilliance.

- Just... I mean, not that there's a lot

Of pressure or anything like that.

I mean, it's just that every now and then,

Say, like, your least little pressure will build up

To the point where there's an incredible amount

Of pressure around here.

Radar!

Would you bring in some brandy, please?

- Thought you might like some brandy.

- It was Radar's attitude towards Colonel Blake.

It was just basically doing the job for him

That he knew Colonel Blake needed to have done,

Whether he knew it or not.

- Blank papers?

- Yes, sir.

- Is that a good idea?

- It's to cut down on your workload.

You sign them now, later, you don't have to bother.

- But should I have really signed blank papers?

- I can't answer that, sir.

You're the one that signed them.

I didn't.

- Colonel Blake tried to be as officious

And military as he possibly could.

Radar could see through all of that,

Saw through him completely.

- Sir, I've alerted the General's pilot, sir.

He's ready to take off at any time.

- Now, I want you to alert the General's pilot

To be ready to take off at any time.

- He anticipated his every move, his every gesture.

- Oh, I was hoping to give you a box of your favorite...

- Cigars. - Cigars.

- That was wonderful chemistry between the two of them.

- Colonel Blake? - Uh, yes, sir.

- Ah! Sorry, sir. Excuse me.

- The timing was very important, and we learned...

and we learned to augment

Each other's timing too.

- There's something inherently funny about two people

Talking almost about the same thing at the same time.

- Very, very good.

- Oh, I took all golf clubs and then I hid them.

- I want every golf club outta this place.

- And then, I sewed up the hole on the nurse's tent, and I...

- It gave you great insight into his character,

That he could anticipate what I was gonna say.

It also gave great insight into my character,

In that I wasn't listening to what anybody said.

- Now, all we have to do is tighten her up

And find our place for the spits,

And we've got our own barbecue.

- You know, it was...

We just... we loved it.

- Come on, Radar.

- I'll hold down the fort.

- Down the fort.

- Yeah.

Men detest me, don't they?

- Oh, no, sir.

- No, you can tell the truth.

They hate me, don't they?

- Just your guts, sir.

- Frank burns... tough part to play.

Because he was a villain, but he was a funny villain.

- That's the last tray you're going to upset, soldier.

There's a war on!

And we've no time for violence.

- Well, he's an amalgam of basically

Every irritating putz I've ever known.

- We're all in this together with a common goal...

To serve our country and repel the godless horde

From the north that would engulf our way of life.

- Frank, he's okay, but you're making me sick.

"godless horde"?

- Oh, nerts to you.

- I designed really kind of the ultimate hypocrite,

And kind of a way, a guileless hypocrite,

Because he doesn't know that he is one.

He's just trying like hell all the time,

And he's, like, constantly wrong.

But he doesn't know that.

- They're not gonna like this.

- I didn't come here to be liked.

- You certainly came to the right place.

- Larry Linville had such a tough job on the show,

Because that character was such an extreme character.

- I'll teach those dirty little enlisted rats to love me.

- It's amazing how he was able to fill it with humanity.

Because if there was a wrong position to take,

That character took it.

- Army standard triage procedure is as follows!

American wounded, first... allies, second...

Enemy, last... repeat, last.

- Frank, that man is bleeding more than anybody in here,

With the possible exception of your nose

If you don't get out of my way.

- And he was tough on everybody,

Totally blind to how he offended people,

How rough he was on Margaret.

- Take your face and...

Your married face and get out!

- Avec Plaisir, miss snake in the grass!

- Oh!

You should talk, you two-timing fourflusher!

Oh, Frank.

- They saw this gem of an actor who can do this,

So they kept feeding him those things.

- No, no, no, no!

It's not fair! It's not fair!

It's not fair! It's mine!

It's mine! It's mine! It's mine! It's mine!

- I know, darling.

There, there.

- Oh!

I already wrote mommy.

- Oh, your mother will understand.

- I mean my wife.

- Buzz off!

- And for Loretta to have to play opposite this to...

To think that she's in love with this character, that's...

Now, that's acting.

That's acting.

- What date?

I have no date with Major Burns.

We're just acquaintances.

Oh, we run into each other once in a while.

- Well, he can't run into you tonight.

- Oh, Loretta was absolutely fantastic.

She brought so many different colors to that character.

- She could be very serious, and then

She could be funny being serious.

- Colonel, come back in here, please!

- What is it? - It's Donald!

He's hurt himself!

A hernia, doing the rope climb on the obstacle course!

Donald, you're always training so hard!

Colonel, request permission to go to him, please!

- We're very busy, Major.

- But he needs a hernia operation!

- We need you here.

- He won't let me go.

It's this stupid war!

- Hot lips is a wonderful character,

Because the character is unique.

The woman has to have strength and courage and resolution

And so forth to be an officer.

But she's a woman, and she has femininity,

And she has impulses.

- They want to keep us apart, because we're symbols of...

Of what a decent man and woman can mean to each other,

Without the tawdriness that fills

Their sordid little affairs.

- Yes, yes.

- Take one step closer, and I'll bite your chest

Right through your shirt.

- Larry Linville and I were a joke.

And I felt, after the first...

Maybe even half of the second season, it was wearing thin.

- Oh, Frank.

You're so above average.

- It started to be awkward.

Why would this gal, with so much going for her,

So much brights and so much integrity,

Hook up with not only a married man...

Okay, she's lonely, there's nobody else, or whatever...

But a nincompoop?

- Listen, I was sound asleep, and suddenly,

There's all these wounded!

It's nearly midnight!

Why can't they fight from 9:00 to 6:00?

- Maybe the next war, Frank.

Maybe the next.

- The best description I can give you of Loretta

Is the fact that hot lips became Margaret.

- There were times I had to fight

For the integrity of the character.

There's no question about that.

- I'm in control.

And I'm going as far in this man's army

As any woman can go!

- One of the things I love that Loretta did was,

She was relentless in wanting to make sure that

The character of Margaret was a real woman

And not a one-note joke.

- What do you suppose I am deep down?

- Deep, deep down?

A woman.

- Go a little deeper.

- A Major.

- I'm me.

Sometimes a nurse, sometimes a Major,

Sometimes a woman in love, sometimes all three at once.

- Sounds like it's crowded in there.

- And sometimes it's lonely in there.

- The maturation of her character,

Both from her perspective and from the perspective

Of the producers and writers of the show,

Was a tribute to Loretta.

She wanted to be taken seriously as an actress

As well as a character.

- Can you imagine what it feels like to...

To walk by this tent and hear your laughing

And know I'm not welcome?

Did you ever once ever offer me a lousy cup of coffee?

- We didn't think you'd accept.

- Well, you were wrong.

- Ah, yes.

"MASH," proving once again

All's fair in love and war.

- Hey, soldier.

You forgot your purse.

- Halt!

Friend or foe?

- I'm General Barker.

- How do I know you're not one of them

With a clever makeup job?

- Corporal Klinger, isn't it?

- Right.

- Okay, he's here. Let's have it.

What's wrong with Klinger?

- What's wrong with Klinger?

- The premise of Klinger's existence was that his mo was

That he wanted to get out of the army on a section 8...

That he was nuts.

- Everybody know Klinger?

This is Captain Pak. - Sir.

- Major Freedman.

- Ah, the psychiatrist!

- Still trying to get out wearing dresses, Klinger.

- Earrings with a sweater?

- Murray wrote this character.

And the moment I saw it, I said, oh, that's beautiful,

And I said, I got the guy for it...

Jamie Farr.

Jamie Farr has these skinny, bony legs,

And he's got a large nose.

He's a natural comedian, wonderful comedian.

He would be great dressed as a woman.

He's the guy.

- I'm section 8, head to toe.

I'm wearing a Warner bra. I play with dolls.

My last wish is to be buried in my mother's wedding gown.

I'm nuts.

I should be out.

- Horse hockey.

- He was the court jester of the camp.

And they certainly needed that.

- I love your gloves, Klinger.

- Sears catalog.

They were having a white sale.

You trace your hands on a piece of paper

To give them your right size.

However, if you want the black ones,

Which aren't on the white sale...

You really don't care, do you?

- It was at best a sitcom character.

And he pranced and danced and did

All his silly stuff with the dresses

And the hats and everything.

But beneath it all, I want to go home.

I don't want to be here.

This is crazy being here.

People are shooting at you.

You know, for me, that justified it all.

- How did he try it this time?

- Pretending to be a business girl.

- Klinger.

Klinger, where did your mother and I go wrong?

- Jamie was wonderful.

He had so much humanity that would

Come up through the hijinks that he was doing.

- Another week in command, and I'd have had you

Out of that dress.

- I'm not that easy.

- And I loved the way he did it...

Over the top, quite often, but with such energy,

Such joy, that I just kind of had to laugh

And say, oh, God, Jamie.

- Sir.

You got to let me go, sir.

I just have to get married.

- You're not pregnant, are you?

- Don't be ridiculous, sir.

- Me?

You're the one who looks like he just blew

Out of "gone with the wind."

- There wasn't a character like Klinger on any show, ever.

It was an original character, as I say to people.

Because every time a man always put on a dress,

It was as a disguise.

But no one put on a dress and then played it straight.

- What are you doing? - Who's...

- Can't a guy have a wash and set without somebody

Biting him on the neck?

- Biting who? - I was biting you!

- No, you weren't!

You were biting me!

- Klinger, what are you doing in here?

- Just borrowing a little of your shampoo, Major.

It's war time.

We all got to help each other.

- No, we don't.

You get out of here, you pervert!

- Pervert?

Who bit who, Major?

- My mother said, oh, Jamie's my favorite.

I said, you mean, next to me, of course.

And she said, no, Jamie's my favorite.

Thank you, mother. Thanks. Very nice.

- Disgusting.

You have your nerve, wearing white.

- Jealous?

- I hated that character.

I hated it, until...

Until later on, when it became more

Than a one-joke character.

- With Klinger, we played out the dresses

And the section 8 for longer than was needed.

It was easy for us to shake up Klinger's areas

Of responsibility and Klinger's

Whole attitude toward the war.

- I didn't want to lose the... as they said,

The Klinger spirit.

But at the same time, I wanted to make it somewhat different.

- I know it's 6:00 in the morning, Lieutenant,

But I've got to talk to General MacArthur!

Just tell him Max Klinger's on the phone!

Yeah, he knows me!

I've been sending him love letters for years!

Hello?

Hello!

See if he gets my vote for dictator.

- Hey, you.

You all right?

Just out of breath.

I... I ran from chapel.

- Happily, you ran for nothing, padre.

No last rites today.

- Oh, thank heaven.

Uh, could I show you something in a "get well" prayer?

- Bill Christopher is a totally unique human being,

With a totally unique sense of humor,

A totally unique approach to acting,

And a totally unique approach to life.

- We thank thee for guiding us safely to this place

And ask thy blessing that we may

Continue to heal and do thy work

And for a speedy end to this war...

I mean, police action.

Uh, well, you know what I mean, lord.

Amen.

- Well, Bill's...

Bill... I've heard Bill say that he thought "MASH" was a series

About a priest in Korea.

I think he really believes it.

- Terribly sorry, padre.

- Well, that's all right, General.

I'll just turn the other cheek.

- He played the character so honestly and wholeheartedly.

- Given our circumstances, the best of us

Can behave in erratic and irresponsible ways.

- That note that he was playing was,

These are my children and my friends,

And they're not perfect,

But that's what makes them interesting.

- Having heard about the callous prank you played

On poor Major Winchester, I choose not to speak to you,

For if I did, I would tell you

You are a goon and a blockheaded bozo!

But as a man of God, I'm above name-calling.

Good day.

- He's a man who's out of his depth a lot of the time.

I think Mulcahy felt that he had something

To perform that was very special,

But he does fumble occasionally.

- My friends, the lord said this

To Aaron after the passing away of his beloved sons,

Nadab and Abihu.

It's rather warm in here.

- Some other individual might be able

To do it better, but he's the only one...

He's the one they got.

And he's... he's willing to put himself on the line

And just do his best.

- I have to say a prayer first.

- You gotta say a prayer first.

- Make it a damn short one.

- I can't think of any.

- Oh, my God.

- Bless us, o lord, and these thy gifts,

Which we're about to receive from thy bounty

Through Christ our lord, amen.

- That's great!

- He just had a resilience that Bill captured perfectly,

Of no matter how dark the moment,

How difficult the situation, it was all gonna work out.

And nothing was gonna defeat him, because he had faith,

Literally and figuratively.

- You're going to have to believe,

Whether you believe or not.

Fortunately, you've fallen into the hands of the best

Medical unit in Korea.

I swear it.

Just have a little faith in these doctors.

Just a little.

Try, okay?

- He was exactly the man that we needed

In that circumstance, with these kids who were wounded,

And with these doctors who were crazy,

And with these nurses who were angry and frustrated.

He was like an island of both innocence and empathy.

Great, great, sweet, kind empathy.

- Listen to me, BJ.

I tried to stay out of the way, because what you people

Do here is so important.

But understand at a time like this, what I have to do

Is just as important.

And no one, not you nor anyone else,

Is going to stand between me and the performance

Of my sacred office.

- I'm sorry, father.

- This wasn't just going to be a comedy

With a real war as a backdrop.

They were going to show that horror.

- Pierce, are you scared?

- Don't be silly.

I'm too frightened to be scared.

- Take it easy, kid.

I'm a doctor.

- Oh!

But I need Dr. Pierce!

He's the only one who can help me.

- I'm pierce.

What's the problem?

- You're my problem.

I think I love you.

- I think in terms of a show finding itself,

It takes a while.

And there were a few watershed moments along the way.

I remember an episode called "sometimes you hear

The bullet," in which an old friend

Of Hawkeye's... they knew each other

Back in the states, they'd been pals...

And he comes there as a freelance journalist.

- Listen, what I don't understand

Is what a guy like you, with your background,

Is doing here in the infantry.

Why aren't you a correspondent or something?

- Look.

If I was a correspondent, I'd be reporting the war.

In the infantry, I'm living it.

- So what's the difference?

- Here.

Here's the difference.

- "You never hear the bullet."

Is that a book?

- Yeah, it's about the war.

And it's being written by a soldier, not a correspondent.

- That was the first real dramedy episode that we did.

- Attention, all personnel!

All medical personnel!

- That's what I'm talking about.

- Oh, a whole regiment took it in the teeth

A while ago!

It's gonna be a long night!

Come on.

- And it was a departure.

It was... it took guts.

- I heard the bullet coming.

Just like in the movies.

- So you'll change the title of the book, that's all.

"Sometimes you hear the bullet."

It's a better title anyway.

- Well, that was very important to show.

It was the first time we really dealt with the doctors

Being touched and moved and not themselves again

After surgery, instead of just walking out

And saying, let's have a drink.

- Give me some retraction and suction.

- Father Mulcahy.

- I can't get a pressure.

I've lost the pulse.

- I'm gonna open the chest.

Give me a knife.

I said, give me a knife.

- Pierce.

Go help McIntyre.

- It was the first time we killed a character

Who wasn't an extra, who, most importantly,

Was somebody that Hawkeye knew

And that Hawkeye had great affection for,

And that Hawkeye then had enormous reaction

Upon his death.

- Henry, I know why I'm crying now.

Tommy was my friend, and I watched him die,

And I'm crying.

I've watched guys die almost every day.

Why didn't I ever cry for them?

- Because you're a doctor.

- The hell does that mean?

- I don't know.

If I had the answer, I'd be at the mayo clinic.

Does this place look like the mayo clinic?

Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school.

There are certain rules about a war.

And rule number one is young men die.

And rule number two is doctors can't chain rule number one.

- An executive from CBS said,

Let me tell you how you've ruined this show.

You've ruined "MASH," because you can't kill people,

Or you can't have serious stuff this serious,

And expect to stay on the air.

We got certain negative comments about,

The show isn't as funny, and it's gotten more serious.

But then there were other people who did like it,

And the ratings kept going up.

And that was really important in allowing us

To realize that, wow, we can do serious stuff here,

Really serious stuff.

- Oh, everybody knows war is hell.

- War isn't hell.

War is war, and hell is hell.

And of the two, war is a lot worse.

- How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

- Easy, padre.

Tell me.

Who goes to hell?

- Sinners, I believe.

- Exactly.

There are no innocent bystanders in hell.

The war is chock full of them.

- It was against war.

It didn't matter whether it was world war I,

II, III, IV, V, or Vietnam or, you know,

Afghanistan or anything.

War is a terrible thing. People are getting killed.

- This sort of action's contagious.

One man decides he's not gonna fight.

It catches on, next thing,

You know what you got on your hands?

- Peace?

- We were not anti-military in any way, shape, or form.

Some of us had been in the military.

But I think all of what we did on "MASH" was to say,

War makes no sense.

This killing, this bleeding, this horror, this maiming

Of human beings must stop.

- Hey, she's just a little kid.

- Eight years old.

I got a granddaughter back home who's about eight.

- What happened to her?

- Somebody dropped a bomb on her village from an airplane.

- Who did it?

- He just dropped it.

He didn't autograph it.

- No, I mean, was it one of theirs or one of ours?

- What difference does that make?

- A lot.

It makes a lot of difference.

- Not to her.

- When the series went on the air in 1972,

We were, of course, heavily involved in Vietnam.

And this country was, you know, woefully short of heroes,

And the medical people on this show

Represented that missing component.

- If you ask me, you guys are like supermen.

You're all set.

Good, night, supermen.

- I had gotten too big for my britches, I think.

- You could do anything with that show,

And they did do anything.

- I was shocked.

- I got good news, honey.

I'm coming home.

Honest. For good.

- Colonel? - Yo.

- Do you know what I found in this morning's mail?

- Uh, now, that's a tough one.

Hum a few bars, will you, Radar?

You're going home.

- I'm going home?

- You got all your points.

They're discharging you.

- McLean Stevenson was wonderful as Colonel Blake,

But he began getting restless and expressing

The desire that maybe he wanted to move on.

- People were whispering in his ear,

You can have your own show.

But they didn't say, but you won't have Larry Gelbart.

You... you won't have the cast around.

You won't have Radar.

You won't have all these people around you.

You won't have the same situation.

- There were a number of things that went into that.

I had gotten too big for my britches, I think.

I've never admitted that, and here I am,

Talking now to, hopefully, millions of people.

So...

- Henry, we're giving you this party.

- Mm. - You know why?

- Because I'm going home.

- Wrong.

Because you're one hell of a human being.

- The thing I didn't realize was

That people really didn't give two hoots in hell

About McLean Stevenson.

They loved Henry Blake.

- I got good news, honey.

I'm coming home.

Honest. For good.

Yeah, the orders just came through this morning.

I ought to be coming through the front door

In about three days.

- I don't know what you've heard about this,

But I was there.

This was a show where McLean's character was leaving.

It was also the last show of our season.

- A lot of "MASH" has faded a little.

I can't tell you the plots.

But I can tell you... describe that day.

- Bless you, Henry Blake.

Your work here will never be forgotten.

- Thank you, father.

- So long, Henry!

Good trip!

- Take it easy, pal.

- When I looked at him, I saw Radar,

But I knew I was saying goodbye to Gary Burghoff.

All that relationship that he and I had together,

That was so special to us.

Because much of the stuff that we did, we did together.

- You behave yourself, or I'm gonna come back

And kick your butt.

- Mac and I were finished,

And we were leaving the set,

Walking out the door to our dressing rooms.

As we approached the door, Larry Gelbart,

Gene Reynolds were walking in

With a new scene in their hands.

- And so I had this manila envelope with the last page

In it that they'd never seen.

And I gave them each a copy, and they looked at it,

And they were really... it's not often in your life

That you see people stunned.

And they really could not believe what was on the page.

- I was shocked.

- I didn't say anything.

And I remember, um...

Alan sort of asking, why?

And Larry answering the question, well, to us,

It shows the futility of war.

- Radar, put a mask on.

- If that's my discharge, give it to me straight.

I can take it.

- I have a message.

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane...

Was shot down over the Sea of Japan.

It spun in.

There were no survivors.

- This was a leading character that everybody loved,

And they killed him.

- The reason we kept it a secret

Was to keep the actors from being influenced

By that information.

If they started to film the show

Knowing that Henry was a dead man by the end of the episode,

Their performances would have been quite different.

Good as they are, you can't help it,

Because they would have been dealing with their emotions

As people, as co-workers of McLean Stevenson.

- I could cry now.

It was... it was devastating to us.

- On thinking about it, I think it showed

How good a show we really had.

We could do things that were so believable,

That we could emotionally affect even ourselves.

- I think it was a very grown-up thing to do,

A very sensible thing to do.

We had hundreds of letters from viewers,

Saying you tricked us, you sucked us in.

We thought this was a comedy show.

How dare you toy with our feelings?

All those letters are in the Smithsonian Institute.

And I'm very proud of that show.

- May I tell you the greatest compliment

I ever heard for the show?

I'm going into a restaurant, and a man approached me

In the parking lot, said Mr. Burghoff,

May I speak to you for a moment?

I said, sure.

He said, I was in the trenches in Korea.

And he said, when I came back home in 1952, I was changed.

And my wife knew that I needed to talk about it.

And I couldn't bring myself to talk about it.

And he said, when your show came on the air

Many years later, it was the first time that

I could reach over and touch her on the arm

And say, see, honey?

That's the way it was.

We always tried to tie the entertainment value

Into the reality as much as we possibly could

In our small way.

Bye.

- See you.

- Excuse me.

- I had this terrible thought that if "MASH" fails

In its fourth season, I'm gonna wear it

Around my neck for the rest of my life.

and oh, my God.

- Can I have my pillow back? - No.

- Are you kidding?

- Hey, would I kid you?

- Why didn't you think of it before we left home?

- When the series first started,

It was with the assumption that trapper john

And Hawkeye would be equals.

And over the course of time, it didn't seem

To work out quite that way.

The series kind of slanted more toward Hawkeye.

So ultimately, Wayne decided that he wanted to leave.

- What's a scam?

- Just about to draw straws to see who goes out

And defuses the bomb.

- Boy, do I know when to come into a room.

- 'Cause I didn't think I was fulfilling my time.

I wasn't being used enough

To satisfy what I wanted to do.

It may sound a little nuts, and probably,

As I look back on it, it probably was a little nuts.

- Thanks, trap.

- What?

- You made it bearable.

I was lucky.

You were honest and open.

You let me lean on you.

- No charge.

- We lost McLean Stevenson, we lost Wayne Rogers,

And the people who came in, not to replace them,

But to add, you know, a new note to this cacophony of sound

That we were already making,

It just was like adrenaline.

- Pierce, I'm just a little confused.

- Hawkeye.

And don't let a little confusion throw you, Captain.

- BJ.

- One of the first things you'll learn over here, BJ,

Is that insanity is no worse than the common cold.

- Bj, welcome to Korea.

- First day, Gary Burghoff walked up, shook my hand,

And said how glad he was to have me there.

Loretta did the same thing.

- Hi, Margaret.

How the heck are you?

- You jerk face, you louse mouth!

- Oh, you're just saying that.

- It was like homecoming

Rather than me being the new guy.

- So pitch in, muddle through, pip-pip,

And the whole schmear.

Ours not to reason why, ours not to let 'em die.

- In other words, do your job as best you can and sh...

- You got it.

- We looked a long time before we found somebody

That could share the swamp.

Mike was perfect.

- I'm here to discuss something besides underwear.

- Make it brief. - Oh! That's very bad.

- Not funny, but fast.

- If it's a spiritual problem,

Give me a minute, and I'll come back as a nun.

- Careful, Klinger.

Dressing as a nun can be habit-forming.

- One of the first rules of making these switches is,

Whatever you do, make it different.

It doesn't mean you're gonna get an actor who's better

Or the former actor was not as good.

Just make it all as different as you possibly can.

- You?

- Me what?

- Ever been unfaithful?

- To whom?

- Well, who could you be unfaithful to?

- Myself, for openers. - No, no, come on.

You know what I mean... to your wife.

- You mean have I ever strayed?

- Never checked in somewhere without a toothbrush?

- Never.

- Never been tempted?

- Tempted's another subject.

- Ah, you have been tempted.

- Never, but it's another subject.

- Hawkeye could be caustic, and he could be sarcastic.

He could... I think Mike's character, BJ, was gentler,

Who sometimes brought it down to more of

A Norman Rockwell dialogue with his feelings

Toward his family.

So there was contrast,

But at the same time, the camaraderie.

- There must be some awful name you're hiding

If you won't even tell your best friend.

- You're such a nudge.

- It's "noodge."

There, I told you something.

Now you tell me something.

- No use. I won't "boodge."

- "Decency."

That was the best word for Mike Farrell, I think,

Is that he had a quality of decency that

Was just remarkable, that we incorporated from

His own personality into the character.

- At some point, Gene Reynolds came up to me, and he said,

How would you feel about it if BJ was tempted?

We had a scene where BJ falls off the fidelity wagon.

And I said, it depends on how you resolve it.

And they wrote a show where BJ and this nurse...

She was heartbroken, and BJ tried to console her,

And pretty soon, the consoling her

Turned into something else.

And then BJ was wracked with guilt.

Oh, my God, what have I done?

- I'm miserable.

I'm a happily married man, not like Frank Burns

Is happy because his wife owns real estate.

I adore my wife and my kid and my marriage.

- I know.

- I don't like being unfaithful.

I'm not looking around.

I'm lucky to have what I've got.

- You're right. You are lucky.

- It was a great exploration of this character

And his dedication to his wife and his desire

To be faithful to her and his being a human being

Who screwed up.

- You were helping somebody, and it got out of hand.

You made a mistake.

- I sure did.

- What's that?

- I'm writing peg about it.

- Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Don't be an idiot!

You made one lousy goof,

And you want to punish yourself,

But don't punish her!

Do not tell peg.

Don't tell anybody what you just told me.

This will pass.

- Like a kidney stone.

- Simply take a vow.

Raise your right hand.

Come on. Come on.

I promise to be a good and faithful husband,

To write nice, cheerful letters home, to think of peg often,

And to keep my fat hands off Nurse Donovan.

Do you vow?

- I vow. - I feel better

About you already. - Thanks.

- When Wayne left and Mike came in, now,

Mike and I had a similar relationship,

Although the characters were very different.

- You don't know me very well, do you?

- Maybe I know you better than you think I do.

- Oh, you think so? - Yeah, I think so.

- Always have to get the last word in?

- Yes. - Oh, yeah?

I can prove to you right now I don't have to...

- Oh, come on. - No, I can.

Really, just say something and walk away.

- All right.

I think you're a very competitive person.

- Fine. - You just did it.

- Did what? - Just got in the last word.

- That doesn't count.

- Then don't say anything. - Okay.

- We knew we needed to develop a friendship too,

And that was very easy.

We had a wonderful joking relationship.

- Okay.

- Not another word!

- No problem.

- It's no use!

- Wrong.

- A lot of the affection between those two characters

Was what Mike and I felt for each other.

- You still love me for all my faults?

- What faults? You're perfect.

- Just for that, I'm gonna let you get the last word in.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- Stick that horn in your ear.

- On your feet, soldier.

I'm Colonel Potter.

- Oh, boy.

- Gee, sir.

You sure know how to take care of your people.

- I got a soft spot for Klinger.

He looks a little like my son.

And he dresses a lot like my wife.

- You can't mention any of these replacements

Like Harry Morgan without mentioning Burt Metcalfe.

- Burt... casting genius.

I mean, he has a real eye for casting.

- Very talented at that, always right on the mark.

- A year or two earlier, Harry Morgan

Had been cast as a General who was absolutely bonkers.

I mean, he was a total nut.

- Well, we can stand and fight.

Or we can have lunch.

- Lunch! - Lunch!

- Yeah, I'm a little hungry myself.

- That was a very good episode and funny,

And he was terrific.

And I said, you know, I don't think it matters.

Why don't we use Harry Morgan again?

- Well, harry gave us a chance to have another kind

Of camp commander, a regular army man,

Someone who would stand up for

The thing we were always knocking down.

- Wait a minute. Pierce, are you "deef"?

I'm giving your hijinks the heave-ho, post-haste!

I'm the boss here!

- We were very honored to have him,

Because he was such a well-known

And accomplished actor.

And he was wonderful in the part.

- There's a time to step in and a time to back off.

Pull the reins too tight, and the horse will buck.

You had good people under you.

You should have let them go through their paces.

You know, this is pretty good.

Someone should be writing this down.

To my golden tongue.

- He could take a line and...

And do it in such a way that you had not imagined

That line being delivered.

- Great logs of limburger.

Hot mustard!

I think that's a lot of buffalo bagels.

That is grade-a 100% bull cookies.

Mule fritters! Bushwaugh!

Beaver biscuits!

Your turkeys gave everybody the trots.

Holy hemostat!

Horse hockey.

Pardon my French.

- He was my friend, my colleague, my...

My father sometimes, my...

He was everything.

- What's with her?

- We're worried about you, Colonel.

- I appreciate that.

I suppose.

Now, if you'll all put the tear ducts on simmer,

I'll lay out the whole story.

- Well, the one I liked the best,

Because I got an Emmy from it,

Was the thing we did called "old soldiers,"

Which was about a tontine that I think five of us

Had made in world war I.

- We were in France, under a heavy artillery barrage.

My buddies and I laid low in an old French Chateau.

We were quite a group, the five of us.

Went through hell together,

And lived to get drunk about it.

What a great bunch of guys.

- And I tell you, one time, I started, and I couldn't

Even get through the scene.

- Forgive me.

I can't talk about this and him without a struggle.

- As much as my old friends meant to me,

I think you new friends mean even more.

So I'd like you to share this bottle with me.

- We'd be honored, Colonel.

- Colonel Potter was this wonderful, decent, thoughtful,

Talented, intelligent man who had

Had this extraordinary career, treating us like comrades,

Treating us like his equals.

- Just one thing...

I'd like to make the first toast solo to my old buddies.

The idea was stunning to me, and I think, to all of us.

We were all wrecked by the end of that scene.

Wrecked.

- You were the friends of my youth,

My comrades through thick and thin,

And everything in between.

I drink to your memories.

I loved you, fellas.

One and all.

Okay, that's the old.

Now for the new.

To love and friendship.

- A lot of shows would have faltered

And died when you have major characters like that leaving.

Not our show.

- I'm a surgeon.

I'm not a circus roustabout.

- You're a clown. - You're a buffoon.

- Bozo. - Bottle it.

- Blood and guts burns.

Ha!

Ha! Ha!

- Larry Linville was a wonderful actor

Who was so limited, in a way, in that part.

- I really was sorry to see him leave the show.

- You dirty rat, you!

- James Cagney!

- What I wanted to see was more sides to the character

Come out, more three-dimensionality to it,

So he could have more fun as an actor doing it.

- Some people have said, you know,

Why didn't the role progress?

Why didn't he become more humane,

More compassionate, more sensitive,

More comprehending, more understanding?

And I said, what do you want him to be?

Alan Alda?

I said, if it becomes these things, then he's Hawkeye.

He's no longer Frank.

- And I think maybe part of the reason he left

Was that he felt he'd reached the end of the line

With what he could do with the character.

- Give it another shot.

- I thought he'd never leave.

- I remember Burt coming up to us one day,

And he said, I've got a guy who is gonna be

Coming in here to replace Larry.

- What is that odor?

- North wind cesspool, east wind latrine.

- The wind is from the south.

- Oh, that's the kitchen.

Sir, are you the doctor we've been waiting for?

- It's quite likely.

- In comes David Ogden Stiers, playing this snotty sob,

You know, Charles Emerson Winchester III,

Who thought everybody was beneath him.

- Due to my background and breeding,

It was inevitable that I attend the finest schools...

Choate, Harvard.

- The Massachusetts institute of snobbery.

- When they get this way, I usually just hit them

With a rolled-up newspaper.

- I loved it that when David Ogden Stiers came

Into the show, he was not asked to play

Anything like the character that

Larry Linville had played.

- Good evening, Lieutenant.

Time for the changing of the guard.

Pierce, I've come to relieve you.

I'm sure the patients will be relieved as well.

- A creature of pattern, habit,

Regularity,

Who finds this all very disturbing.

- Hunnicutt, if there's a God,

There will be a time in your life

When you are in dire straits

And in desperate need of a wealthy, influential friend.

When that time comes, I pray that you will turn to me,

So that I can laugh in your face.

- The character that he created, with the accent...

I mean, he was just such a rip to work with.

He was just so funny and wonderful.

- Okay, you can start with the bedpans

And work your way up.

- Absolutely not.

Absolutely and unequivocally not.

Me, wash and clean?

I'm a doctor, not a woman.

- And he's going to be every bit the surgeon

You and Hawkeye are.

And so the competition between you

Is gonna be on a very different level.

- Do you want it good, Colonel, or do you want it fast?

- Good and fast.

This isn't Boston General.

We're a "MASH" unit.

We do a volume business.

- Well, I'm sorry I was not trained on an assembly line.

- Neither was I. Nurse, wrench.

- He's placed in a place that made him feel

Demeaned, exercising his honed talents

In a manner far beneath him.

But mostly, I think it's just tolerance.

He's not very well practiced at it.

- I feel I could be more useful in Tokyo or even the States.

- Not to me, commissioner.

- This meatball surgery of yours

Is causing my skills to deteriorate!

They're wasting away!

- Don't change the color of your face!

I'm out of umber!

- And I'm out of patience!

This place is driving me mad!

- Each of these cast changes was, in a way, fortuitous,

Because it shook up the chemistry of the show.

It made each actor have a new facet

To his or her relationship to this new character.

- Instead of taking the easy way out,

You stood up for a principle.

- Yes.

Yes, I did, didn't I?

Well, I certainly won't let that happen again.

I had the perfect Christmas gift for you, pierce.

Crutches for your lame wit.

- Ha, ha. - Ha, ha.

You scale the heights, pierce.

Allow me to take my leave before you decimate me

With a "says you" or, God forbid, an "oh, yeah."

Gentlemen.

- You're going home.

- I'm going home, sir?

- You heard him right, Radar.

Your time has come.

- People ask me...

They've been asking me for 30 years...

Why I left the show.

- Attention out there.

Would Corporal Radar O'Reilly please report

To his going-away party?

All of your friends would love to see you

While they can still see.

Bye-bye.

Buy bonds.

- My life at that time,

It was a beautiful picture that was all crooked,

And I had to step back big time

In order to grow as a human being.

Part of my stepping back, unfortunately,

Included "MASH."

I didn't leave the show.

My contract expired.

You know, I had a seven-year contract.

I just didn't renegotiate it,

Because I was stepping back from everything.

Oh, no.

Hawkeye. Hawkeye!

- I hear them.

Radar, there may not be time for...

- I'll find you, Hawkeye.

- My goodbye party was interrupted,

Because the wounded came in.

I said to myself, what a wonderful moment.

I can cry my eyes out, and I can do

This wonderful, dramatic moment.

I could just completely fall apart.

And the director said, if I were you,

I would fight the tears.

And I said, no, just let me do it.

Okay?

So the next day, in dailies,

I look at the screen, and it's awful.

I mean, it is just terrible.

The director was right.

I was wrong.

I turned to Burt.

I said, please, can I do this again?

And he said, yes, you may.

- We did some, maybe, 15 or 20 shows

In which we experimented radically with the way

We told the story.

- You've read a lot of Hemingway and his reports

From Madrid in the Spanish war.

He romanticized that war.

I think you might agree.

- I used to love reading Hemingway,

Because he wrote so well.

But now that I'm here, I can't understand why anybody would

Willingly go to a war, would go with enthusiasm,

Would want to be there while it's happening.

I'd do anything to get out of here.

- Good evening, ladies and germs.

I'm sorry I'm late, but my watch stopped.

It had to.

It's been running fast all week.

- We also had this wonderful alliance with the audience,

At least one that I imagined we had,

That you knew if you experimented on a show...

And we did some, maybe, 15 or 20 shows

In which we experimented radically with

The way we told the story.

And we had the feeling that if it went too far for them,

If it was too experimental,

They knew we'd be back next week.

- Incoming!

- I adored every episode where we broke ground.

There was one called "point of view."

- Yeah. Okay, we're almost there.

Listen, just relax.

The surgeons here are the best.

I mean, the best.

- The whole episode was from the point of view

Of the patient.

You never saw a reverse.

It was always what he saw

Through his entire trauma and treatment.

- Hey, how's he doing?

- Better.

- I told you.

- There is another show we did.

It was called "lifetime."

It took place in real time.

And we even put a ticking clock on the screen.

The doctors were racing against that clock,

With only 20 minutes to find and transplant an organ

To save the life of a wounded soldier

And prevent him from being paralyzed.

- Congratulations, partner.

Pour in the antibiotics.

- Kellye, time.

It's 2:55 and 25 seconds.

- We're 3 1/2 minutes over!

Damn it!

- Maybe the hypothermia bought us some time.

- Yeah, on the other hand, maybe it didn't.

- Hawk, we saved his life.

- Yeah, well, I guess that's something.

- It's more than something.

It's everything.

- The following is in black and white.

This is a room in Korea, a room most of the men

Fighting the second year of the war

Would rather not see.

This is an operating room in a "MASH,"

A mobile army surgical hospital.

- We had seen a documentary that Ed Murrow had done

In Korea called "see it now."

And we'd always had the notion of doing a show like that.

- And the fact that they were doing it in black and white,

To take a chance and say, okay,

We're gonna do this like a newsreel,

Was very interesting.

- Bored.

How many times can you watch those training

Films they send over here?

VD is the enemy,

And don't let this happen to you.

I'd like it to happen to me to break up the boredom.

Just kidding, honey.

- So they gave us tape recorders.

All the actors had tape recorders

With questions to answer.

- Larry trusted us enough to know that

We would respond from our characters.

At that point, we understood our characters so well.

- This is my third war.

I was in the big one,

Then the second world war, and now Korea.

I hope war is getting smaller as a trend.

- You've been here some time.

- Somewhere between some time and eternity.

- Larry took all of that material that we had

Improvised into the tape recorders,

But also the material that had been punched up by Larry,

So it was more pointed, funnier.

- I don't see any harm in doctors

Being ordered to behave as patriotically as possible.

- Well, doesn't patriotism have to come from the heart?

- I don't have that problem.

- Number one with me is the toilet seats.

They give you slivers and splinters,

And you can't really reach around

And take them out yourself.

Boy, that's when you find out who your friends really are.

- Then the interviewer would ask us

Questions we hadn't expected.

So we were on the spot, on camera,

And some really good stuff came out of that.

- You got to understand, I'm not working

On sick people here.

I'm working on hurt young people,

With essentially healthy bodies that have been

Insulted by ammunition.

- A real piece of wonderful theater

That allowed us as actors in character to talk about

Our... what we're experiencing in this god-awful place

Under these circumstances.

- When I first came here, I couldn't walk down

A corridor full of wounded people

Without being sickened by it.

And now, I can walk down without noticing them.

- For me, I thought it was raw and beautiful and honest.

- I don't mind being the only priest here.

It's sort of fun to have a corner on the market.

But well, what was the question?

- When I got my version, I found that

There was this wonderful thing written there

That I had nothing to do with.

Larry wrote it.

When I read it, I was so moved.

- When the doctors cut into a patient,

And it's cold, you know,

The way it is now today,

Steam rises from the body.

And the doctor will...

Will warm himself over the open wound.

Could anyone look on that and not feel changed?

- What a moment.

What a television moment.

And nobody could have, you know,

Done it more sensitively than Bill Christopher.

- Next on "MASH"...

- There it is.

That's the sound of peace.

- Ladies and gentlemen, five minutes ago,

At 10:01 this morning,

The truce was signed in Panmunjom.

The hostilities will end 12 hours from now at 10:00.

The war is over!

- The Korean war was only about three, four years,

And here, we had been at it for 11.

- 11 years.

At some point, you're gonna be running

Out of jokes, out of stories.

- We're stopping because we feel...

We feel that if we went further,

We would risk squeezing it dry.

- Hi. I'm Burt Metcalfe.

I'm the executive producer of "MASH."

It's been my good fortune to be here for 11 years now.

It seems like all on this stage.

Sitting next to me is Alan Alda, whom I suspect

You all recognize readily.

We're talking to you from stage 9,

20th Century FOX in Los Angeles.

This is the operating room, the or,

In which we've done a number of memorable sequences

Over the years.

And we wanted to talk to you a little about what we hope

Will be another memorable show for you,

A two-hour final expanded version of "MASH"

In which we're going to bring to a conclusion the Korean war

And the 11-year run of "MASH" on television.

- I mean, people are looking forward

To an emotional experience when these people that they've been

Watching for 11 years and whose fortunes they've

Been following finally come

To that point where they separate.

- I thought it would be too flippant for us to just say,

Oh, the war is over, that's nice, that's great,

Let's go home, and pick up our lives.

It seemed like something we ought to deal with.

- My hope was to tell a story that showed the war ending

And the doctors and nurses going home,

But to show that in some way, everybody had been affected

By the war, that they were all going home

With some kind of a wound.

- Dear dad,

For the first time, I understand

What a nervous disorder is, because it seems I've got one.

I guess I'll be seeing you soon, since I doubt

If they'll let a surgeon operate whose cheese

Has slipped off his cracker.

- Dear lord,

I know there must be a reason for this, but what is it?

I answered the call to do your work.

I've devoted my life to it.

And now, how am I supposed to do it?

What good am I now?

What good is a deaf priest?

- Well, I thought it was interesting having

Father Mulcahy get that disability

And be angry with God,

That God had thrown him a curve.

- No, no, no, no, no, no, wait!

Now, don't you do that!

No!

My God, they're musicians.

- Winchester had this great passion for classical music,

And early on in the show, confronts a group

Of Chinese POWs who are musicians.

And he gets them to perform Mozart's clarinet quintet.

And it's a marvelous portion of the story.

- Doctor?

- He wasn't even a soldier.

He was a musician.

- Later on, he learns that they're all dead,

And that becomes an enormous, emotional upheaval for him.

- They threw you curves.

And that was... which was so good about that show.

- I now pronounce you husband and wife.

- I thought it would be really fun to have him be

The one, the one who was trying desperately to get out

Of Korea, to fall in love with a Korean woman

And be the one who stayed in Korea.

- Bye!

- Goodbye, Margaret.

I know you've got your career in order.

But don't forget to have a happy life too.

- Harry and I... again, Margaret and Potter...

Had their very serious, loving relationship.

- My dear sweet man, I'll never forget you.

- How to get through saying, "you dear sweet man,

I'll never forget you," and I still can't do it.

Because I never will.

I mean, he was just... we were just so close.

- Loretta, you have very tearful eyes now.

So this has got to be a very tearful moment for you.

- No.

Yes, it is.

Very. Very.

- What's next? - I'm not doing well.

- How much are you gonna miss the show?

- How much would you miss your arm?

- It was... for me, it was this perfect ending

To a perfect experience.

- To this day, the "MASH" series finale

Is the highest-rated telecast in the history of television.

It's a record that will never be broken.

- And nobody really knows how big that audience was,

'cause there were people watching in town halls,

Hundreds of people in front of one set,

And they only counted the TV sets

And tried to figure it out from that.

So I like to think that we don't really know

How big the audience was, but it was pretty big.

It was about half the country watching at one time.

- In exactly eight hours, the Korean war

Will be officially over.

It's a time for summing up.

And these are the most up-to-date figures we have.

The cost of the war to the united states

Has been placed at $22 billion.

Don't look at me.

I only get 300 a month.

- In human terms, the cost was much greater.

- Some critics have said that "MASH" is more than a TV show,

That it did something in terms of changing

The attitude of the American television

Audience toward war.

Do you agree or disagree with that?

And how do you think it may have

Changed the American attitude?

- Well, that's a big question.

I think that it's clear that "MASH" fitted

Into a lot of the feeling of the country

When we'd come to Vietnam.

And I don't feel that I'm the best person

To expound on this.

But "MASH," in its development, of course,

Began to deal with social issues.

And I was... we all felt that the things

That we were able to touch on were meaningful.

- The acting was superb.

A lot of the writing was very good, well-directed,

Just a very carefully crafted show,

With some ideas that are timeless.

- Good is good, and it lasts forever.

It's the legacy that was left by a bunch

Of people who actually loved what they were doing.

- Okay, and action.

- One of the questions that I've often been asked

Over the years is, why do we think

The show was so successful?

And I've always said that the audience loved

Those characters, but somehow, subliminally,

They also got the sense that the actors loved one another.

- And cut.

- That's a wrap!

- I think I'm proud of all those people that

Made it possible, all the writers and the actors,

The whole gang.

- I think the feeling generally is

One of sort of an overwhelming sadness,

Because it's never gonna be like this again.

It's breaking up a family.

It is. It's sad.

- The constant camaraderie and the constant humor

And respect and love,

It was synchronicity.

It doesn't happen often, or maybe even ever again.

- Father, I may never see you again.

And before you go, there's something I've been meaning

To tell you for a long time.

Your shirt's on backwards.

- Uh...

- "MASH" changed my life.

And I always say, well, you know,

The blessings that "MASH" showered on me

Were so great, that I think I'm a pretty lucky actor.

- A couple of days ago, somebody asked me

If I thought "MASH" had made me a better actor.

And I said I didn't know about that,

But I know it's made me...

A better human being.

And there aren't many shows you can say that about.

- Colonel, before you go, we've been thinking about it,

And there's a little something we'd like to give you.

It's not much, but it comes from the heart.

- It's hard to remember all of the wonderful things

I went through on "MASH,"

Because it happened so long ago.

Sometimes it seems like it happened to

A completely different person,

But fortunately, he lets me live in his house.

- Look, I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye,

So I'll say it.

I'll miss you.

- I'll miss you.

A lot.

- The show resonated with people in a way that,

In my experience, has not happened before

And has not happened since.

The clichés when we were doing the show

Was from people who said, I never watched television,

And I never missed "MASH."

The one I hear today more than any other is,

I used to watch the show with my father,

Or I used to watch the show with my grandfather,

And now I watch the show with my children.