M*A*S*H: The Story of the 4077th  🔗 **Source:** [M*A*S*H: The Story of the 4077th](https://share.snipd.com/episode/4097ee4f-d807-4cda-a3f1-be0ec485ce1c) ## Highlights - **Real MASH Units Saved Lives Near The Front** - MASH units were real mobile army surgical hospitals first used in Korea to place surgeons close to front lines and dramatically raise survival rates. - Real MASH units were tent-based, movable in ~24 hours, and achieved about a 97% survival rate for patients who reached them. Transcript: Chuck Yeah, for sure. And the idea is that they put the surgeons close to the front lines so they could save more lives. And it was, you know, they're all kind of temporary. Like they slept on, you know, cot-like beds and they lived in tents. And it was on the TV show, there's a lot of talk about the front and how close they were. But the real-life MASH units apparently had a 97% survival rate. If you got there, chances are you lived. Josh Yeah, so it was a really good idea that panned out. Yeah, and in the show, you can hear bombs going off sometimes. Occasionally, the overhead lights will flicker and sway because they are so close to the front. And I was thinking about the same thing that you mentioned too, that they never seem to change or move their unit. And if it's supposed to be four to five miles behind front lines, then that would have to be a completely static front line for all those years to never move. But it made me wonder about like the real life MASH surgeons. Like how often did you have to break down your MASH unit and then move it, you know, and set it up again? Which apparently you could do very quickly. Supposedly you could set one up in 24 hours. But that also just kind of goes to explain like these were not like state-of surgical wards. They were like blood and guts, get your hands dirty, you're lucky if you have more than one scalpel kind of like surgical outfit. ([Time 0:10:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e653090-36b6-4488-9f98-f81cc74c8f64)) - **MASH Started As A Doctor's Anecdote Collection** - MASH began as a 1968 book by Dr. Richard H. Hornberger under Richard Hooker, composed of anecdotes and gory wartime vignettes. - Hornberger later wrote 14 MASH novels after the movie and TV success, cashing in on his original stories. Transcript: Chuck Did not know. Josh No way. I was going to ask you that facetiously. And I didn't. I'm sorry. Chuck I did not know this. Of course, I knew it was a movie and we'll talk about that in a second. But the movie was optioned from a book written in 1968 called MASH, colon, a novel about three army doctors by a MASH veteran doctor named Dr. Richard H. Hornberger under a pseudonym Richard Hooker. I think he added a co-writer named W.C. Hines when it became pretty clear that his book was a bit of a mess because it sounds like it was just sort of a group of stories about his experience in the 8055, the 8055th MASH unit was The real life unit that it was based on. And it sounds like it was, you know, like what we see on TV and in the movies. Like they partied a lot, they drank a lot, did a lot of pranks, and on the side did some surgery. Josh Yeah, but like you said, it was kind of loosely put together. Like each chapter started with, hey, get this. And they were basically like, yeah, they were anecdotes. And then apparently he also peppered in some like gory stuff just to basically get across the horrors of war. And he was actually a surgeon in Maine. And when he put this whole book together, and they brought in W.C. Hines, a sports writer, to kind of help him with it. If you've seen the TV ([Time 0:13:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/41b286dd-14c0-4bac-bc9d-9cc383969dc4)) - **Altman's Improvisation Clashed With The Screenplay** - Robert Altman's MASH movie used improvisation and overlapping dialogue, which clashed with screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr.'s scripted approach. - Lardner tried to remove his name but kept it after winning the Oscar for screenplay. Transcript: Chuck It's his hallmark as a filmmaker. Ring Lardner Jr. Did not care for that, evidently, and said, like, you ruined what I wrote. And I don't know if he took that back after he won the Oscar for screenplay or not. ([Time 0:19:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/96e9779c-b3ec-43d1-bcde-f9ec8f70544d)) - **Laugh Track Was Used As A Moral Contrast** - The TV series balanced comedy and anti-war seriousness by selectively removing the laugh track for OR and heavy scenes. - Producers negotiated with CBS so surgical and downer scenes ran without canned laughter to heighten impact. Transcript: Josh It could also be an office comedy, essentially. And that's not at all what they did, thanks to a producer named Gene Reynolds and a writer named Larry Gelbert. I don't know how those two came together, but it was a match made in CBS heaven. Chuck Yeah, for sure. Gelbert was an experienced writer. He wrote, or at least co-wrote the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Later on, after Postmash, he wrote the movie Tootsie, which is great, and the movie Oh God with George Burns and John Denver, which to me is great, and I guess to you too. Not so much Oh God book two, but that first Oh God was awesome. Josh I saw both. I don't remember the book two, but the first one was so great. Chuck Yeah, agreed. But they, you know, they didn't want, they wanted to walk that fine line between having laughs and it being a quote-unquote comedy and an anti-war movie and a movie about the horrors Of combat. And it's really interesting. They walk a really tough, fine line. And as we'll see, they ended up doing some really groundbreaking episodes, you know, in later seasons. The first few seasons were definitely leaned way more into the sort of hijinks of it all. ([Time 0:28:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/61dc13c3-607f-4d01-aa20-97f5fbba7349)) - **Use Contrast By Removing Comic Cues In Serious Scenes** - Use tonal contrast to heighten drama: reserve comedic devices for lighter scenes and remove them for high-stakes moments. - MASH removed the laugh track in ORs and serious episodes to make surgical scenes emotionally resonant. Transcript: Josh I don't know how those two came together, but it was a match made in CBS heaven. Chuck Yeah, for sure. Gelbert was an experienced writer. He wrote, or at least co-wrote the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Later on, after Postmash, he wrote the movie Tootsie, which is great, and the movie Oh God with George Burns and John Denver, which to me is great, and I guess to you too. Not so much Oh God book two, but that first Oh God was awesome. Josh I saw both. I don't remember the book two, but the first one was so great. Chuck Yeah, agreed. But they, you know, they didn't want, they wanted to walk that fine line between having laughs and it being a quote-unquote comedy and an anti-war movie and a movie about the horrors Of combat. And it's really interesting. They walk a really tough, fine line. And as we'll see, they ended up doing some really groundbreaking episodes, you know, in later seasons. The first few seasons were definitely leaned way more into the sort of hijinks of it all. ([Time 0:28:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eac3a9fb-89aa-40aa-98ad-be293bf1fbcf)) - **Trapper Left Because He Felt Underused** - Wayne Rogers (Trapper John) left after season three because he felt underwritten and never signed a binding contract. - The show replaced him with BJ Honeycutt (Mike Farrell) and successfully shifted tone in later seasons. Transcript: Josh I guess there was like a morality clause. He's like, I'm not signing this, and they forgot to go back and get him to sign something. So he left after the third season, which apparently he seemed fine with. Chuck Yeah, I mean, MASH is one of those shows like Cheers that was able to withstand some pretty drastic cast changes. It's hard to pull off as a TV show. Cheers did it very well and MASH did it very well because three of the main characters ended up being replaced. Trapper was replaced by Honeycutt, BJ Honeycutt, played by Mike Farrell, or maybe it's Farrell. He was actually a U.S. Marine in real life. He was great. I loved Honeycutt. You know, again, those later seasons after, like, Trapper left, and as we'll see, some of the other characters left, there were some tonal changes. But I was along for the whole ride. ([Time 0:38:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f9132738-e1d8-4f30-9ae0-301336a40baa)) - **Frank Burns Was The Necessary Bureaucratic Foil** - Frank Burns functioned as the show's chief foil: rule-bound, disliked, and a poor surgeon, which justified other characters' antics. - His incompetence let Hawkeye and others skirt military rules because surgical skill mattered most. Transcript: Chuck Yeah, they were tentmates, the three of them. Yeah, the two guys and then Burns lived together. And then he was replaced after the fifth season in season six by David Ogden Steers as Charles Emerson Winchester III, who was a major. I always thought he was kind of British, but he just sort of did that mid-Atlantic thing. Right. Because he came from a wealthy family in Boston, a family of doctors, apparently. And he was a little less of a foil, but still a bit of a foil. Josh Yeah, he just didn't blend in with them because he was so snobby. They just had nothing in common, essentially, from their backgrounds. Yeah. Then there's Margaret Hot Lips Houlihan, played by Loretta Swit, who I've ([Time 0:42:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/50b1e506-8e1d-4551-9a7a-f5b829449491)) - **MASH Hosted Many Future Stars In One-Off Roles** - MASH featured many future stars in guest roles, including Ron Howard, Patrick Swayze, Leslie Nielsen, and Pat Morita. - The show’s casting often ignored ethnic specificity typical of 1970s Hollywood, e.g., any Asian actor could play various Asian roles. Transcript: Chuck Yeah. Because MASH had quite a list of people who came on for one episode, including, but not limited to, Ron Howard. Sure. Leslie Nielsen, Patrick Swayze, Lawrence Fishburne, the great George Wendt, Terry Garr. Who else you got? Josh Andrew Dice Clay. Yeah. The Dice Man. Yeah. Yeah, just one thing. This is apparently where Leslie Nielsen made the transition to comedy. Oh, okay. Was on his appearance on MASH. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Rita Wilson. Oh, oh, we're still going. Yeah. Don't forget Ed Begley Jr. Chuck Yeah. John Ritter, Shelley Long. Josh Pat Morita. Chuck Of course, Pat Morita's in there. He was in two. It's Hollywood in the 70s. They're like, we don't care what part of Asia you're from. Exactly. Just sign them up. Exactly. Josh We feel pretty progressive that we're actually casting an Asian to play an Asian. Yeah. ([Time 0:45:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ae0da027-0ec2-4ec3-a0c2-1dd53a62c012)) - **They Killed Colonel Blake Offscreen And It Devastated Viewers** - The season three finale Abyssinia, Henry killed beloved Colonel Blake offscreen by telegram, producing a famously devastating reaction. - Alan Alda withheld the news from cast until filming to capture raw emotion, and Radar's performance is widely praised. Transcript: Chuck I mean, this episode wrecked little Chuck, little nine-year Chuck. Josh I remember this one, too, and I was like, where's the laugh track? Chuck Yeah. Josh So Colonel Blake, who we both love, played by McLean Stevenson, this is the season three finale. He gets word that he's going home. Like, his tour is over. He's out of the army now. And so he leaves, and that's it. Like, everybody's saying bye. Everybody's happy for him. He's happy. And then at the end of the episode, Radar comes into the OR, and he's holding a telegram. And what does the telegram say, Chuck? Chuck I can't even say it. Josh Says that Colonel Blake's plane went down with Colonel Blake aboard and that there were no survivors. So on his way back home after his tour, after becoming beloved by all viewers, Colonel Blake is dead. The writers killed him after he was already off the show. And it just wrecked everybody, like you said. Chuck It was brutal. Alan Alda knew this was going to happen. The story goes that they didn't tell the rest of the cast until they got their sides that morning. And because they wanted, you know, a real reaction or maybe they didn't even have the sides. Maybe they I think they just learned when radar walked in in the scene. And Gary Berghoff's acting in that is incredible. And, you know, there's no reaction like no one's like, oh, my God, no, it's just very quietly. They keep operating and you just hear they're crying and you just hear like scalpel, you know, suction. And it's it's devastating. Josh Yeah, it's good stuff. ([Time 0:51:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1b0898e9-b3a3-4ac1-9f7e-b26b3b94b994)) - **MASH Finale Broke TV Records** - The MASH finale Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen became the most-watched TV episode ever, drawing about 121 million viewers and huge ad rates. - The two-and-a-half-hour episode wrapped character futures and showed the war's end, cementing cultural impact. Transcript: Chuck Oh, my God, that's right. It was. I remember it being long. I don't remember it being that long. Josh Two and a half hours, man. Chuck Yeah. And, of course, that includes commercials. A 30-second spot apparently was $450,000, which would be $1.36 million today. It was called Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen. And it was, you know, the war ends, basically, is the last episode. But it is very dramatic for a lot of it. And, like, the things the characters go through at the end are all pretty, you know, take pretty dramatic turns. Josh Yeah. And it very famously, in this, like, kind of heart-rending montage at the very end, it shows how every character dies in the future. Chuck You're talking about Six Feet Under? Yeah. Because I haven't seen it in a while. I was like, did that really happen? Josh That is one of the greatest endings to any show ever. Chuck Of course. It was great. Also gut-wrenching. Josh Yeah, it was. But Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen is fantastic, too, for sure. Chuck Yeah, so like you said, the biggest rated TV show of all time, and that was like including sports events up until Super Bowl 2010, finally surpassed it. But MASH is still, as far as just a regular TV show goes, the finale is the most watched. I think 75% of America tuned into that, which is a staggering number. ([Time 0:53:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b52fcdd1-fde2-475e-b7a8-7424dc3aaeeb))