M*A*S*H (television)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** Speaking of Klinger, can anyone explain why the hell he was given a tent all to himself while captains and majors were sharing quarters in the Swamp?

*** Would you bunk with him if you didn't have to? The rest of the barracks probably complained until he got the boot.

* Where did Hawkeye and Trapper get trained? Their lack of military professionalism is evident throughout the series, and sometimes it goes far beyond a simple defensive mechanism to cope with stitching up kids younger than themselves. And besides their brilliance in surgery, why didn't they ever get busted, or even a real reprimand? Henry couldn't have been THAT spineless.

** It was (and still is) common for civilian professionals (lawyers, chaplains, nurses and doctors) to basically take the 90-day officers' course. Doctors start out as Captains, other professionals as 1st Lieutenants. This wasn't intended to make them proper military men, it was to get them used to military procedure and the system within which they were expected to work. Unsurprisingly, it didn't always take. In most cases (chaplains particularly) they are not expected to have any real command responsibility, which means the rest of the hierarchy can ignore them until needed.

*** Henry was a Lt. Colonel and commander of the unit. He has to have been in the army far longer than Hawkeye and Trapper John to get promoted twice and and to that level of responsibility. That suggests that he must have been started out at least in WWII. If he were only drafted, he would have been able to quit in the late '40s and never had to go to Korea. Unless he were in the Army Reserve and thus liable to be re-inducted, which in turn suggests his commitment to the Army is (or at least was, at some point) more than it looks.

**** When Colonel Potter arrived, he was specifically described as being regular (career) army. However Henry was classified—drafted, reserves, whatever—he wasn't regular army.

** Not necessarily, If Henry was in the reserves he might have only joined to pay for his medical schooling and then getting stuck when an actually war broke out. He was a half-decent administrator (plus he had Radar, who helped make him look good) and a damn good doctor, which is why he was promoted quickly when the 4077th needed a commander.

** A better question would be how a bungler like Burns (who would have been a pastry chef if he wasn't drafted as a doctor) made Major.

*** Well, it was mostly for conflict, but in-universe, he mentions having taken ROTC in college. Unless I'm wrong about how ROTC, he could have been working in a VA hospital or something. Especially considering MASH's version of the army, he could have easily gotten promoted on zeal alone.

*** There's also the question of how the camp had such a high survival rate if one of the four doctors was so incompetent. If Burns was really as bad as they claimed he was while being one of the camp's few doctors, they could not have had a 97% success rate.

* Did the characters' attitudes have to be so anachronistic? I could stand them being a bit ahead of their time, but it's just so blatant, especially in the latter seasons, how everyone acts like the social movements of the 1960s have already happened. And the 1950s were twenty years before the show was made, so there's no way the cast and crew didn't live through the time period they were portraying.

** Here's a justification for ya - the Korean War began 25th of June, 1950. Let's suppose in the M*A*S*H* Verse, the Korean War actually did go for the time period shown. The show went for 11 seasons. One episode took place over the course of a year, so we see 12 years pass by in M*A*S*H*, so the show ends in 1962. Presumably, a 12 year war would have some effect on the psyche of a nation, and even if it didn't we certainly see it affect the characters, as they gradually become dependent on the few forms of escape they have, and also the whole "Little contact with home" thing, meaning they perceive what they have as normal. I kinda lost my train of thought here, but I think you know what I mean.

*** At the beginning of Season 4, when Trapper leaves, Hawkeye says he was room-mates with Trapper for over a year.

*** In a Season 4 episode, the PA announcer says Ralph Kiner has just hit his 47th homerun of the season. The only time that happened (during the Korean War) was in 1950.

* This show made Korea look so backwards. I'm no expert on Korea, but I know South Korea is now one of the Four Asian Tigers. Was it really Amish-Land in the early '50s?

** [[Or So I Heard|I'm told Koreans hate the show because of how the country was portrayed.]]

** The series is supposed to take place around Uijongbu, which is an actual city. During the Korean War, Uijongbu was only a small village, so the portrayal may be justified.

*** The only place shown to be "backwards" (i.e. poor, farming communities) was the immediate area surrounding the 4077th and the Korean countryside. Seoul was never shown, but sounded like a large metropolitan city (because it is) and the place you want to go to when you go on leave if you can't get to Tokyo (which is the Las Vegas of the east).

*** Also, when Korea was divided into Soviet and American occupation zones (which fairly quickly became North Korea and South Korea) upon the Japanese surrender in 1945, the country's economy was seriously disrupted. In 1945, the north was primarily industrial (largely powered by hydroelectric power generated in the mountains) while the (generally less mountainous) south was primarily agricultural. As is normally the case, the agricultural area was more backward. South Korea didn't really become a developed economy for years.

* Were we really meant to feel sympathetic during Margaret Houlihan's whole 'lousy cup of coffee' rant? Each season she mistreated her nurses, went out of her way to make things difficult for others. At the very least her rant seemed like a very left field thing, at the very most it seemed like a very thin justification for basically stomping all over the people she was supposed to be responsible for.

** She never really mistreated her nurses. Not in the way that Burns, for example, mistreated his subordinates. She was just very Rules and Regulations, and she resented the fact that she was vilified because of it. Moreover, [[Characterization Marches On]]: the Houlihan of later seasons is a very different person from the Houlihan of earlier seasons.

*** I think that Frank and Margaret were mutually bad influences on each other. Frank's view of class and the proper order of things made Margaret distant with her nurses (and everyone else), while Margaret's army background and what she wanted in a man made Frank army-obsessed and somewhat violent. Once Margaret started seeing Donald, Frank became a lot less obsessed with army rules, and a lot more snarky and desperate for attention. When Margaret married Donald, Frank went round the bend, but didn't revert to his army obsession. After the marriage, Margaret was able to start to progress as a character, and became more willing to socialise and mingle with those "under" her. The episode in question was just part of that process of growth - indeed, once she married Donald, I think she'd have been open to the offer of a "lousy cup of coffee", if asked in the right context.

*** She did. In a later episode, she comes into the mess tent and says something like "aren't you going to ask me to sit with you?" Kellye: "We didn't think you'd accept." She smiles and says "That's gonna cost you a cup of coffee!"

* This troper always wondered why certain people had their own tents when others had to share. For example, Burns (later Winchester) had to share a tent with two to three other doctors (in the beginning, Spearchucker Jones was in the tent with Trapper, Hawkeye, and Burns). The dentist (in early episodes), Hot Lips, Sergeant Zale, a supply sergeant, Lieutenant Simmons, and Klinger all had their own tents. That's six people of lower rank than Major Burns who have their own tents. Blake, then Potter had his own tent, too, but that's understandable.

** Some of that can be easily explained: Blake and Potter would have had their own tents as unit commanders, Hot Lips as the only female of rank (Can't bunk her with the men or with the enlisted nurses), Zale was a supply sergeant and could have bartered his way to privacy (there are several instances on the show of the supply personnel bartering to other goals) and Klinger spent most of his time trying to convince people he was crazy; I speak from experience in saying that being weird enough will win you a private college dorm, I imagine it's rather the same: no one WANTED to bunk with him.

*** Burns, Pierce, and Trapper/BJ had to share since, as the surgical team, they had to be accesible at once for emergencies. Zale, as the motor sergeant, was also possibly the highest ranking NCO around, and would therefore get his own tent. Margaret, as the highest ranking female officer AND the Head Nurse, would be entitled to her own tent. Klinger might have been able to make a few deals to get his own tent from someone who was higher ranking than himself.

** Those are all reasonable explanations for how someone could get his/her own tent and even if those are true, there don't seem to be enough tents in the camp to house all the personnel, especially with so many people having their own tents.

* Why is it that so many people that are known to the main characters happen to come to this MASH unit at various times? Hawkeye's childhood friend visits, so does a girl he went to college with, though this one makes a little sense as she was a nurse who was drafted, too. Also, a doctor Hawkeye did residency with comes to do a nose job on a soldier. Trapper's old friend also visits, and so does a writer friend. Potter's son-in-law visits and so does Margaret's dad (who was not as dead as he seemed to be in earlier episodes).

** Margaret's dad could be justified by some sort because he was a soldier of high rank (which specific rank this troper can't recall) so he probably had enough clout to check out her MASH unit.

*** Also, Radar had a brother early on.

*** And Hawkeye had a sister early on (she knitted him a huge sweater), and a living mom and a brother in a few episodes, then it was established that he was an only child and that his mother was dead.

* Is this troper the only one that is kinda discomforted by this little exchange (in the episode "Dear Ma") between Margaret, Radar, and a silent Potter?

'''Radar:''' Some of them rats are weird. }}

** Margaret's accusatory tone, Radar's sheepish delivery of the last line, and Potter's eye-rolling distinct discomfort at the whole conversation seem to imply that it is ''Radar'' that has been trying on the undies. Could it be that Klinger is not the ''only'' crossdresser in camp? (Of course, it wouldn't be unthinkable, as many boys and young men at some point will try on some femme finery out of mere curiosity, without necessarily becoming a full-fledged transvestite. But this is our beloved ''Radar'', and it seems just a little squicky...)

** This is probably not how it was intended, but the way I interpreted it originally was not that Radar was the one who'd done it, but that he knew who it was and didn't want to say.

** I always saw it as Margaret knew that Radar was going through her underwear, but took it as a boy with a harmless crush on her, since a career Major in the medical field would likely be in her mid to late 30s, while an enlisted farmboy from Iowa was likely to only be about 20 at the most. She was taking the chance to rib him about it and let him knew that he wasn't as slick as he thought he was.

* Why is Hawkeye portrayed to be so sympathetic? He is basically a creep. I remember when he had to give Margaret a shot, and somehow lusting over her ass and humiliating her was okay. He is also condescending and cruel. He basically tortured a severely mentally ill man (Frank). Why didn't he make the completely reasonable recommendation that Frank was unstable and should be sent home, instead?

** That always bugged me, too. If he liked you, he was very loyal to you. If he didn't like you, look out! There was also a time where he drugged Frank, bandaged him up, and hid him in the OR just so he could have a party.

*** So talking about respect makes it okay to be totally unprofessional and lurid? Of course Frank was horrible in doing that, but does that excuse Hawkeye, magically of everything he has done to him in the past? Is Hawkeye somehow psychic and gets revenge on a future event? The guy was crazy, he SHOULDN'T have been there in the first place. Instead of adding to the stress of an unstable man he should have done everything he could to get him sent home. And in that episode as far as I can remember, Frank showed many signs of "not being all there in the head. I'm not saying Frank was nice or even a good person but since when does that excuse torturing someone? Should you only treat the people whose moral code corresponds with yours with respect(or simply respect enough not to physically assault them)?

*** I have to agree with this somewhat. The only reason Hawkeye said anything about respect was to fool Margaret into pulling her pants down. As soon as she gets her butt cheeks hanging out, Hawkeye says something like lurid and offensive. His moral code of professionalism only extended to those he liked. Frank was no saint. Hawkeye was a serious jerkass. Both of them were completely bonkers. In that episode, Frank tried to get Hawkeye convicted of mutiny, which has a death sentence as a possible outcome. Somehow, the can still work together afterward and continue to be room-mates.

** I'm not sure if he's meant to be a [[Anti-Hero|hero]].

* Radar, as we all know, is so-named because of his ability to anticipate the needs, words, and actions of his C/O Lt. Col. Henry Blake. Once Col. Potter took over the operation, Radar was able to anticipate him just as easily, and also to anticipate Hawkeye on the rare occasions that Hawkeye found himself in command. So why is it that Radar was entirely unable to anticipate Frank Burns when he was in command?

** Burns was not fit to command, he was also making his own rules on the spot, unlike Potter and Henry who talked it over with someone before making a decision, Radar was able to predict what they wanted by conversation and paperwork. Burns was making giant changes that Radar wouldn't dream someone would do.

** Maybe Radar's apparent psychic ability doesn't work on someone with Frank's mental instability or relative lack of intelligence (he might be normal or slightly higher in intelligence, but that's pretty low for a doctor. One wonders about a medical school that would graduate Frank).

** Except he could:

'''Frank''': ...the efficiency reports. }}

* It bugs me how motive-driven the characters can be to drive the plot along in several of the episodes.

** Also, how the characters will go out of character to drive the plot along, like the episode where Burns has a sudden spark of bravery long enough to attack a Korean General because he thinks the general is Chinese. This goes against Frank's cowardice, but serves the purpose of making him look stupid.

*** Frank is more than willing to be "brave"... when he thinks the "enemy" won't be able to fight back ''and'' Frank's got heaps of people around him to help. In Frank's mind, the "North Korean" person is unarmed and surrounded by Americans, which gives Frank the perfect chance to be the "Hero", because he isn't putting himself in any sort of risk.

*** In early episodes, Frank cared about people, even joining the others in trying to help when a little Korean boy was found running through a minefield.

** The writers/cast probably [[Opinion Myopia|thought their views were more widely held than they actually were]].

** When you watch the show now, it doesn't look like a period piece for the setting in the 1950s. It looks like it's taking place in the 1970s.

* Why doesn't anyone call Hawkeye or Trapper out on their bullshit? A few examples:

** There are times when Trapper and Hawkeye start something with Frank, but no one seems to notice these things. In the episode, ''L.I.P.'', Frank is finishing up with a patient. Trapper comes over to him and tells him his stitching is good, then asks him if he practices on baseball mitts. Later in the episode, they treat Frank like crap to try to get him to sign some papers reporting a friendly-fire incident. Frank refuses. Sure, Frank is the bad guy, but they could have treated him better to begin with.

** In another episode, Hawkeye wants to surrender. Margaret already pointed out that if they surrender, the nurses would have their bodies violated over and over again. Hawkeye tries to surrender anyway, even though Henry said he couldn't. When it doesn't work out, nobody says anything to Hawkeye, not even Frank and Margaret, both of whom want to get rid of him. This would be a legitimate chance. He disobeyed orders and tried to surrender when he still had the means to resist. This would be a court-martial offense, one that would likely land him in prison, yet no one says anything.

*** As a hospital, the doctors ''weren't'' able to resist. Medical officers are not permitted to fire or even carry weapons. Normally, the hospital would have had the real soldiers armed and hunting for the sniper.

** Another time, Hawkeye drugs Frank and puts him in a bed in Post-Op so he can have a party.

** Another time, when Frank is passed out, Hawkeye puts a toe tag on him and ships him off like he's dead.

*** I can see the point in some of the above (and would add that Trapper and Hawkeye should have been on assault charges that time they forcibly took a pint of blood from Frank and gave him anaemia) but he got what he deserved in ''George''; that Trapper's an adulterer too makes no difference to the hypocrisy of Frank trying to ruin someone's life over a moral code he doesn't live up to himself.

**** ''At that time,'' homosexuality was considered far, far worse than heterosexual adultery. You could be thrown into prison for it in many states.

** I would hypothesise that the different levels of morality portrayed with characters' infidelity reflects their different levels of conscience; at least, about adultery.

* It bugs me how the ''good'' characters must be opposed to the war. Even Colonel Potter starts to act this way. By Season 7, he's even allowing Hawkeye to openly sabotage the war:

** In one episode, he steals a Jeep, drives to Panmunjom, berates the peace delegates, then drives back to the camp. Potter not only lets this slide, but approves of the stunt. When a major comes to confront Hawkeye about his actions, the major tells him the general said to stay at least 20 miles away from Panmunjom, but he relays the message that if the general could get away with it, he'd do the same thing.

*** In [[Real Life]], anybody at all who tried that on would have been lucky to spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth.

** In the episode where Hawkeye wins a Howitzer in a poker game. Potter tells him he has to move it out of the camp. Hawkeye says it's his and he's going to find something to do with it. After Potter tells Hawkeye he's found an artillery unit that will take it, Potter lets Hawkeye do what he wants with it (sabotage it), which still doesn't get it out of the camp. And this is portrayed as being okay and the right thing to do.

*** Kind of supports the communist sympathiser theory. The howitzer can no longer be used to kill communist soldiers, yet still puts American lives at risk by being in a non-combat unit.

** In ''Five O'Clock Charlie'', Hawkeye sabotages Frank's attempts to shoot down an enemy plane bombing their camp, replaces Frank's gun with various items which could potentially get him killed, and decides to destroy a nearby munitions dump, using rather vital supplies, large amounts of bedsheets and antibiotics, in the process, with little regard to what that lost ammunition would mean to US troops in the sector.

*** The visiting general mentions that the munitions dump is ''barely'' legal under international law, and that it was put there to keep the ammo safe from being attacked, since the hospital is a non-target. Since it was getting the hospital attacked (legitimately, since the ammo dump stripped the hospital of its non-combatant status), Hawkeye took steps to protect the patients. Also, Charlie wasn't an enemy plane; he was a civilian vigilante who was targeting only the munitions, but kept hitting the camp instead.

* Why doesn't Klinger just shoot himself in the foot?

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Live Action TV/Headscratchers]]

[[Category:Headscratchers]]

__NOTOC__