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

 

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* [[Absentee Actor]]: None of the cast besides Alan Alda appeared in every episode. In fact, in season 4's "Hawkeye", Alda is the ''only'' regular to appear.

* [[Bad Dreams]]: "Dreams", one of the most popular episodes.

* [[Badass Preacher]]: Father Mulcahy, who ''seemed'' rather quiet, unassuming, and largely ineffective, was credited by many in the unit as being the driving force behind any sense of sanity or morality in the camp, frequently dealt with the black market ("You'd be surprised what a priest can get away with"), disarmed a soldier who had a gun on him at point-blank range, talked Klinger out of using a live grenade on Frank Burns, performed an emergency tracheotomy under fire, ran to a POW compound under heavy shelling to free the prisoners who were sitting ducks ( {{spoiler|which cost him his hearing}}), and [[Beware the Nice Ones|had a right hook like a brick house]].

* [[Beef Bandage]]: Trapper sports one in one of the very first episodes, "Requiem for a Lightweight".

** Visiting Colonel Reese recommended a "Number 3 steak" for the shiner Hawkeye gave Frank in "House Arrest".

*** [[Word of God]] has it that Henry did not die; "reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated".

* [[Documentary Episode]]: "The Interview", "Our Finest Hour"

* [[Doesn't Like Guns]]: Hawkeye

{{quote| "I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to old Virginny, I'll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"}}

* [[Finger Poke of Doom]]:

{{quote| '''Colonel Flagg''': Do you believe that I can break your leg with this finger?}}

* [[Fixing the Game]]: The craps game in the back of Rosie's bar is rigged.

** Frank runs a bookie operation for baseball games that are broadcast to the camp during the day. Turns out he's listening to previous, late-night broadcasts of the same games to get the outcomes before taking anyone's bets.

** Although calling a military chaplain Padre is common US Army slang, which even some Korean characters picked up.

* [[Greater Need Than Mine]]

* [[Gung Holier Than Thou]]: Col. Flagg

* [[Hahvahd Yahd in My Cah]]: Charles Emerson Winchester III

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: Sidney Freedman who works mostly at the EVAC Hostpital in Seoul and the 8063rd M*A*S*H, members of which would be mentioned and occasionally seen who are supposed to be at ''least'' as crazy as the members of the 4077th.

* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Hawkeye and Trapper, and later Hawkeye and BJ.

** [[Patrick Swayze]] appeared as a soldier diagnosed with [[Harsher in Hindsight|leukemia]].

** Lawrence Fishbourne was a wounded soldier.

* [[It Has Been an Honor]]: In the finale Hawkeye and BJ give Col Potter a silent one by standing at attention and saluting him, something that they did very rarely throughout the course of the series.

** Hawkeye salutes Radar in "Good-bye Radar Part 2", while in the operating room to top it off.

** In the early seasons, the green plantlife is averted by having all exterior scenes in winter episodes taking place at night. In later seasons, this was not always done (and wouldn't have made sense for some of them anyway).

** Although one of the Christmas episodes, "Dear Sis", does end with it beginning to snow in camp, [[Dreaming of a White Christmas|naturally]].

{{quote| '''Henry:''' Boy, you get me in trouble and I'm gonna have your keister.}}

* [[McLeaned]]: Col. Henry Blake, played by McLean Stevenson (the [[Trope Namer]])

* [[Meaningful Echo]]: Provided by Sidney Freedman in the finale.

{{quote| "You know, I told you people something a long time ago, and it's just as pertinent today as it was then. Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice."}}

*** One the flip side are Korean women abandoned by the GI father of their child. Both mother and child suffer from ostracism from society and rejection from their families. Sadly this is [[Truth in Television]] for many mixed race children born in countries at war.

* [[Naked People Are Funny]]: Done to great effect.

* [[New Year Has Come]]: "A War for All Seasons"

* [[Nice Hat]]: Henry's bucket-style fishing hat; Col. Potter's WW1 campaign hat; Klinger's Toledo Mud Hens cap (and, in the earlier seasons, his impressive collection of feminine millinery); Father Mulcahy's panama hat; Radar's wool knit cap; Trapper and BJ's straw hats.

* [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]]: They're in the Army, after all, so the 4077th occasionally find themselves dealing with one or more of these.

* [[Office Golf]]: Henry.

* [[Old Soldier]]: Colonel Potter.

* [[Open Heart Dentistry]]: On one occasion, Dr. Freedman was asked to help out in O.R.; as a psychiatrist he is a qualified medical doctor, but he's not a surgeon, and as Sidney put it: "medical school was a long time ago".

*** The nurses may be an exampled of [[They Just Didn't Care]] and were simply placeholder names used instead of creating names for unimportant background characters, much as the location of the battle the casualties are coming from is very often given as just "hill 403' (although the stagnation of the front on the later part of the war might be the cause of that).

** A vehicle example: in the finale, a tank is driven into the compound by a wounded tanker. After it starts drawing enemy mortar fire, Hawkeye drives it out of the camp. The tank driven into the camp is an [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/M24-Chaffee-latrun-1.jpg M24 Chaffee light tank]; the tank Hawkeye drives out is an [http://www.usarmymodels.com/AFV%20PHOTOS/M4%20SHERMAN/M4%20Sherman%20Front%20Left.jpg M4 Sherman medium tank]. The two look nothing alike.

* [[Out With a Bang]]: "Iron Guts Kelly"

* [[Patriotic Fervor]]: Frequently displayed by Frank Burns and (especially) Colonel Flagg.

* [[Pin Pulling Teeth]]: Frank pulls a pin out of a grenade with his teeth and spits it away before panicking and desperately searching for the pin.

* [[Poor Mans Porn]]: Hawkeye's nudist magazines, and Radar's reference to looking at ''National Geographic'' when his Uncle Ed wasn't around.

* [[Porn Stache]]: Donned by BJ beginning in season 7.

* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: Frank Burns, who seems dangerously unaware of basic firearm safety for a military officer. He has both wounded a fellow officer (BJ) and shot himself in the foot.

* [[Recurring Character]]: Col. Flagg, Sidney Freedman

* [[Retirony]]: the soldiers who died often suffered from this, as did Henry Blake.

** BJ takes extreme measures to negate some of the irony in "Death Takes a Holiday".

* [[Scunthorpe Problem]]: Father Mulcahy's nickname of "Dago Red", used once in the pilot and then never again in the series. In a way, this inverts the movie, where he was initially introduced by his name, and then always addressed by his nickname after that.

* [[Series Continuity Error]]: The show had quite a few of these. To give just one example: Early on, Hawkeye is said to be from Vermont, have a sister and his mom still alive; later he's from Maine, an only child and his mother died when he was ten.

* [[Ship Tease]]: A few episode hint at the fact that Margaret and Hawkeye actually have feelings for each other... some do more than just hint it... and their last interaction is a decent length, passionate kiss in the series finale.

** Early Winchester episodes suggested that he'd become Frank's replacement in more way than one by hinting at an upcoming [[Relationship Upgrade|relationship upgrade]] between him and Margaret, but that never came to fruition.

* [[Significant Reference Date]]: During the PA announcement at the end of "Welcome to Korea".

* [[Sit Com]]

* [[Snowball Lie]]: "Tuttle" and "Bombshells", among others.

* [[Something Completely Different]]

* [[Speech Impediment]]: Winchester counsels a soldier who is cruelly bullied as "stupid" because he stammers. Revealing that he's looked into the man's service record and knows of his actual high intelligence, he gives him ''[[Moby Dick]]'' to read. Returning to his tent, he listens happily to a taped letter from his beloved sister Honoria... who also stammers.

** There was, however, one spinoff which was successful: ''Trapper John, M.D.'', which features the onetime 4077th surgeon some 25 years later.

*** Though legally, no. When ''Trapper'' started, this series' producers sued to claim royalties they thought they were owed due to the use of Trapper's character. The court battle, however, ended with ''Trapper'' being legally considered a spin-off of the movie and not of the show.

* [[True Companions]]: Near the end of the series, when Winchester and Margaret had [[Character Development|developed]] into [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|jerks with hearts of gold]], the main cast were a slightly vitriolic version of this.

* [[Tsundere]]: Margaret, especially toward Hawkeye. Her dere-dere side was revealed in "Comrades In Arms, Part 1", and then Double-Subverted in "Comrades In Arms, Part 2" -- she began '''and''' ended the latter episode with a friendly chat with Hawkeye, but they had quite a few disagreements in between.

* [[Tyrant Takes the Helm]]: Frank Burns, whenever he's given temporary command of the camp. Col. Potter could be considered something of a [[Bait and Switch Tyrant]].

* [[Ultimate Job Security]]: No matter what zany scheme Hawkeye pulls off or what general he offends, they need him as a doctor.

* [[We Want Our Jerk Back]]

* [[Wham Episode]]: "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet", also the first [[Downer Ending]] episode. More would follow, most notably "Abyssinia, Henry".

** Hey Hawkeye, I don't like [[Jerkass|Frank Burns]] any more than you do, but did you really need to punch him in "House Arrest"? Granted there have been plenty of times Frank could use a good pop, but given the circumstances, this wasn't one of them.

** Hawkeye got one from Radar after he (Hawkeye) showed up for surgery too drunk to operate. He got another one from everyone after he laid into Radar for it.

{{quote| '''Hawkeye''': What kind of parents would name their kid "BJ"?<br />

'''BJ''': My mother, ''Bea'' Hunnicutt, and my father, ''Jay'' Hunnicutt. }}

** Then there were those times when one of them (usually BJ) would form a [[Strange Bedfellows|temporary alliance]] with Charles, either against the remaining Swampmate (usually Hawkeye) or some other character.

* [[Wrote the Book]]: Hawkeye wrote the book on the appendix. (He even wrote the appendix, but [[Executive Meddling|they]] [[Pun|took that out]].)

* [[You Are in Command Now]]: "Carry On, Hawkeye"

* [[You Imagined It]]