List of M*A*S*H characters Wikipedia

Episodes were both plot- and character-driven, with several narrated by one of the show’s characters as the contents of a letter home. The series is usually categorized as a situation comedy, though it has also been described as a “dark comedy” or a “dramedy” because of the often dramatic subject matter.A The show’s title sequence features an instrumental version of “Suicide Is Painless”, the original film’s theme song. J. Hunnicutt, McLean Stevenson was replaced by Harry Morgan as Sherman Potter, Larry Linville was replaced by David Ogden Stiers as Charles Emerson Winchester III, and, when Gary Burghoff left the show, the Maxwell Klinger character moved into the company clerk role. The series, produced by 20th Century-Fox Television, follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the “4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital” in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War (1950–1953).

The two-season spin-off AfterMASH (1983–1985) inherited the parent show’s Monday night time slot and featured a few of its main characters reunited in a Midwestern hospital after the war. In the end, season 11 had 15 episodes (although six had been filmed during season 10 and held over) and a 2+1⁄2-hour movie, which was treated as five episodes and was filmed before the nine remaining episodes. The character of “Boone” appears in a handful of episodes as a very minor character, played by Bob Gooden. He is also sometimes tasked with duties with Radar, as seen in the season 5 episode “Mulcahy’s War”. Igor was seen in 48 episodes, the second most frequent recurring character after Nurse Kellye (portrayed by Kellye Nakahara) who appeared in 167 episodes. The character of Igor (by name) debuted in the second season and appeared sporadically until the series finale.

Actor

Despite their long-running mutual antagonism, Hawkeye and Margaret came to develop respect and affection for each other, reflected in a long passionate farewell kiss in the final episode. In the wake of her split with Burns, she becomes more comfortable with at least some of the unit’s more unorthodox ways and as time progresses, becomes a willing participant in some of the hijinks. In one early episode “Hot Lips and Empty Arms” she is very angry at herself when she finds her college roommate has a dream marriage with a rich doctor, children, a great house, a swimming pool, and a washing machine – all of which could have been hers.

Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. It’s still funny.

1st Lieutenant Maria “Dish” Schneider was played by Jo Ann Pflug in the film and (as Lt. Maggie Dish) by Karen Philipp in the series. Ginger’s last appearance was in the season 4 episode, “The Late Captain Pierce”. One of Ginger’s most prominent roles comes in the season 2 episode, “Dear Dad … Three” where a wounded soldier requests that he be given blood only from white donors.

The series, which depicted events occurring during a three-year war, spanned 256 episodes and lasted 11 seasons. Jackie Cooper wrote that Alan Alda – whom Cooper directed in several episodes during the first two seasons – concealed what Cooper felt was a lot of hostility toward him, and the two barely spoke to each other by the time Cooper’s tenure on the show ended. Capt. Calvin Spaulding, played by Loudon Wainwright III, is a guitar-playing and singing surgeon who appeared in three episodes in season three (1974–75), “Rainbow Bridge”, “There is Nothing Like a Nurse”, and “Big Mac”. The announcer on the public address system is heard throughout the film and in most episodes of the series. Spearchucker was shown during several episodes during the first season of the series.

• (Although junior in rank, Pierce was a specialist surgeon in chest wounds while Burns was a general practitioner.)
• It was also the location where the film How Green Was My Valley (1941) and the Planet of the Apes television series (1974) were filmed, among many other productions.
• After saying she was recently involved with a colonel named Donald, Margaret comes to conclude he has cheated on her, and she flies into a rage against the nurse.
• In the film, he is an American (as he can be seen wearing the insignia of a US Army Captain), but his background is not discussed.

It was also the location where the film How Green Was My Valley (1941) and the Planet of the Apes television series (1974) were filmed, among many other productions. The series finale movie, titled “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”, became the most-watched U.S. television broadcast in history at that time, with 106 million viewers. Such early 1950s events as the McCarthy era, various sporting events, and the stardom of Marilyn Monroe were all incorporated into various episodes, a trend that continued until the end of the series. At the end of the third season, Rogers and Stevenson left the show, with their characters written out, and they were replaced by Mike Farrell as surgeon Captain B. J. Hunnicutt and Harry Morgan as surgeon Colonel Sherman T. Potter as the new commanding officer. Early seasons aired on network prime time while the Vietnam War had not ended; the show was forced to walk the fine line of commenting on that war while at the same time not seeming to protest against it.

Sherman T. Potter

In the episode “Patent 4077”, Zale describes himself as a master craftsman. In the Season 10 episode “Promotion Commotion”, Rizzo was one of three 4077th enlisted who appeared before a promotion board consisting of Hawkeye, B. J., and Winchester. While originally written to be from New York City, when the producers heard Bailey’s southern accent in his first dailies his character was moved to Louisiana.

The character was portrayed by Gary Burghoff in both the film and on television, the only regular character played by a single actor. J. Though Winchester embodied some antagonistic qualities similar to Burns such as pompousness and formality, he proved during his time on the series to be a very different character than his predecessor, being far more intelligent, humane, kind, and skilled in surgery. Major Charles Emerson Winchester III is a supporting character in the television series, played by David Ogden Stiers. His wife eventually learns of the affair and threatens him with divorce; he denies it, describing Houlihan as an “old warhorse” and an “army mule with bosoms”, beginning a rift that leads to her engagement to Donald Penobscott, a handsome lieutenant colonel stationed in Tokyo.

Seasons

In the third-season episode “Springtime”, Klinger marries his girlfriend, Laverne Esposito, via radio. (In the final regular episode of the series titled “As Time Goes By”, Radar’s teddy bear is put into the unit’s time capsule to symbolize the soldiers who arrived as boys and left as men.) In season 3, he remarked that he would be glad to live past age 18, though other ages are given in other episodes, and by then the actor was pushing 30. Soon after the pilot episode, Burghoff noted that the other characters were changing from the film portrayals and decided to follow. In the film, Radar was portrayed as worldly and sneaky, a characterization that carried into the early part of the series.

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.

At the end of the episode, he listens to a recorded letter from his sister Honoria, who turns out to likewise be a stutterer. Behind his snobbery, he was raised with a sense of noblesse oblige and was capable of profound – albeit sometimes misguided – acts of kindness. Although the character was originally intended to develop a romance with Houlihan,citation needed the chemistry between the two was not there, so Charles and Margaret maintain a platonic, professional friendship. Winchester does adjust accordingly, although his skill as a surgeon inadvertently frustrates his hope of being transferred back to Tokyo since Colonel Potter considers him too valuable to lose. The name Charles Emerson Winchester was derived from three real street names in the city of Boston.citation needed He was introduced in the show’s sixth season as a replacement for Frank Burns, both in the unit’s surgical team and as a foil for Hawkeye and B. In the series of novels co-written with (or ghost-written by) William E. Butterworth, Houlihan reappears as the twice-widowed Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, both husbands having expired on the nuptial bed through excessive indulgence in her still-outstanding physical charms.

Colonel Samuel Flagg

A gentler characterization made Margaret a less pointed comedy foil, and after Klinger took over Radar’s responsibilities he discontinued cross-dressing and other attempts to get a Section 8 psychiatric discharge. As the series progressed, it made a significant shift from being primarily a comedy with dramatic undertones to a drama with comedic overtones. Other long-serving actors on the show include Kellye Nakahara as Nurse Kellye, Jeff Maxwell as Private Igor Straminsky, Johnny Haymer as Sergeant Zelmo Zale, the supply sergeant, Allan Arbus as psychiatrist Major Sidney Freedman, and Edward Winter as intelligence officer Colonel Sam Flagg. Early in season eight, Burghoff left the show; Klinger (Farr) was moved to company clerk to replace Radar, while G. Several other main characters departed or joined the program during its run, and numerous guest actors and recurring characters were used. Reviewing the series in 1980 for the BBC, Ludovic Kennedy observed “…its humour derives mainly from the layman’s delight in finding that members of the medical profession (traditionally totem figures) can in their social lives be just as venal and silly as the rest of us.”

In the TV series, he is very high-strung, with a penchant for uttering what are often bizarre or redundant clichés and malapropisms; one example is from “The Interview” (season 4, episode 24), in which Burns describes marriage as “the headstone of American society”. In the film and the subsequent TV series, Frank Burns’s rank is that of major. However, the earliest a soldier in the army was credited towards this award was 1940, and as a physician Potter would have been a commissioned officer and so ineligible for it at the time.

The show continued to portray him as very young even as his hairline receded (all of the actors would age a decade during this protracted retelling of a three-year war). He has a virginal awkwardness with women despite having been engaged before reporting to the 4077th (his fiancée sent him a “Dear John” record) and a fondness for superhero comic books. He is known for his tremendous appetite for heaping portions of food, is not averse to drinking Henry Blake’s brandy and smoking his cigars when the colonel is off-duty, and occasionally drinks the moonshine liquor Hawkeye and Trapper make in their still. As was allegedly done a couple of times in World War II, he successfully mailed a jeep home, one piece at a time. Another time, he cons nearly every member of MASH 4077 into buying two-tone mail-order shoes.

Corporal Walter Eugene “Radar” O’Reilly appears in the novels, film, and TV series. Winchester’s suffix of “the third” was not present in the character’s name until season 8. Although the series presumes that she is an only child, in the same episode she tells Frank about her younger sister (a captain) who was engaged to be married. In early seasons she had several liaisons with visiting colonels or generals who were “old friends”. Midway through the series, the “Hot Lips” nickname phases out, with characters addressing her as either Margaret or Major Houlihan, though her nickname is still referenced occasionally.

• He is a skilled surgeon, willing to take extraordinary measures to save a patient, such as in “Heroes”, where he undertakes an experimental procedure he had read about in a medical journal, using a homemade, primitive open-chest defibrillator and open-chest heart massage.
• Before playing Flagg, Winter played a similar character named Captain Halloran in the episode “Deal Me Out”.
• He was drafted into the South Korean army, subsequently, wounded and sent back to the 4077th for treatment.

Her nickname “Hot Lips” has different origins in the original novel, film, and TV show. He accosted a blonde female WAC on the street, begging to manicure her toenails; a blonde female Red Cross worker on a bus, whose buttons he tried to bite off; and an army general and his blonde wife in an offoro bath, mistaking the couple for the Penobscots. After Margaret becomes engaged, he nearly blows himself up with a grenade in an attempt to prove himself courageous by capturing war prisoners. In one episode, his greed is such that he turns down a transfer to another unit because he is tricked by Hawkeye and Trapper into thinking there difference between crack and coke is gold in the hills near the camp.

He was drafted into the South Korean army, subsequently, wounded and sent back to the 4077th for treatment. Sometimes, for special calls, Sparky requires a bribe to arrange the connection. Another time Major Burns manipulates Klinger and Zale into a boxing match, which results in Burns being knocked out by both men. Zale’s name is mentioned for the final time in “Yes Sir, That’s Our Baby”. He makes his first appearance in the Season 2 episode, “For Want of a Boot”, and his final appearance in the Season 8 episode, “Good-Bye Radar” (which also marked Gary Burghoff’s last appearance on the show as Corporal Radar O’Reilly). He mentions in one episode that he is from Brooklyn, which was the reason he didn’t know what people who were heading to California in the late 1840s were looking for when quizzed.

He is a skilled surgeon, willing to take extraordinary measures to save a patient, such as in “Heroes”, where he undertakes an experimental procedure he had read about in a medical journal, using a homemade, primitive open-chest defibrillator and open-chest heart massage. For example, in the episode “Preventative Medicine” he refuses to participate in a scheme to have an overzealous officer relieved of command by performing an unnecessary appendectomy on him. Encourages members of the 4077th to play jokes on each other, starting escalating joke wars for his amusement, with neither side knowing that he is the instigator. J. Hunnicutt was created to replace him, with the two-part Season Four opener created to explain his absence (the third episode introducing Col. Potter was intended to be the premiere episode). He admits frankly that his wife collects his pay for a special fund to pay private investigators who will spy on him, which will begin the second night he gets home from Korea.