Update After Forever!

Figured it was about time to update the ol' M*A*S*H blog, since it's been about three days past forever since I did it the last time.

Saw one of my favorite eps today, "'Twas The Day After Christmas," the ep where the officers and the enlisted men of the 4077th switch places for a day, keeping with the Boxing Day tradition in the UK of the servants and masters of the manor changing places--which was brought to Corporal Klinger and Colonel Potter's attention by two visiting officers from an English unit--with hilarious results. Klinger thinks the job of C.O. is nothing but a breeze, and feels that most C.O.'s don't do much more than nap and let their Company Clerks handle everything. He quickly finds himself mistaken when decisions that C.O.'s have to make everyday become plentiful, and quickly finds himself turning to Colonel Potter, who himself took the job of Company Clerk, and finds it to be more difficult than he initially surmised. Meanwhile a patient in Post Op is showing all the signs of an infection, and possible internal bleeding. Between keeping Post Op clean and handling kitchen duty, Hawk and B.J. do their best to figure out what's wrong with the kid before it's too late. To make matters worse, they can't get him to the 121st Evac due to the blizzard that's ripped through Seoul--which grounded all aircraft, including choppers--and it's headed right for the Double Natural.

Val Bisoglio is hilarious as the cook, and David Ogden Stiers is his usual crusty, ill-tempered, blue-blood self as Major Winchester, chaffing under the strain of the switch.

I also caught "Communication Breakdown," which was the ep where the camp hasn't gotten any news from stateside in weeks due to a mail snaffu, and the only one with stateside papers is Major Winchester, who agrees to allow the rest of the camp to read his papers with the simple caveat that they can only read the paper when he's finished with it, cover to cover. Things get out of hand when Major Winchester finds that one of his precious "fish wrappers" has been stollen. Very well written, and very entertaining.

I also thought I'd share a little M*A*S*H parody. Don't bitch to me if you've already seen it, I find it hilarious, so here it is. Enjoy.

Anycrap... I'm sure I'll have more M*A*S*H stuff up on here soon. Keep the ol' peepers open. Until then, we who are about to dye salute you.

Abyssinia, Henry... Change of Command

A funny thing happened today.
For some reason they showed Abyssinia, Henry and followed it up with Change of Command on Hallmark, rather than showing the episode in between, wherein Trapper John goes stateside and is replaced by BJ Hunnicutt. I was always rather pained that Trap didn't get a better send-off--unlike Henry, who got a grand send-off--especially considering how he was shortchanged throughout the series. It was Trap, not Hawk, who was Chief Surgeon of the Double Natural in Dr. H. Richard Hornberger's book. Hawkeye got that distinction in the show, and got center stage the entire run of the series while Trap was more of a class clown. For some reason his character never got as much development as the rest of the gang. Then again a lot of the characters that did get development over the course of the series were new people like Winchester, BJ and Colonel Potter.

Hell even Father Mulcahy got a bigger piece of the pie at times.
Either way, Abyssinia, Henry still packs a wallop. I found myself getting choked up watching Henry bid his fellow surgeons a fond farewell, stopping to hug Radar, and finally hopping aboard that chopper and heading off into the distance. For those who haven't seen this episode, I'll leave the rest of the climax off and let you watch for yourselves.

Change of Command offers our first look at the new C.O., Colonel Sherman T. Potter (played by Harry Morgan, who originally appeared as General Steele in The General Flipped At Dawn) who's regular army, through and through. A bad sign for the cutters at the Double Natural. Things turn out well enough, and he even ends up complimenting Klinger's outfit at the end.

As much as I loved Henry Blake as commander of the 4077th, there was something about Colonel Potter that was very endearing. His tough but fair approach to his command and his appeal as a father figure both stick out in my mind and make him one of my very favorite characters of all time, the kind of man I wish I could've gotten to know personally. Sure, Henry was a lovable character in his own right, but it was in a different way from ol' Sherm, who seemed to always have a clear perspective on things, and was always better at keeping Pierce and Hunnicutt in line better than Henry was. He never had the pleasure of meeting ol' Trap though.

As God is my witness, my New Years Resolution is to get my hands on that Martinis & Medicine DVD set, watch it and review it for all who still pay attention to this little-known, seldom read corner of the Internet. Coming soon, all.

M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors

Yep, I finally got around to reading the book. No easy task, believe me. Not that the book was long, or hard to read, it was hard to find. Partially because it took me so long to check out a particular bookstore in town. Mind you, it was the only copy I found, though I didn't really look all that hard once I did find it. It's the H. Richard Hornberger (pen name Richard Hooker) version, only it was a reprint that came out after the movie. I have to say, it certainly changed my views on the entire franchise.

The book opens with Radar O'Reilly at a poker game, using his extraordinary abilities to overhear C.O. Colonel Henry Braymore Blake demanding to have two new surgeons assigned to his unit, the 4077th MASH, better known to its residents as the "Double Natural." Naturally the new cutters turn out to be one Captain Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest and one Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce. The hilarity--and insanity--both ensue from there.

I'd rather not go into the in-depth synopsis since I feel there's at least a reader or two out there who hasn't had a chance to leaf through this book, at least because it's so hard to find. After having read it through a lot of the scenes in the movie--in fact, the pacing of the movie in general--make a lot more sense than they did at first glance. Also I have to say that Alan Alda is one of my favorite actors, I love the guy to death and I loved him in the series, but Donald Sutherland was the better Hawkeye. At least he was more true to the character as he was represented in the novel. Certain characters got bashed together for the purposes of the movie--a certain religious fanatic of a Major is combined with a Captain who's a clumsy cutter--and some characters are dropped altogether--Shaking Sammy, to name one of a couple. The book doesn't shy away from using medical terminology--the author was, after all, a cutter in a MASH unit himself--but it doesn't read like a medical journal, either. There's just enough to describe the action without making the reader hopelessly lost with sounding out anatomical terms or any such troubles.

Overall the book was a great read, and definitely a great buy. Now if I can only get my hands on the Martinis & Medicine collection...

All for now. I'm sure I'll add a few more thoughts later on.

Martinis & Medicine

Whew, it's been a long time since this baby got updated!
Here's the skinny--faulty internet connections and job related stuff kept coming up, but I thought I'd take the time to finally make an entry in this thing 'cause I'm sure there's at least one or two people out there who'd care to read this.

Martinis & Medicine is the name of the new M*A*S*H DVD collection, out now. It's got something like thirty some-odd discs, all 11 seasons, and I'm pretty sure it's even got Goodbye, Farewell and Amen in it as well. Would love to have this thing for X-mas, except it's something like two bills. Kind of a chunk of change, but well worth every penny.

Gotta pick up a new copy of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed since my dad has my copy, and it's in Nicaragua. I've been struggling to locate a copy of the actual book M*A*S*H, which doesn't seem to be anywhere. I know of at least one last bookstore I'll look in before I give up and google it.

I think they recently restarted the cycle on Hallmark, though I'm not sure since I haven't been able to watch lately, which sucks hard. Hopefully I'll be able to get an ep in soon.

All for now. Keep watching the skies.

More Thoughts On The Flick

The more I watch the 1970 movie, the more I start to wonder whether I like the tv show better, or the movie. Lately I've been leaning towards the flick.

There were good things and bad things about the movie. Certainly the worst thing that comes to mind is the treatment of Major Houlihan and Frank Burns. It's bad enough that they get Burns ejected from the camp for their antics, but they continue to humiliate and ridicule Major Houlihan as a running gag throughout. It makes it difficult to like our heroes when they're constantly being cruel to a fellow staff member.

I really enjoyed Donald Sutherland's performance as Captain Hawkeye Pierce. There's just something about how he portrays the sardonic Hawk, with his fishing hat and glasses and his whistling. Elliott Gould is also superb as Trapper John McIntyre. The more I watch the movie, the more I feel for Wayne Rogers, who played Trap in the tv series, and how he seemed to really get the short end of the stick at times, in favor of Alan Alda's Hawkeye. Don't get me wrong--Alda was great, and he's very talented. He was very deserving of the praise he got for his role on the series, but at the same time it's kind of sad that Wayne Rogers never got his due. It was also strange considering all the character development that occured in later years, notably with the characters of B.J. Hunnicutt, and Major Winchester. I suppose it happened out of neccessity, considering they were both new characters and didn't appear in the novel.

Another thing that stood out was that they never used the character of Duke Forrest for some reason, which has been attributed to the show's creators not wanting things to get too crowded. They sort of mentioned Duke in an episode of the series, as Trap remembers him as "that brain surgeon that fell down a lot!" Duke was one of my favorite characters from the movie.

Haven't gotten the chance to watch the series lately, but I'll try and catch a few eps soon. Also if anything else about the movie comes up, I'll be sure and jot it down here. All for now.

Dammit...

I haven't been able to watch M*A*S*H nearly enough these days. I did catch the last part of an ep recently. The officers trade places with the enlisted men for a day, in an effort to boost camp morale, in the middle of blistering cold. As a result, the officers get re-assigned, and end up in the enlisted men's posts; Hawkeye ends up sweeping floors, Winchester ends up working in the mess hall, and Potter ends up as company clerk. Things are going okay--even despite Winchester's bitching--until a wounded man comes in. Hawk operates, but his problem persists, as the guy's temperature continues to spike, and he continues to have a rapid heartbeat.

Potter comes in to have a look at him, and suggests that somehow or another, his thyroid started going on the fritz. Sure enough, Hawkeye locates a goider, and they soon operate. A fun episode, giving the officers a taste of what the enlisted men have to go through on a daily basis, although Potter commented to Klinger that the next time he should ride Klinger too hard, to remind him of his day as company clerk, but only the next time, and to forget it beyond that point. A good episode.

Not nearly enough for somebody who enjoys the show as thoroughly as I do. I did watch the MASH movie again recently, just for kicks. Hopefully I'll get to watch the show again sometime soon on a regular basis.

All for now. Enjoy your wanderings.

A Random M*A*S*H Blog

Okay, that's it--I've toyed with the idea for long enough. At the risk of committing myself to forever being labeled as an internet geek, here they are, the lyrics to "Suicide Is Painless," as heard on the MASH movie.

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The sword of time will pierce our skin
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger watch it grin

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied oh why ask me

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

And you can do the same thing if you please...