M*A*S*H Questions

[D'Snowth]

These questions have been bugging me for a while now, and I believe I'll now ask them, so I can get answer. Why in the world were Col. Henry Blake, and Cpt. Trapper John McIntyre killed off? They were two of the best characters on the show, now we're stuck with Col. Potter, who wasn't funny at all, and Cpt. B.J. Hunnicut, who was a decent replacement. But still, why kill Henry and Trapper?

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

Because they wanted off. And Trapper at least got to make it home. Nobody knew they were going to kill Blake off until the last minute; that last little scene was supposed to show them getting word from him that he was home and doing fine. They were both good characters, but I think the show was ultimately much better off going in a different direction. Getting Potter and BJ allowed the show to become less slapstick, more serious, though all the episodes had a balance of solemn and silly. But I think the show matured a lot with the "changing of the guard," so to speak. Frank was a delightful inept villain, but he was a pretty cardboard character. Winchester had many more layers to him, and the new dynamic within the Hawkeye trio became very different from the original. Anyway, I love the whole series, and the early episodes are great, but I think that the changes really were for the good of the series. So no hard feelings, McLean and Wayne.
Erin

 

[Skeeter Muppet]

Like Erin said, both McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers wanted to leave.

Trapper made it home safe and sound, but the reason that Col. Blake was killed off was, mainly, to show that in a war NO ONE is untouchable. Anyone can get killed, even the commanding officer of a medical unit in a popular television show.

And personally, I prefer the seasons with Potter and Hunnicutt as opposed to the ones with Henry and Trapper. The main characters all evolve as the series progresses once Potter and BJ arrive (with the exceptions of Frank, who I think DE-evolves, and Radar...to me, it almost looks like he becomes MORE innocent and naive after Henry leaves), Margaret the most noticeably. More attention is also given to the other characters - instead of plotlines revolving mainly around Trapper and Hawkeye, we get episodes that normally have two different storylines and thus give the other cast members more airtime. It's how Jamie Farr (Klinger) and William Christopher (Father Mulcahey) were elevated to having their names in the opening credits from their names showing up in the guest star credits.

-Kim

 

[Princeton]

Let's see if I can make a comparison

Best C.O.: Col. Potter. I think Col. Potter was a lot more serious about his position in a hospital. Serious, but still willing to let his hair down and have some fun. Henry, while occasionally funny, had a "locker room buddy" personality that I couldn't deal with. He treated the 4077th like it was just a big frat party, not a hospital, which Col. Potter was a lot more respectful of.

Best Second Banana: Trapper. B.J. had his occasional funny parts, but I think, tended to treat M*A*S*H more like a soap opera than a "dramedy". He was too self righteous and everything was a problem, for instance: Peg(his wife) having to change their gutters back home. Most of us after hearing that in our lives would think "No big deal", but for B.J. it was a reason to lie awake all night.

Best Company Clerk: Radar. I'd much rather have a naive, innocent character like Radar than an abrasive, while occasionally funny, character like Klinger. Klinger's whole "I gotta get outta here" routine was cute for a while, but certainly not dimensional enough to let his whole character rotate around just that.

Best Antagonist: Frank. On all accounts, Frank was just simply more fun to hate. Granted, Frank is a purely one-dimensional character, but, I believe, was developed enough so as not to quickly become stale. Charles, I can't stand at all. His presence in M*A*S*H seved no purpose whatsoever.

 

[Beakerfan]

I prefer Henry over Potter, BJ over trapper, Radar and Klinger both have alot of good points but I'd take Radar, and frankly I prefer Frank over Charles. But that is most likely because Charles is so much like me. Or vice versa.

 

[Skeeter Muppet]

Best Company Clerk: Radar. I'd much rather have a naive, innocent character like Radar than an abrasive, while occasionally funny, character like Klinger. Klinger's whole "I gotta get outta here" routine was cute for a while, but certainly not dimensional enough to let his whole character rotate around just that.

Well, after Klinger took over as company clerk from Radar, he pretty much stopped with the cross-dressing and attempts at getting a Section 8. He only attempted it three times after getting the job - the April Fool's Day episode, the episode where Potter wouldn't let him redecorate the office (and basically he was just throwing a temper tantrum in that episode) and the episode where his ex-wife married his best friend and he decided to re-up.

And I liked Charles over Frank, because Charles was a more three-dimensional character. Frank's main characteristics were his sniveling, his narrow-mindedness, his gullibility, his paranoia (which became much more prominent from season 4 until his departure at the end of season 5) and his devotion to the army. With only those things going for him, his schtick started to get old.

Charles didn't have any of Frank's neuroses, and although he did have his pomposity and his desire to get out of the 4077th and back to Tokyo, unlike his predecessor Charles grew and became more of a sympathetic character than Frank was. He could definately give as good as he got from Hawk and Beej. Frank would have flipped out and gone to complain to Potter about the snake in his bed; Charles' reaction to finding the snake was to remove the serpent and put it in Hawkeye's bed, then sit back and listen to Mozart while waiting for the trap to spring. Frank also would never have waited with Hawkeye in the clerk's office, lended him a sympathetic ear and basically kept him from going stir crazy the way Charles did in the episode "Sons and Bowlers," tried to help a concert pianist who had lost the use of one of his hands regain his confidence, or put one over on Col. Flagg.

-Kim

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

Yeah, as obnoxious as Charles could be, he really was an incredibly decent guy at heart. I think it especially showed when he came into contact with a child or with someone who was musically talented. Those were really his two passions aside from medicine; he reveled in the almost celestial glory (for him) of classical music, and he longed for the idealic days of his childhood. His first Christmas episode reminded me of "Citizen Kane"; here he is, this incredibly skilled surgeon who's totally full of himself, and the one thing that can make him happy is his childhood toboggan cap. I also was impressed by the episode where he spent his leave performing surgery on some soldiers he and Klinger came across on the way there. Granted they were lost and he was ticked off, but he soon forgot his annoyance in favor of wanting to help this person who needed him.

Radar is my favorite character, though I do agree that he sort of gets more naive as the show goes on. His character kinda changes. He's got a bit more of a rogueish streak in the early episodes, and I guess they decided to take him in a different direction. I like Radar at his down-home sweetest. I've always had a huge crush on him.

I think that I am most like Father Mulcahey. I used to think Radar, but I took a personality test one time that said it was the Padre, and the more I think about it the more I think that's right. I definitely have a similar personality to his. I'm incredibly timid and soft-spoken. While Radar always knows just what he has to do and has a very well-defined and integral role in the day to day workings of the unit, Father Mulcahey often feels superfluous and wonders whether he's really doing anybody any good. I feel that way a lot too. But I think Father Mulcahey is an incredibly comforting presence, so that gives me hope that maybe I'm a bit more useful than I think I am too.

Frank made such a great villain. He was so pathetic and weasely you just loved to hate him. Margaret was easily my least favorite character, though. I didn't find her nearly as entertaining as Frank or nearly as endearing as the others. She did get more likeable as the show progressed, but I never really liked her all that much...
Erin

 

[D'Snowth]

Hawkeye and Trapper were a great duo. As my mom told me before, back in the day, girls would have pin-ups of them. Before I heard of Alan Alda, at first glance, I thought it was Dick Sargent that I saw. Hawkeye is one multi-personality character in my opinion...sometimes he could be very smart-aleck, while other times he can quite a moral guy. I never really thought of Trapper as a "second banana" at all. He was a great character, and when he and Hawkeye got together, talk about laughs. Frank is definetely a ferret-face villain, I'm sure as a child he was a spoiled brat, he's such a sissy. When he got together with Margaret, talk about double-crossing, those two were always up to something. Henry was respectfully one of my favorites from the whole ensemble. He had quite a touching father-son relationship with Radar. Speaking of Radar, I think just about everybody love him. Why not? Not only does he take care of alot of things around the 4077th, he's sensitive. Klinger always cracked me up the way he would run around in a different dress, just begging to get that Section 8, but everyone sees past his schemes. B.J. is to me is quite the "second banana" to Hawkeye, I grew to like quite as well too, but I don't think he ever topped Trapper. I never did find Potter all the funny. Like Radar says about him, "It's like being with your aunt, instead of your mother". Believe it or not, I haven't had a chance to really check Charles out before, but geek that I am, I'm familiar with David Odgen Stiers as a voice-over actor for quite a few Disney movies. And like you Erin, I too am quite fond of Father Mulchay, he's such a great guy, I almost wish I knew him personally.

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

I agree about the father-son relationship with Blake and Radar. That was so sweet. He and Potter have a great relationship too, but it's just not quite the same - though giving him that horse really did show how much he cared about Potter too. He was almost more of a grandfather, though he was a tougher taskmaster than Blake. I missed the old Klinger when Radar left. I liked all of his wacky schemes and was sad to see most of them go out the window along with his outlandish outfits. I thought those things were what made him really fun. Potter definitely was much more serious than Blake, but I liked him. And it was interesting to have somebody on board who had been doing this since WWI. He was career military, unlike everybody else except Margaret, who like I said was pretty abrasive. I think he brought some humanity to the army brass side of it, showing they're not all a bunch of hot-headed jerks, because that's how they often were portrayed on the show.
Erin

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, I've been seeing ALOT of reruns with Charles lately, and I think he's a great addition to the cast. Unlike Frank, he's not neccassarily a villain, but he's the perfect target for Hawkeye and B.J. I finally came to accept Potter. It just took me longer to get used to him, now I'm finding myself almost forgetting about Henry, Trapper, and Frank. I too agree with Mr. Linville, about how the Frank character went as far as he could go. And in my personal opinion, they took him off at the right time. I mean, Margaret got married, not Frank REALLY couldn't have anything to do with her.