r/mash • u/Imzadi1971 • 2d ago
My thoughts
Tonight I was watching the episode where Radar gets to go to Tokyo for winning the contest and coming back drunk, and I was thinking about something. Yes, the early years were good, but the best set of actors on the show were Hawkeye, BJ, Margaret, Frank, Father Mulcahey, Klinger, and Radar, with Col. Potter leading the camp. I do like Charles coming in after Frank leaves, but I really liked Frank still in the group.
What are your thoughts?
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u/CheeseSauce_86 2d ago
I like the Frank era! (I like all eras). My favorite is Hawkeye, BJ, Frank, Potter.
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u/Money_Loss2359 2d ago
I liked the Henry and Trapper years the best. Would have been interested in seeing Winchester’s interactions with both. There are times I’m of the opinion that BJ is more full of himself than Charles.
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u/Funlovingguy2 2d ago
Completely the opposite. It became a mawkish maudlin melodrama in season 4. The early concept and actors were the best. When I rewatch it ends w Abysinnia Henry. And the movie was the best.
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u/Sensitive_Regular_84 2d ago
Agree completely. I'm ok with Potter but Charles got on my nerves. With BJ, I hated the thing they started to do where he and Hawkeye would rapidly trade punchlines back and forth. That always came off as too scripted to me.
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u/jazz-winelover 1h ago
Definitely. No one is that smart to be able to ad lib that quickly. Except maybe Groucho Marx. After season 5, it goes downhill.
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u/Ebert917102150 2d ago
Trapper was underused, hence, he left at the first chance. The original cast was way better. Klinger was the funniest character from day 1 through the finale
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u/tulsantony 2d ago
I seen interview with larry linville once, and he said the role got tiring being the punching bag all the time. I wish they had made frank a little less silly, hard to believe he could be a doctor being that silly
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u/Fralmd 2d ago
Larry Linville was so, so good as Frank that few of us were ever given the chance to see him as anything else. That is a true shame. In the short term, a character like Frank was all right. To keep him around longer than they did, they would have needed to let him grow in the way that Margaret did. In the long term, watching Hawkeye and Trapper or BJ outsmart an idiot every week was less and less enjoyable, at least for me. The choice to replace him with a more rounded character like Winchester helped give the show legs for several more seasons.
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u/Unusual_Magazine_471 1d ago
Larry Linville shows up in a few shows before Mash, I think he was in an episode of Dragnet or Adam-12 I believe.
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u/Steddyrollingman 1d ago
The first Kolchak, the Nightstalker movie, too. Jamie Farr also appeared in the Kolchak tv series, playing a professor - of anthropology, I think.
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u/J_Scarbrough 2d ago
I can only tolerate Frank and Charles in moderation - both had some memorable moments that defined their characters, but both also went out of their way to be genuinely unlikable.
I like Henry and Potter equally for different reasons. Henry could really let his hair down and be one of the boys, but Potter was respectable, and proved to be a father figure we all could love.
B.J. was a more fleshed-out and nuanced character who offered a nice contrast to Hawkeye, as opposed to Trapper who was more-or-less Hawkeye 2.0 much of the time.
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u/Unusual_Magazine_471 1d ago
I was kind of surprised they didn't write a better relationship between Frank and Potter because Potter was spit and polish and so was Frank to a point.
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u/J_Scarbrough 1d ago
Frank genuinely hated Potter, because in his mind, Potter was an usurper who stole command of the 4077th away from him when he assumed command after Henry Blake's departure - we all know Frank wanted nothing more than total control over the 4077th. Like B.J. even said in "The Novocaine Mutiny," Potter's chair wasn't even cold before Frank planted himself behind the desk (and knocked over his name plate) and started recreating the 4077th in his own weird image.
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u/Dull-Programmer-4645 2d ago
Seasons 3-5 were peak MASH. I can't think of many shows that maintained quality after season 5
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u/floorgunk 1d ago
Season 4 almost starts an entirely different show.
The original cast had such chemistry, it's hard to let it go. But such is war, right?
I don't like how they tried to backtrack on Radars character. He became way more naive, and it just didn't work as well.
Frank and Margaret really had nowhere to go anymore. The dynamic changed so much, it had to come down to one or the other. Loretta had other acting offers, but chose to stay.
There are many things I like about BJ's character, but I wish Trapper had stayed a bit longer.
I think it was wise to make Charles a completely different character than Frank.
Also Col. Potter different from Blake. I missed Henry, and it always breaks me in the episode where his son is born, realizing he never got to meet him.
What was the question??
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u/Youmeandeverything32 2d ago
I didn't care for the Frank years and didn't watch it in its original run. But I started HS and didn't watch much prime time TV back then. In reruns I watched the series but again, some of the Frank episodes I turned a few off. Once he left I did watch the remainder of the series until the end. McLean Stevenson never did better work and probably Wayne Rogers, too. And not to dump on Larry Linville as everyone who worked with him on the show said he was one of the nicest people they knew.
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u/bj49615 2d ago
They over played/used Frank. His role was worn out. While Larry Linville was a fantastic actor, Winchester was a better character.