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M*A*S*H (television): Difference between revisions
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Other ways in which the series changed how the [[Sitcom]] was perceived was by its use (or disuse) of the [[Laugh Track]], commonly imposed by the networks if a studio audience was not going to be present at the episodes' filming. The show's creators grudgingly accepted the laugh track, but soon imposed rules on when it was not to be used (during any of the operating room scenes), and dropped it entirely in certain nontypical episodes. Eventually they abandoned it entirely. The laugh track was never used when the series was broadcast by the BBC in the UK. (The DVDs of the series offer the option to watch the shows with or without the laugh track intact.)
''M*A*S*H'' revolutionized the use of camera movements and editing styles on television -- for example, in its use of long [[Tracking Shot|tracking shots]] moving with the action (usually of soldiers being moved from helicopter/bus/Jeep to the OR). Also, later in its run it experimented with unusual storylines married with different camera moves and screen devices.
The use of [[Boom Up and Over]] was new to television at the time. The use of this technique in sequences where camp announcements were shown from the 'perspective' of the loudspeaker was groundbreaking and memorable.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[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.
** Gary Burghoff renegotiated his contract to limit his appearances (as Radar) beginning in the fourth season. These absences became more frequent in the ensuing seasons, until practically every episode in season 7 (Burghoff's last with the show) seemed to have Radar "[[Written
* [[Acronym Confusion]]: [[Invoked]] by Colonel Flagg.
{{quote|I'm with the CIA, but I tell people I'm with the CIC, so they think I'm with the CID.}}
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* [[Ambiguously Jewish]]: Sidney Freedman
* [[An Arm and a Leg]]: Several episodes dealt with patients who lost limbs in battle and were coming to grips with the results.
** Happens to Hawkeye in a nightmare in which a Medical School Professor ordering the removal of his arms symbolizes his frustration at not being able to save every patient.
* [[Anachronism Stew]]: Although the show tended to be good about actual history, there were times that the research broke down.
** In one episode, both ''[[Godzilla]]'' and ''[[The Blob]]'' are referenced. Neither of those movies were released during the Korean War (''Gojira'': 1954/''Godzilla, King of the Monsters'': 1955, ''The Blob'': 1958).
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* [[Black Comedy]]
* [[Blackmail]]: Occasionally employed by Hawkeye and co. For instance, in "George" he and Trapper get Frank to admit to having paid for the answers on his medical exams, then use the info to keep him from sending a letter to the Pentagon outing a gay GI and demanding he be dishonorably discharged.
* [[Black Market Produce]]: The occasional real food was quite a treat. One time a farmer gave the unit a bunch of real eggs, not the reconstituted stuff they usually get. Another time Radar went through a [[Chain of Deals]] in order to supply Col. Potter with fresh tomato juice after some accidentally got shipped to them and Potter liked it - but then after all that trouble, it turns out Potter is mildly allergic. He'd been without it for so long he forgot.
* [[Blue Eyes]]: Most of the men have gorgeous [[Blue Eyes]] (even Frank) but Hawkeye's probably got the most love.
** Loretta Swit (Margaret) is blue-eyed as well.
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'''Frank:''' It's got *that word* in it. }}
* [[Bottle Episode]]: "O.R.", "The Bus", "Hawkeye", "A Night at Rosie's"
* [[The Boxing Episode]]: "Requiem for a Lightweight" has Trapper John taking on the champ of the 8063rd, a heavyweight enlisted man.
** In "End Run", Klinger and Zale are [[A Worldwide Punomenon|roped]] into a boxing match by Frank Burns.
* [[Breakout Character]]: In Season 1, Klinger showed up in a few episodes as "the guy trying to get a Section 8 discharge"; by the end of the series, he was part of the main cast.
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* [[Calvin Ball]]: Double Cranko
* [[Camp Cook]]: Igor Straminsky, although he wasn't the actual cook and would often remind those complaining to him of such.
* [[Canon Foreigner]]: A very large percentage of the regular and recurring characters on the show never appeared in the original novel or film, including the various replacements (BJ, Potter, Charles) as well as Klinger, Flagg, Sidney, Igor, Zale, Rizzo, etc.
* [[Casanova]]: Hawkeye, particularly in the earlier seasons.
** It ultimately stars backfiring on him badly in the later seasons, when every advance either ends in a strikeout, getting humiliated, or a disastrous date.
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* [[Color Me Black]]: In one episode, the staff of the 4077 gradually darken the skin of a white racist to make him think he's turning black after getting a blood transfusion from a black person, an in-universe exploitation of said soldier [[You Fail Biology Forever|failing biology forever]].
* [[Communications Officer]]: Radar was usually called up on to operate the communications equipment.
* [[Confess in Confidence]]: There have been at least three episodes where Father Mulcahy learned of an issue from a confessing soldier and had to figure out how to solve it without breaking the seal of the confessional. One involved a black marketer who had stolen critically needed medical supplies, one a soldier who swapped dog tags with [[Retirony|a friend who died just before the end of his tour of duty]], and one, a new doctor who confesses that he's been pretending to be a doctor to get officers' privileges and rank.
** In one episode a solder who shot himself to get sent home confesses to Frank, mistaking him for a priest while he was in Father Mulcahy's tent to leave him a note.
** Also note that in the case of the dogtags, Mulcahy was not technically bound by the seal of the confessional. As he says himself, the soldier is virtually unrepentant and has no intention of stopping his sin. Not simply turning him in and searching for another solution was more a matter of doing what was best for the soldier than breaking his own priest's vows.
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{{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!"}}
** Invoked and played with a few seasons later when Hawkeye and Potter are away from the camp, stuck in a foxhole, and pinned down by an enemy soldier. After getting upbraided by Potter for being so mule-headed about his distaste for firearms, Hawkeye wastes the entire clip into the air and hands it back to his annoyed commanding officer... only to find the sudden fusillade had scared off the enemy.
* [[Downer Ending]]:
** "Abyssinia Henry", obviously.
** "Preventive Medicine". Hawkeye removes a healthy appendix of a colonel to try to stop him from provoking an attack against his own troops so that he would have an excuse to seize a particular hill (for pride, apparently) and callously throw away the lives of the troops under his command (completely against orders, hence the previous provoked attack serving as a loophole). Hawkeye removes his appendix, but sadly, even without said colonel, the gears of war churn onward.
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* [[Finger-Poke of Doom]]:
{{quote|'''Colonel Flagg''': Do you believe that I can break your leg with this finger?}}
* [[Finger-Twitching Revival]]: In one episode, a soldier's "corpse" is shipped to the 4077th along with a bunch of wounded. For most of the episode, the viewers are the only ones who see the soldier try to move enough to call for help.
* [[First-Name Basis]]
* [[Fixing the Game]]: The craps game in the back of Rosie's bar is rigged.
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* [[Glory Hound]]
* [[Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen]]: In on episode, Margaret steals Hawkeye's and B.J.'s clothes while they are showering.
* [[Good
* [[Good Shepherd]]: Father Mulcahy.
* [[Grand Finale]]
* [[Gratuitous Spanish]]: Col. Potter ''loves'' this trope. Father Mulcahy attracts a little of this as most of the cast call him Padre (Father).
** Although calling a military chaplain Padre is common US Army slang, which even some Korean characters picked up.
* [[Greater Need Than Mine]]
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* [[Halloween Episode]]: "Trick or Treatment"
* [[Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist]]
* [[He Who Must Not Be Seen]]: Sparky, the telephone operator at I-Corps, was a constant fixture on the other end of Radar’s calls, but was only shown on screen once, in the "Tuttle" episode. He was shown sitting at a switchboard, eating an apple and reading a ''[[Shazam|Captain Marvel]]'' comic. He only got two lines of dialog, but judging from that, Sparky seemed to have a southern drawl.
** Also, the camp's unnamed [[The Voice|P.A. announcer]], voiced at different times by Sal Viscuso or Todd Susman.
*** An interesting point with this is that sometimes it sounds like either Jamie Farr (Klinger) or Gary Burghoff (Radar) is providing that voice.
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* [[Hidden Heart of Gold]]: Charles Winchester.
* [[Hilarious Outtakes]]: See [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3OXdEGr91E here], and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGH6r8RXzc8 here]. The ''Martinis and Medicine'' DVD box set also includes a blooper reel as a bonus feature.
* [[Hollywood Tactics]]: Numerous, such as:
** Jeeps being shot at with artillery (virtually impossible against moving targets with immobile artillery pieces) when shooting the occupants would suffice;
** Hawkeye attempting to surrender the entire camp to a lone sniper, against orders, so they can attend to the wounded (without even trying to explain how this makes any sense);
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'''Radar:''' Oh, then I won't bring his glass in. }}
* [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]: North Korean and Chinese soldiers could never seem to hit any of the main characters when shot at on camera. A partularly jarring example was Hawkeye being air dropped to a pinned down foxhole to perform surgery on a wounded soldier, on Christmas, ''dressed as Santa'', slowly climbing down a rope to the foxhole, [[Hollywood Tactics|rather than the chopper landing then taking off, thus being exposed to enemy fire that much less]].
** Hawkeye was actually in a sort of sling hanging from the chopper, which was thus able to deposit him on the ground without having to land itself, saving time over that option. BJ once attempted to descend by rope from a hovering helicopter under fire to get to a wounded soldier in an area where there was no landing place, but was stopped by the pilot (and was forced to cut the rope and abandon the wounded man, as they didn't have enough power to lift him out to a location where they could land).
** Another notable example is a sniper (later revealed to be a very scared, and even more confused, kid barely old enough to draft) who took several shots at two bottles of high-class scotch, eventually destroying both, and never being known to have actually shot any people.
* [[Incessant Music Madness]]: In "The Smell of Music", Winchester's French horn aggravates BJ and Hawkeye to the point where they refuse to bathe until he gives it up.
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* [[Laugh Track]]: Employed over the objections of the producers and at the [[Executive Meddling|insistence of the network]], though averted in the O.R. scenes (and averted entirely for certain episodes). Also not used in foreign syndication. The DVD allows the viewer the option of having the laugh track turned off if they so choose.
* [[Limited Advancement Opportunities]]: Only Klinger and Father Mulcahy get promoted (though Burns makes Lieutenant Colonel after his departure). Radar also received a [[Status Quo Is God|temporary]] promotion.
** [[Fridge Brilliance|Since the show takes place over the three years]] of [[The Korean War]], most of the characters don't meet the time-in-service requirements to ''get'' promoted.
* [[Local Hangout]]: Rosie's. Also, the Officers' Club.
* [[Locked in a Room]]: Happens to Trapper and Margaret in an early episode.
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* [[The Men First]]
* [[Mildly Military]]: [[Justified Trope|Justified]] somewhat by the [[Real Life]] Army practices of drafting civilian doctors in wartime, and automatically giving all M.D.s the rank of Captain.
* [[Military Moonshiner]]
* [[Mix and Match]]
** {{spoiler|In the finale Klinger marries a Korean woman and in a act that surprises everyone (including himself) [[I Choose to Stay|decides to stay in Korea temporarily]] to help locate her family.}}
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If I die before I wake,
Give them to my brother Jake. }}
* [[Obfuscating Disability]]: In one episode, Radar apparently hit an elderly Korean villager with a jeep. When the uninjured man demands $50 not to report Radar to the MPs, a visiting officer susses out that he's a well-known con man known as "Whiplash Wang".
* [[Obfuscating Insanity]]: Repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted by Klinger.
** Also tried unsuccessfully by Hawkeye to get leave in the episode "Crackers, Bananas, and Nuts."
** In "Fade Out, Fade In", Klinger enlists the services of a "lawyer" who turns out to be using this.
** Subverted by a one-off character in the episode "Major Topper," whom Klinger is convinced is faking, but who turns out to be actually crazy.
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* [[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.
* [[Pointy-Haired Boss]]: Colonel Blake, much of the time.
* [[Poor Man's Porn]]: Hawkeye's nudist magazines, and Radar's reference to looking at ''National Geographic'' when his Uncle Ed wasn't around.
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** Of course, in real life, it was a "[[Take That]]" against actor Wayne Rogers, who had acrimoniously left the show because he was fed up with the fact that Trapper was being treated as a sidekick instead of an equal. In addition, he was also greatly frustrated with a "morals clause" in his contract, which stated he could be suspended or fired if he did anything the producers found objectionable. When Rogers left, in fact, the producers actually sued him for breach of contract, but their case fell apart when it was discovered that Rogers didn't even sign the contract in the first place, due to the clause issue.
* [[Rashomon Style]]: "The Novocaine Mutiny" has Hawkeye and Frank narrating very different versions of the same events during a court-martial hearing.
* [[Real Life Relative]]: Robert Alda (Alan's dad) appeared in two episodes as visiting surgeon Anthony Borelli. The second of these also featured Antony Alda (Robert's other son and Alan's half-brother) as a medic.
** Mike Farrell's then-wife Judy occasionally played a nurse in the later seasons.
** The picture of Mildred on Potter's desk was actually a photo of Harry Morgan's real-life wife, Eileen Detchon.
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* [[Reunion Show]]: ''Memories of M*A*S*H'' (1991) featured clips and pre-recorded interviews with the cast members; ''30th Anniversary Reunion'' (2002) had the producers and surviving cast members getting together for a roundtable discussion.
* [[Right on the Tick]]: Five O'clock Charlie
* [[Running Gag]]:
** For no readily apparent reason, every episode that features Colonel Flagg also features someone named Perkins - usually with the rank of Captain, and usually not their actual name. Also, not actually a gag.
** Throughout the first season:
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** Much of the dialogue in "The Interview" is ad-libbed, with the cast improvising in-character responses to Clete Roberts's questions.
* [[Time Capsule]]: "As Time Goes By"
* [[To Absent Friends]]: Most especially when Potter is the last survivor of his [[World War One]] unit.
* [[Tontine]]: Potter is part of one, though it's for a bottle of brandy rather than an investment.
* [[Took a Level In Dumbass]]: Radar, sort of.
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* [[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.
* [[Two Lines, No Waiting]]: Frequently, especially in later seasons.
* [[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.
** Also [[Truth in Television]] -- surgeons could get away with some ridiculous things, due to the sheer need for them.
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** Jamie Farr has stated in interviews that he asked to stop wearing dresses on the show because he didn't want his children to see him wearing dresses.
** The size of Klinger's wardrobe is explained in-universe by a combination of him regularly ordering things from catalogs, packages of clothing sent by his family (from his uncle's wardrobe from using the same trick in WWII), and him frequently making things (both shown and spoken of, and they even raided his sewing supplies once when they ran out of sutures). Klinger, it seems, is quite accomplished with needle and thread.
* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: Col. Potter, often horse-related.
** More along the lines of regional euphemism, most of his euphemisms were actual (albeit he used the more family friendly ones) euphemisms used in West Texas.
** Except that Potter was from [[Did Not Do the Research|Missouri]]...
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{{quote|'''Margaret''': ''(rubbing thumb and forefinger together)'' Charles, do you know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you. }}
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Winchester, for Hawkeye and BJ.
** Occasionally moved into the realm of [[Vitriolic Best Buds]], whenever Hawkeye or BJ would have an actual problem and Winchester's empathy would kick in, and likewise Hawkeye and BJ both admitted a respect and care for Charles they never displayed for his predecessor Frank.
** 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]].)
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** Played in-character a couple of times, including "The Army Navy Game" from Radar to Klinger (who was wearing the suit he was drafted in).
* [[Your Cheating Heart]]: The episode "Hanky Panky" has [[Happily Married]] BJ "falling off the fidelity wagon" while comforting a lovelorn nurse, while in "War Co-Repondent" he nearly embarks on a more serious affair with a visiting reporter.
** Hawkeye gets re-involved with an old college girlfriend (who's now married) in "The More I See You".
*** Subverted in the earlier episode "Radar's Report", when he falls hard for a new nurse until he notices a wedding ring on her finger...which she eventually reveals to be a phony, used to discourage would-be seducers.
** Trapper and Henry were more or less casually adulterous in the early years, and of course Frank had a long term extramarital dalliance with Hot Lips. Probably [[Truth in Television]] for a lot of people away at war.
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