Posted on 01/31/2023 4:01:43 AM PST by COBOL2Java
I was chatting with a young friend of mine the other day (he in his 30s, me upper 60s). We were talking about the TV show M*A*S*H.
We started talking about the opening theme song, and he caught me off guard - he said "It's a nice tune, I wonder if they gave it a title."
I responded "Suicide is Painless". He thought that was a weird title. "Why on earth would they call it that?" I said it's from the movie.
"Movie?" he asked, "what Movie?" I said "The TV show came from a movie of the same name, and in the movie, that song actually has lyrics."
He had no idea!
Then I gave him the pièce de résistance when I said "the movie is based on a novel of the same name - although in the book it was just 'MASH', not 'M*A*S*H' with the stars between each letter. And Radar is the only character in both the movie and the TV show."
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He had no idea! I suggested he read the novel, and then watch the movie. Notwithstanding the political tone the TV show later took (thanks to Alan Alda), I generally enjoy M*A*S*H, especially in the episodes featuring MPs - my father-in-law was an MP in the Korean conflict.
>> The 4077th was nowhere as big as the real 4 or 5 MASH units in Korea. <<
And for the same reason that every school-based sitcom had eight kids in the class, lined up in two-by-four seating arrangement, instead of the seven-by-five seating arrangements in my real 1980s classrooms. The TV show further reduced the size of the MASH from at least six doctors besides the CO to only three.
I seem to recall the song being illegal to play in Sweden as it was used primarily when people were killing themselves.
I watched the TV show twice. In the first one, one of the patients died and everyone engaged in a cry-fest.
In another episode, a general died and they had a ball stuffing his body here and there, slapstick-style. The blatant hypocrisy was amazing to behold. That was it for me.
>> The 4077th was nowhere as big as the real 4 or 5 MASH units in Korea. <<
Actually, I looked this up out of curiosity. MASH units all had 60 beds and ten medical doctors. The movie featured at least seven medical doctors; the TV show initially featured at least six, but eventually only four. The creative reasons should be apparent: ten doctors is too large of a cast, and focusing on some subset of them would have required severely limiting plot devices.
I think it’s the same with every profession. I worked in a hospital. According the “Grey’s Anatomy”, there would be a lot more sex going on among the docs. I kept looking in the storage rooms for horny residents. All I found were sheets.
I liked Blue Oyster Cult, but hate the way they lied about “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (the cowbell song). That song is absolutely, positively about someone trying with their entire soul to talk the listener into committing suicide. Take Tipper Gore’s stupid warning label about mature content and quit lying to Congress.
I served in the 313th MASH (USAR) in the early 80s. They were all (4-5?) put out of service in the 90s during Xlinton’s Peace Dividend. Later, more were activated for two decades of war in the Middle East and SW Asia under different names.
Forty years ago there were still a couple Korean War vets and many VN vets still on duty that were my mentors. I was in the motor pool as a gas truck driver and genny wrench.
Can confirm that,in a MASH at that time, pretty much all the nurses were whores, all the docs were raging alcoholics, the clerks were proudly incompetent, and half of everyone else was some kind of drug addict. Heroin, pot, etc.
Very much like the TV show and movie. PVT Kit’s first Army unit. Boy, those nurses sure liked showing off their boobies...
No, he hears the low thumping, rumble before anybody else. Otherwise he'd be warning the docs before the military ambulances pull into camp as well.
I live very close to a Marine airfield and every time a helicopter or an osprey approaches in the distance, in my best Radar voice, I mumble, "choppers...".
Usually when I have guests, they would look at me and say, "huh?".
To which I reply, "Give it a minute, it's the neighborhood watch on patrol..."
Sure enough, in a couple of minutes, the windows are rattling as they pass just a few hundred feet above and my guests are flying out the door with their camera phones.
Genuine POWs felt the same way about “Hogan’s Heroes”.
Hogan's Heroes was created in order to mock and belittle the Nazis. Jews like John Bannon, Werner Klemperer, Robert Clary, and Leon Askin participated in that series specifically to mock the Germans. It was their revenge, so to speak.
I don't know about MASH, but considering the people involved in creating/running the show, I would doubt that it had the same purpose.
Movie was great!
“No sir, the jeep’s not stolen...it’s right out there.”
Father Mulcahy entering the office after the microphone was placed in Margeret’s tent: “Is this the Bickersons? The Battling Bickersons? I love that show.”
I think Radar purportedly did have some kind of ESP because he would often walk into the CO's office (especially Blake's) with papers the CO was just about to ask for. He'd also start saying something the CO was about to say. Another funny Radar meme was how he'd be standing right behind Blake just before he was summoned; Henry would yell "DON'T DO THAT!", LOL
"A big red bird with fuzzy pink feet" - LOL
Always loved the music to the theme song. The ending sort of doesn’t fit as it wraps up a moving song in a weird upbeat ending that sounds like it could have been taken from any tv sitcom theme song from the 70s.
The book is okay, but it won’t be what you expect from the series (the movie is much closer to it). In my opinion, the first sequel, Mash Goes To Maine is a much better book. I never read any of the other sequels, but I love that one.
CC
I used to freak out my students regularly when they’d be singing some “new” song (that was actually a remake or a sampling of some much older song) and I’d start singing along. They were like, “MISS!!! You know Mr. Lonely?!” Yes, sweetie, it came out when my mother was 16, and she’d sing it around the house when I was little.
I was a teacher for 16 years in Los Angeles, and I absolutely hate teacher movies for exactly that reason. The teacher has one class with maybe 10-12 kids in it, and there's nothing realistic about any of their interactions.
Thanks everyone! I think will read the 1st book next and decide about the sequels. My Marine Drill Instructors were Vietnam Vets. During my time in service me and few buddies made a Mash Float for a river race (more like a parade on water). It was a fun time.
“As for the TV show, it was good for the first five years or so until it became too preachy and you got St. Hawkeye and B.J. the Good.
Same here.”
“The episodes I prefer are in the first few seasons, with Wayne Rogers, Larry Linville and McLean Stevenson.”
Ditto, both.
One of my uncles fought in WW2. He never watched WW2 movies.
A cousin was in Vietnam. He never watched Vietnam movies.
I was in Iraq. I watched American Sniper and has zero desire to see any movie of the war again.
But I really enjoyed MASH.
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