A buy named Tommy Tedesco played the guitar in the MASH theme song. He was a member of the “Wrecking Crew”, a group of LA based musicians who played on virtually EVERYTHING in the 1960s into the 1970s. From the Righteous Bros to Sonny & Cher to the Beach Boys to the Grassroots to many others to TV/radio commercials, they played on them all.
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.
Gary Burghoff plays the same character in the movie and the series. Every character in the early seasons of the series appeared in the movie. (Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester, III, Commanding Officer Col. Sherman Potter and Capt. B. J. Honeycutt were introduced after several seasons.) Capt. Duke Forrest was in the movie and not the series, and Capt. Oliver “Spearchucker” Jones appears merely in first-season cameos.
It'd be interesting to hear what freedom living South Koreans today think of Alan Alda's political statements about the Korean War being a waste of lives and time.
When the movie came out, a friend of mine told me his father, who had been in a real MASH unit in Korea was furious about it. According to the father, the movie was completely divorced from reality, and made the serious business of treating the wounded look like a clown show.
Johnny Mandel performing “Suicide is Painless”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whhAg6bA3_o
Lyrics
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
That 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...
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
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.
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...
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 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.
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.
MASH came out while I was stationed in Thailand. Saw it at the base outdoor walk-in theater.
My daughter thought that Lion sleeps tonight song came from Lion King. She was amazed it had been around from decades before.